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Do Vegans Need Supplements of Omega-3 Fats?

New data from the EPIC-Norfolk Study in the U.K. revealed some surprises about blood levels of DHA in vegans. DHA is one of the long-chain fatty acids found primarily in fish oils. Vegans don’t consume any, but in this study, vegan women (although not men) had the highest levels of plasma DHA of all the groups.

Since DHA can be synthesized from another omega-3 fat, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), one theory is that vegans are more efficient at converting ALA to DHA. And in fact, this study did find that those who don’t eat fish are better converters than those who do, […]

By Ginny Messina|2017-11-22T10:36:07-05:00November 17th, 2010|Tags: Nutrition, Omega-3 Fats|24 Comments

Olive Oil, Health and Advocacy

Ten billion (land) animals live and die under the most horrible conditions imaginable in the United States every year. So obviously, our efforts should focus on getting people to consume less…olive oil?

It seems like I run across an inordinate number of anti-olive oil comments these days from vegans on the internet. People don’t pick on safflower or corn oil, probably because no one is out there touting their consumption. But because some health experts have the audacity to suggest that olive oil (a refined food! a fat!) can have a place in […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-10-12T11:01:24-04:00October 12th, 2010|Tags: Fat, Nutrition, Vegan activism|61 Comments

Review of “The Vegetarian Myth”

Lierre Keith suffers from numerous chronic health problems. Unable to secure a diagnosis for most of them, she decided that the vegan diet she had followed for twenty years was to blame. But she wasn’t content to add a few animal products back to her diet. Instead, she set out to prove that healthy diets require copious amounts of animal foods and that small-scale animal farming is the answer to sustainability. To prove it, she has cobbled together information from websites (yes, she actually cites Wikipedia!) and a few popular pseudoscientific books.

It’s next to impossible to review this book; it […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-09-21T12:10:39-04:00September 21st, 2010|Tags: Ex-vegans, Soy|232 Comments

Low-Carbohydrate Diets for Vegans

By now you’ve probably seen the latest research from Harvard University and National University of Singapore showing that different types of low-carbohydrate diets have different effects on health.

In this large study of nearly 130,000 people (all health professionals), a low-carb diet that was rich in animal foods was associated with increased risk of mortality. In contrast, a low-carb diet that was higher in plant foods reduced all-cause mortality risk, especially from cardiovascular disease.

Most vegan advocates spun […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-09-09T12:22:33-04:00September 9th, 2010|Tags: carbohydrates, Health|33 Comments

Tryptophan, Milk and Depression

People who abandon plant-based diets often say that they suffered from depression as vegans. One common belief is that vegans can’t get adequate tryptophan, an essential amino acid. Tryptophan is needed to make the neurotransmitter serotonin and low levels of serotonin are linked to depression. In the book The Vegetarian Myth (which I plan to review here in the next few weeks), author Lierre Keith notes that she suffered from severe depression as a vegan partly because “there are no good plant sources of tryptophan.”

While it’s true that meat is higher in tryptophan than plants, a well-balanced vegan diet is […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-09-02T10:13:22-04:00September 2nd, 2010|Tags: dairy, Mental health, Nutrition, Protein|34 Comments

Dietitian Jack Norris Talks with an Ex-Vegan

A couple of months ago I blogged about ex-vegans and mentioned anti-vegan activist Rhys Southan. His Let Them Eat Meat blog is always interesting reading for vegan activists . This week, Rhys interviewed dietitian Jack Norris (co-founder of Vegan Outreach) about animal rights and vegan diets. Rhys asks good challenging questions and Jack responds with some great answers. It’s an excellent interview and you can read it here.

By Ginny Messina|2010-08-20T12:15:04-04:00August 20th, 2010|Tags: Vegan activism|3 Comments

7 Ways to Encourage and Support New Vegans

Going vegan isn’t always easy for everyone. And clearly some people have trouble sticking with veganism for the long haul. So finding the best ways to support new and potential vegans is an important part of advocacy. Unfortunately, new vegans sometimes say that they feel discouraged and alienated by some messages they hear from vegan activists. Based on the comments I hear fairly often, here are a few ideas on what we might do to make it easier for others to go (and stay) vegan.

Be flexible about the transition. There is no “right” way to go vegan. Some people […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-08-06T12:30:00-04:00August 6th, 2010|Tags: Vegan activism, vegan transition|23 Comments

Vitamin B12 Supplements: How Much is Enough?

In a new study from the United Kingdom, researchers found that more than half of vegan men were deficient in vitamin B12 based on their serum levels. The findings are part of the EPIC-Oxford study and will be published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The researchers looked at diets and serum levels of B12 in 226 omnivores, 231 vegetarians and 232 vegans. Mean serum B12 levels in vegans were 33% lower than in the vegetarians and 57% percent lower than in the omnivores.

In addition, the vegans had much higher serum levels of folate—not surprising since vegan diets are typically […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-07-26T13:07:00-04:00July 26th, 2010|Tags: Supplements, vitamin B12|57 Comments

Praise for Animal Agriculture…from a Vegan?

In case you missed it, vegan dietitian Ryan Andrews posted a blog entry last week about his recent visit to a feedlot. Ryan was given a personal tour of the facility which employs between 8 and 13 employees to care for 22,000 steers and heifers.

The write-up of his experience was so positive that it has been linked to by Beef Daily, Advocates for Agriculture, Cattle Network, the Center for Consumer Freedom, and dozens of other individuals and organizations who stand firmly against animal rights and welfare. It’s even been reprinted in the discussion forum of […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-06-30T13:37:00-04:00June 30th, 2010|4 Comments

Is it Easy to be Vegan?

I was watching the video in which Ellen Degeneres describes her reasons for being vegan. Since a number of articles have put the spotlight on the health aspects of Ellen’s diet, it was nice to hear her talk about ethics and animals as her sole reason for choosing veganism. But, at the end of the interview, she uses the dreaded H word—saying that it is “hard,” and “takes a major shift” in one’s life to forego all animal products.

Around the internet, there is often discussion about whether it is okay to ever admit that being vegan can be “hard.” After […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-06-21T13:53:00-04:00June 21st, 2010|Tags: Vegan activism|15 Comments