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The vegan internet is abuzz over Penn Jillette’s (of Penn and Teller fame) recent weight loss and his current plant-based diet. But when it comes to celebrities, weight and veganism, I’m always more than a little cautious.

Here are three reasons why I think it’s a mistake to view Penn’s experience as good PR for veganism.

1. He lost weight on a very low calorie diet (which may or may not have been vegan; he hasn’t said). He reports that he lost 100 pounds in 100 days. That’s quite an accomplishment and I don’t mean to dismiss it in any way. But fast weight loss due to extremely low calorie intake is hard to sustain. Only time will tell whether he is able to maintain ... Read More >

The latest findings from the Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2) found that people who ate plant-based diets—which included vegans, lacto-ovo vegetarians and pesco-vegetarians—had a 22% lower risk of colorectal cancer (1).

But when the researchers pulled the subjects apart into more specific groups, the only group of “vegetarians” with a lower risk were the ones who ate fish. Their risk was 43% lower than the omnivores in this study. While vegans and lacto-ovo vegetarians also had a lower risk for colon cancer, these findings weren’t statistically significant.

The only other large scale study to look at colon cancer in vegetarians is the EPIC-Oxford Study in England and this research found no protection from a vegetarian diet (2).

So what exactly are we to make of these ... Read More >

One of last week’s big nutrition news items was about a method to reduce the calories in white rice. Researchers from Sri Lanka found that when you add a small amount of fat to white rice during the cooking process, and then refrigerate the cooked rice for at least 12 hours, the result is a higher content of resistant starch.

Resistant starch is starch that is poorly digested in the small intestine, and there is lots to like about it. Since it isn’t well digested and absorbed, this type of starch provides fewer calories than other carbohydrates. It also stimulates growth of good bacteria in the colon and production of short chain fatty acids. These fats may lower the pH of the intestines which inhibits ... Read More >

Getting enough protein on a vegan diet is pretty easy. But it doesn’t mean that every single vegan meets protein needs. Eating too many junk foods, avoiding legumes, or skimping on calories can all cause protein to fall short of optimal intake.

My second nutrition primer is on plant protein and vegan protein requirements. It summarizes the most important issues that vegans need to be aware of. Here is the link to the primer. Let me know if you have questions about it.

When it comes to vegan diets and health, a couple of misconceptions often pop up on blogs and in social media. One is that whole-food plant-based people are healthier than plain old vegans. Related to that is the belief that vegans motivated by ethics choose less healthy diets than those motivated by health.

Is it true? Do ethical vegans care more about animals than their own health? Research—or in some cases, the lack of research—casts some doubt on this.

Obviously, you can be vegan and still eat a pretty junky diet. There is the accidently vegan food as well as junk food developed just for vegans who like a treat. It’s not all that hard to eat a compassionate diet that is hyper-palatable, fun, and ... Read More >

Many of the questions that come to me via email, this blog and through social media are ones that I’ve answered somewhere at one time or another—in my books, in blog posts or in other articles online.

Sometimes the information that people need is spread out across several resources, though, and I thought it might be helpful to consolidate it all into one place with a series of nutrition primers. My goal is to share information in response to the most frequent questions I receive, and to do so as concisely as possible, while still covering everything you need to know. So, it’s less information that you’ll find in my books, but more than what you might find in blog posts.

The first one is ... Read More >

For those who advocate for animals, the report from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is a bit of a mixed bag.

On the plus side, the report makes a clear recommendation for Americans to eat less meat and, in fact, to eat less animal food in general. The committee says that “a diet higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in calories and animal based foods is more health promoting.” They specifically name vegetarianism as one of three healthy dietary patterns.

While the committee has shifted recommendations away from outdated ideas about limiting total fat, they have re-confirmed that Americans should continue to cut back on saturated fat—the type found most ... Read More >

Marla Rose’s Vegan Feminist Agitator blog—which is part of the excellent Vegan Street website– is one of my favorites.

Marla is such a brilliant writer and thinker and I was honored to be interviewed last week as part of her Vegan Rockstar series. Please take a peek at the interview which includes my thoughts on activism, why I think all vegans should feed stray cats, and how I (try to) manage stress.

As you might imagine, I get into a lot of discussions about vitamin B12 on facebook and twitter, and also via email. Vegans have many good questions about this nutrient. And sometimes some not-so-good opinions about it.

This past year I found myself chatting with the editor of a vegan publication who insisted that my perspective on B12 supplements was outdated. She was convinced that supplements were unnecessary and knew this because of what she had learned on a holistic health cruise.

Okay, well I’ve never been on a holistic health cruise. And I have no doubt that some are better than others. It’s just that, when it comes to vacations, I lean more toward Yellowstone National Park or maybe poking around antique stores along ... Read More >

It’s no secret that many people give veganism a try only to quickly abandon it. But the findings from last month’s Humane Research Council survey were especially sobering.

According to their study, a cross-sectional survey of 11,400 U.S. adults, nearly three-quarters—70% to be exact—of those who have tried a vegan diet end up abandoning it. The numbers are even higher for vegetarians. Alarmingly, the survey found that there were five times more ex-vegetarians/vegans than current vegetarians/vegans.

Now this is a single study that has not yet been peer-reviewed. As such, it’s not the final word on ex-vegetarianism. Also–and I think this is important–the survey did not ask people if they had gone vegan or vegetarian for weight control. Those ... Read More >