Raw Or Cooked Foods: Which is the Best Diet for Vegans?
An acquaintance mentioned to me the other day that she first went vegan for ethical reasons and then a raw foods diet just seemed the “next logical step.” I can’t imagine why. To me, there is nothing especially logical or beneficial about eating only raw foods.
True, raw foods are packed with all kinds of things that are good for you—tons of fiber and all of the nutrients and phytochemicals that are found in plants. Although nuts and dried fruits are calorie-dense, a raw foods diet is usually much lower in calories than many other ways of eating and can be an effective route to weight loss.
But cooking has some important benefits. Although some foods taste great in the raw state, cooking ... Read More >
The Mediterranean Vegan
Low-fat diets are sometimes touted as the healthiest way to eat, but that’s an old-fashioned idea. It’s also bad activism on behalf of vegan diets. Even people who are strongly motivated often find it difficult to eliminate animal products from their diet. So why make it harder with additional restrictions on fat?
A Mediterranean-style vegan diet is one that is likely to appeal to many more people than a low fat regimen. It offers a chance to eat healthfully, humanely, and deliciously. Mediterranean diets are based on grains like pasta, rice and bread, fresh vegetables and fruits, and legumes—and also nuts and seeds, olives and olive oil. A little bit of good-for-you fat like olive oil intensifies flavors in foods and helps create appealing ... Read More >
Be An Effective Vegan Advocate: Take a Calcium Supplement
Some recent research has shown that vegans have lower calcium intakes than omnivores and that they have a higher risk for bone fractures.
That’s bad news for vegans. It’s also bad news for farm animals. Anything that makes a vegan diet look inferior is likely to convince more people to eat animal foods.
So what can you do about that? Some vegans choose denial. They say a vegan diet is better for bone health and they cite old—usually outdated—research to prove it. Many vegans cling to the unproven belief that those who eat plant diets need less calcium. Theirs is a misguided effort to prove that vegan diets are better—and in the long run it risks health and creates bad PR for vegan ... Read More >
My Vegan Thanksgiving Feast
Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite meal of the year. I love stuffing and gravy, all those winter root veggies, and the coziness of a festive dinner served late on a dark November afternoon. I don’t miss turkey one bit; it was never my favorite part of the meal, anyway. I’m convinced that, as long as the Thanksgiving table holds lots of yummy traditional dishes, others don’t miss the bird that much either.
With the help of a couple of friends, I’m having Thanksgiving dinner at my house this year. We’ll be mostly vegetarians, a few vegans, and a few meat eaters. The menu is a combination of traditional dishes along with a few gourmet twists on tradition. (My mom always served turnips for Thanksgiving, ... Read More >
Vegan Food: Deliciously Different
I have no problem with the fact that some people don’t like tofu or beans. There are plenty of foods that I don’t like. It bugs me, though, when people make fun of vegetarian dishes just because the ingredients are foreign to them.
When I was growing up in the 1960s in West Orange, NJ, we had a wonderful neighbor, Mrs D’Atrolio, who was a fantastic Italian cook. We ate Italian food at my house, of course—mostly spaghetti and meatballs—but the dishes that came out of Mrs D’Atrolio’s kitchen were well beyond anything my mom knew how to make.
Every once in a while, as suppertime approached, Mrs D’Atrolio would cross the narrow walkway separating our houses and knock on the door. “I thought you’d ... Read More >
How I Became a Vegan Dietitian
When I first decided to be a dietitian, I had no particular interest in vegetarian diets. Rather, I was simply interested in food and nutrition. I liked the puzzle of creating diets. I was also deeply interested in public health nutrition and issues of food insecurity. Vegetarianism wasn’t even a blip on my radar screen as I went through my dietetics program and then graduate school as an omnivore.
At the same time, I was very much an advocate for animals and was sensitive to some aspects of animal rights. But, I knew absolutely nothing about factory farming and had yet to make the connection between my concern for animals and my food choices.
I was 28, recently married, and had just obtained my RD ... Read More >
