Blog

In celebration of Vegetarian Awareness Month, the non-profit group Oldways interviewed me and my colleague Mark Rifkin, MS, RD, LDN to get some historical and practical perspective on vegetarian diets. Oldways, while not a vegan or vegetarian organization, promotes traditional plant-based food patterns for health.

I was especially happy to be teamed up with Mark for this interview. He and I bring some different perspectives to our work, but we agree on most of the important issues—in particular that nutrition guidance has to be based on current research, not personal belief and wishful thinking. (My favorite quote from the interview is Mark’s answer to the question about how we should respond to those who have questions about roles of fats, oils, and carbs in the ... Read More >

It’s sometimes hard to imagine what a vegan world might look like, given our dependence on animals for all sorts of uses. Convincing people to simply eat more beans and rice, and wear cotton and hemp will be a big part of it. But so might innovations for products and processes we can’t even imagine.

One of those innovations in the works is for Real Vegan Cheese, using the milk protein casein but without the input of a cow. It boggles the mind (or at least my mind) but biotech researchers are working on it right now in labs in Oakland and Sunnyvale, California.

If it works, the casein will be manufactured from plain old baker’s yeast and it will be completely vegan. (It ... Read More >

When I was collecting stories for Never Too Late to Go Vegan about how and why over-50 vegans transitioned to a plant-based diet, a response I heard many times was this: I wish I had gone vegan a long time ago. I get that. I was well into adulthood before I stopped eating meat, and then it was still some years before I went vegan.

I have had a heart for animals for as long as I can remember. I was always “rescuing” baby birds. (Those poor birds!) And feeding homeless cats. And crying over Wilbur’s potential fate.  And yet, I ate meat

Granted, it was a different time in the world. I did not know one person who was a vegetarian when I was ... Read More >

The most disheartening thing about the more public breakups with veganism is not just that they are public. I can understand that a popular blogger will want to tell her followers that she is no longer eating a vegan diet. I can see the value of telling your readers that you are dealing with health issues and are struggling with staying vegan. That you need to take some time to sort it all out. And that because of that, you’re going to stop blogging for a while.

But some ex-vegans are so determined to share their new meat-eating lifestyle. And to garner praise for their decision. The disclosure that they are now eating animal foods is usually followed by posts all built around the same ... Read More >

One of the big food stories this past week was Tom Philpott’s article in Mother Jones on almond milk. Philpott deplores the current popularity of almond milk because 1) It’s not an especially nutritious food and, 2) Almond-growing is not friendly to the environment. He says that it’s just a bunch of “ignorant hipsters” who have made almond milk a bestselling beverage.

It’s true that almond trees are thirsty plants. But, from an environmental standpoint, almond milk is still a better choice than cow’s milk. Philpott could have learned about this by reading an article in his own magazine.

I do agree with him on this point, though: Almond milk is not especially nutritious. An 8-ounce glass is the equivalent of about 4 almonds; the ... Read More >

JL and I are celebrating the first anniversary of the release of Vegan for Her with a pretty amazing giveaway.

First prize is a brand new Big Buddha “Arlene” rosette satchel, a signed copy of Vegan for Her, a Plant Plate refrigerator magnet and 3 notepads.

Two second place winners will receive a signed book, the magnet and three notepads.

Head over to the Vegan For Her website to enter. And yes, the contest is open to guys, too! All of these items make great gifts.

Vegan diets aren’t dangerous. However, people with irrational ideas about nutrition are. The stories of vegan parents who starved their babies because of mistaken beliefs about infant feeding are clear proof of that. It is horrible and it’s heartbreaking. But it has nothing to do with veganism.

Why is it that journalists can’t figure this out? Mary Elizabeth Williams’ article in Salon was another attempt to tie the actions of a handful of misinformed parents to veganism. She made the case that some babies in vegan families have suffered because they were fed inappropriate diets. And, then, she suggested that “whatever a parent’s personal beliefs, they must be continually adjusted and evaluated based on a child’s needs.”

I can’t argue with either of those observations ... Read More >

Low-carb diets are nothing new. The first book promoting carbohydrate restriction for weight loss, Eat Fat and Grow Slim, was published in 1958. And I can remember the wildly popular The Drinking Man’s Diet of the 1960s (which restricted carbs but allowed as many martinis as you wanted).

Carbophobia gave way to fatphobia in the 1980s (it seems like we’re always scared of something), but it’s an approach that never really went away. Today, however, low-carb proponents are much more likely to embrace a so-called Paleo-style diet. It’s a different spin on low-carbohydrate eating since Paleo advocates avoid dairy foods and processed meats.

But a true Paleolithic diet wasn’t necessarily low in carbohydrates. Best estimates are that pre-agricultural people got about 35 to 50 percent ... Read More >

Quite a few people have asked me to comment on the blog Authority Nutrition. It’s written by Kris Gunnars, a medical student at the University of Iceland.

First, despite the bold title of his blog, Gunnars is no authority on nutrition. His background is the usual one of the self-proclaimed expert: “I got interested in my own health and started reading books and studies on nutrition.”

The result is that his blog is an interesting mix. There is some good advice and thoughtful observation, but also many overstatements of the evidence as well as some overt misinformation.

But he is certainly popular and it’s not hard to see why. He writes with ... Read More >

“Vegetarians Found to Have More Cancer, Allergies, and Mental Health Disorders.” That’s the alarming headline from a website called Science 2.0 (which also declares vegetarianism to be a “fad diet.”)

They are referring to new research in Austrian vegetarians published in the journal PLoS One. The study compared self-reported health among 1,320 subjects who were divided into groups according to the type of diet they consumed. Although the media jumped all over it, there has been plenty of more thoughtful discussion among nutrition experts about the shortcomings of this research.

The researchers themselves recognized some of these shortcomings as well and they outlined them in the discussion section of the paper. Here are some of the problems that have been noted.

• It’s a ... Read More >