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Be a Vegan Mentor, Find a Vegan Mentor

One of the (very few) things I share in common with Oprah Winfrey is that we were both mentored by our 4^th grade teachers. Mine was Mrs. Kellogg, who worked extra hard to bring me out of my shy-kid shell, encouraged me to write, and made efforts to build my self-confidence. She had a profound impact on me in just a few months.

Over the years, other people, including college and grad school advisors, mentored me as I explored academic and career options. Without a doubt, my most important mentor in nutrition has been my husband Mark Messina. He’s […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-08-27T12:35:25-04:00August 27th, 2012|Tags: Vegan activism|25 Comments

The Plant-Powered Diet and Best Resources for Vegans

I’ve been a quiet blogger lately. Yesterday’s post on eating disorders was probably my first in a couple of months. It’s mostly because I’m in workaholic mode these days—lots going on in my personal life (nothing bad) and professional life (all good). The big thing that has me glued to the computer some 60-70 hours a week right now—and waking up at 3:00 a.m. to email myself ideas and reminders—is a book that is due to the publisher later this year. I’m excited about this book for a number of reasons, not the least is that it’s going to include […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-08-09T11:41:08-04:00August 9th, 2012|Tags: Resources|33 Comments

New Research on Weight Control, Vegetarian Diets and Eating Disorders

A new study on “vegetarian” diets and eating disorders was published in the August 2012 issue of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.(1) The findings suggest than women with a history of disordered eating are more likely to have been vegetarian for weight control reasons than women who had never had an eating disorder.

As in most studies on this topic, the term vegetarian was poorly defined. Subjects were simply asked “Have you ever considered yourself a type of vegetarian (eg, not eating beef but eating other meat; not eating any meat at all)?” Obviously, many of the […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-08-08T13:09:05-04:00August 8th, 2012|Tags: Eating disorders|7 Comments

Vitamin D Supplements Are Still Important for Some Vegans

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is recommending that healthy postmenopausal women avoid low-dose supplements of vitamin D (up to 400 IU) or calcium (up to 1,000 milligrams) because evidence is lacking for a protective effect and there may be a small increase in risk of kidney stones.

It’s not really clear whether these supplemental doses are too low to have an effect (the evidence was lacking for a recommendation regarding higher doses) or whether it’s just that supplements are unnecessary if your diet already provides enough of these nutrients. The preliminary draft report makes no mention of […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-06-15T11:56:14-04:00June 15th, 2012|Tags: Supplements, Vitamin D, Vitamins|9 Comments

When Vegans Get Cancer

The only thing that can make me forgive Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees for going over to the dark side (disco) in the late 1970s is the fact that he was a vegan—an “ardent vegan” no less, according to Wikipedia.

Gibb, who was only 62, died last week of colon cancer. It’s unfair when anyone dies of cancer at such a relatively young age, but especially so when they are doing all of the right things—Gibb didn’t drink alcohol either—that should protect against this disease.

I’ve lost three friends to colon cancer. Two were vegetarians who died in their early 50s, […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-05-29T09:48:53-04:00May 29th, 2012|Tags: cancer, Health|126 Comments

The New York Times, Nina Planck, and Safety of Vegan Diets

Last week brought more shoddy coverage of vegan diets from The New York Times. This time, it was a debate about the safety of veganism. And it didn’t occur to the Times to solicit opinions from anyone with actual expertise in vegan nutrition.

At the center of the discussion was food writer and farmer’s market expert Nina Planck, who excels at making sweeping, unsupported observations about nutrition. She is woefully uninformed and spectacularly unconcerned about her lack of knowledge and credentials.

Planck believes that we have “extraordinary needs for nutrients not found in plants,” –including vitamins A and D, omega-3 […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-04-23T11:50:44-04:00April 23rd, 2012|Tags: anti-vegans, infants, Meat, Protein, Soy, Vitamin A, vitamin B12, Vitamin D|65 Comments

Is Umami a Secret Ingredient of Vegan Activism?

In a recent New York Times article, wellness reporter Tara Parker-Pope explored the challenges of going vegan. Those challenges—including knowledge about how to prepare vegan foods and finding support—are real, although not nearly as insurmountable as Ms. Parker-Pope would have us think.

In particular, she focused on the taste and experience of familiar foods, saying “Giving up favorite foods is never easy, food scientists say, for it means overriding taste preferences imprinted on the brain during a lifetime of eating.”

No doubt that’s true, but I’m not sure that we […]

By Ginny Messina|2019-12-30T17:19:33-05:00April 18th, 2012|Tags: Cookbooks, Umami, Vegan activism|93 Comments

Body Shaming Fails Vegans and Vegan Advocacy

A couple of months ago, I was among several dietitians who voiced concern to PCRM about their Your Abs on Cheese campaign. Based on the thoughtful feedback I received, I felt confident that this body shaming approach to vegan advocacy wouldn’t continue. So when I saw the group’s latest media effort targeting obesity, I was stunned to say the least.

The “tongue-in-cheek” commercial suggests that airline passengers should be allowed to pay $10 to sit next to a “trim and fit” vegan. For those who don’t opt for this perk, there is the risk of “getting squeezed […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-04-01T12:43:33-04:00April 1st, 2012|Tags: fat shaming, Vegan activism, weight control|142 Comments

Blogging Woes, PeaCounter and Red Meat Revisited

Last weekend was a tough time in my blogging career since, as many of you noticed, my blog was infected with malware. I’m grateful to my web host and especially to Jack Norris for helping me navigate through the ordeal.

In fact, if I couldn’t go whining to Jack every time I have a problem with my blog, I don’t think I could even have a blog. So if you find any of the material here helpful or interesting, please consider making a donation to Vegan Outreach. Or you could buy yourself some treats from Pangea through […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-03-15T12:31:57-04:00March 15th, 2012|Tags: Nuts, red meat, Vegan activism|7 Comments

Vegan Diets, Critical Thinking, and 9 Blogs You Need to Read

I had the great pleasure of speaking to the members of the Vegan Chicago Meetup last week. In addition to being warm and welcoming, this is another group on my list of organizations that aim to promote an evidence-based approach to vegan advocacy. Before my talk on the Seven Habits of Healthy Vegans, event organizer Dave Sutherland introduced the group’s Vegan Chicago Baloney Detection kit—a guide to critical thinking for vegans, which is based on material from Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World.

Detecting baloney is no easy thing. Resources on veganism are packed […]