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Vegan Nutrition: Sometimes the Devil Really is in the Details

Dietitian Elisa Rodriguez published a great interview with Jack Norris on One Green Planet last week. In talking about our book Vegan for Life, Jack noted that there are benefits to a “holistic” view of nutrition, but that his biggest contribution has most likely been in helping vegans understand that “micronutrients matter.” That’s because “being deficient in vitamin B12, calcium, vitamin D, iodine, omega-3s, iron, or zinc results in real consequences.”

It’s tempting to think that eating a variety of whole plant foods—the big picture or holistic approach—without attention to detail, is good enough for meeting nutrient […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-11-15T11:21:04-05:00November 15th, 2011|Tags: Health, Nutrition|4 Comments

Countering Claims Against Vegan Diets

Several months ago, I was asked to respond to an article about the “dangers” of vegan diets that had been published in At the Wedge, the newsletter of the Wedge Community Co-op in Minneapolis. It was written by a holistic nutritionist who, among other things, counsels “recovering vegans.”

People abandon vegan diets for all kinds of reasons, but those who are “recovering” from this way of eating obviously believe that being vegan damaged their health and that it may very well damage yours, too.

This isn’t a term that crops up in mainstream nutrition circles. I’ve never heard it from any of […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-11-08T13:20:45-05:00November 8th, 2011|Tags: anti-vegans, Ex-vegans, Health, Nutrition|17 Comments

U.S News Rates Vegan Diets (and Gets a Few Things Wrong)

U.S. News brought together a team of nutrition experts to rank popular diets commonly used for weight control. According to the report, the best diets were “relatively easy to follow, nutritious, safe, and effective for weight loss and against diabetes and heart disease.”

At the head of their list were the DASH and Mediterranean diets — not too surprising since these are well-studied approaches to eating that have a good track record for protecting against disease. The surprise was that a vegan diet ranked pretty low on the list (below Slimfast and Jenny Craig!) While it seemed that the […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-11-03T15:47:44-04:00November 3rd, 2011|Tags: Health, Nutrition, weight control|21 Comments

An Essential Resource for Pregnant Vegans

If you aren’t a regular reader of my examiner column, you may have missed my review of a new book for pregnant vegans. The Everything Vegan Pregnancy Book is written by my friend and colleague Reed Mangels, PhD, RD.

Reed is an instructor at the University of Massachusetts, co-author of the ADA’s most recent position paper on vegetarianism, editor of the newsletter for the ADA’s vegetarian group, and also the nutrition expert at the Vegetarian Resource Group. I’ve worked with her over the years on many […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-10-31T10:00:53-04:00October 31st, 2011|Tags: Pregnancy, Resources|6 Comments

My interview on The Thinking Vegan Blog

Thank you to Gary Smith for interviewing me about Vegan for Life for his blog, The Thinking Vegan. You can read the interview here. (Let me know what you think.)

By Ginny Messina|2011-10-24T10:45:14-04:00October 24th, 2011|Tags: interviews|7 Comments

Supplements and Mortality

New findings from the Iowa Women’s Health Study suggest that supplement use in post-menopausal women is linked to increased mortality. Jack blogged about this research yesterday, and I want to also mention it here since I’ve had quite a few questions about it.

As Jack noted, the research on supplements and mortality is very conflicting and it would be a mistake to draw firm conclusions from this study alone. Some of the findings are not supported by other research. That doesn’t make them wrong—it just means that they are not the final word on the subject. This is also an […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-10-12T13:28:49-04:00October 12th, 2011|Tags: Supplements|12 Comments

Vitamins B12 and D: Monitoring versus Supplementing

Good nutrition is aimed at preventing nutrient deficiencies (among other things), which means that, no matter what type of diet you eat, there are circumstances where supplements may play a role. Regular vitamin B12 supplements are absolutely essential for all vegans who don’t eat B12-fortified foods every day. Depending on sun exposure, vegans may also require vitamin D (although this isn’t a vegan issue; it’s true of most omnivores, too.) And depending on individual requirements and diet, some vegans (and again, some omnivores) might require other supplements to ensure adequate intake.

An alternative to supplementing is to monitor blood levels of […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-09-12T10:09:28-04:00September 12th, 2011|Tags: Supplements, vitamin B12, Vitamin D|46 Comments

Bad news for red meat is bad news for chickens

Red meat has a bad PR problem. Two recent meta-analyses—one published in 2009 and one in 2011—linked red meat consumption to increased colon cancer risk. In May, the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund reaffirmed conclusions from an earlier comprehensive report, saying that the evidence for a relationship between red meat and colon cancer is “convincing.”

And it’s not just cancer; a study published just last week found that adults who consume 4 ounces of red meat per day have a 20 percent increased risk for developing diabetes.

The evidence strongly suggests that it’s a good […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-08-16T15:04:39-04:00August 16th, 2011|Tags: chicken, Meat, Vegan activism|33 Comments

Soy Isoflavones and Estrogen

Because my husband regularly consults for the soy industry, I’ve chosen not to write very much about soyfoods and health. And, since Jack published his excellent comprehensive article on the controversies surrounding this issue, there isn’t much need for me to do so anyway.

But two issues regarding soyfoods always prompt me to provide some clarification, because they seem to be universally—and consistently—misunderstood despite very clear and conclusive research findings. One pertains to the types and amounts of soy consumed in Asia which I wrote about several months ago. The other is the mistaken idea that soyfoods contain estrogen, […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-08-04T11:48:37-04:00August 4th, 2011|Tags: Soy|48 Comments

Being Picky About Vegan Nutrition

Psychology Today recently published the results of a web-based survey on why vegetarians return to meat-eating. The number one reason given was failed health, and this was followed by the “hassle and stigma” of being vegetarian.

Their study had just 77 participants (I don’t know how many were vegan) and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal, so it’s not much more than food for thought. What impressed me the most about the article was the author’s reference to a 2005 CBS News survey which found that there are three times as many “ex-vegetarians” as there […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-07-01T12:32:12-04:00July 1st, 2011|Tags: Ex-vegans, Nutrition|73 Comments