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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

Ex-Vegans, Happiness and Vitamin B12

People abandon plant-based eating for any number of reasons, but it’s often because they didn’t feel well as vegans. Some are so convinced that their former diet was damaging to their health that they even become activists against veganism.

If you poke around the internet and read stories of ex-vegans, it becomes pretty clear that at least some of them never wholeheartedly embraced the principles of vegan lifestyle to begin with. In one interview, Rhys Southan, an ex-vegan who blogs about veganism, said, “I’ve come to appreciate ethics as one possible ingredient in a meal, but […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-06-03T12:40:00-04:00June 3rd, 2010|Tags: Ex-vegans, Mental health, Nutrition, vitamin B12|30 Comments

Vegan Calcium Needs: Working Through the Myths

Quite a few popular vegan websites and books make the claim that vegans don’t need as much calcium as omnivores. The theory dates to some interesting research from the early 1990s which found that hip fracture rates among different countries increased as per capita protein intake went up.

The observations were backed by decades of clinical studies, too. As far back as the 1920s, nutritionists were showing that feeding meat to subjects caused them to excrete more calcium in their urine. Theoretically, this is because protein has an acidifying effect on the blood. Calcium is leached from […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-05-21T10:53:00-04:00May 21st, 2010|Tags: Calcium, Nutrition, Protein|24 Comments

The Quest for a Vegan Lemon Meringue Pie

I always find veganizing favorite recipes to be pretty fun and rewarding. But admittedly, some present more of a challenge than others. My nephew emailed me asking for advice on making lemon meringue pie. (Alas, he was seeking information for a friend; none of my nephews are vegan.) It was the meringue that had them stumped.

It stumped me, too, so I went straight to the source of information on all things vegan: my twitter friends. They are a brilliant bunch, I must say, and immediately provided me with some good leads.

Apparently there is a product made in […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-05-19T13:03:00-04:00May 19th, 2010|Tags: Recipes|12 Comments

Nuts and Heart-Healthy Diets

I made a reference in my last post to the impressive amount of data on the health effects of nuts, especially regarding heart health. A new study on this topic was just published today in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. The researchers—who are from Loma Linda University—pooled data from 25 previous studies, all randomized clinical trials. The effects on cholesterol levels from this one simple dietary change—eating more nuts—were impressive. The findings suggest that nuts can be a very valuable addition to lifestyle changes aimed at reducing heart disease.

You can read more about the study in my

By Ginny Messina|2010-05-10T15:12:00-04:00May 10th, 2010|Tags: Fat, Heart health, Nuts|1 Comment

Reliable Nutrition Information for Vegans

There is tons of vegan nutrition information on the internet and a whole lot of it stands on pretty shaky ground. Last month I read an article—written for vegans—about tree nuts and their effects on health. The writer built what seemed like a rock solid case against consuming nuts by:

referencing some outdated science
misrepresenting the findings from one recent study, and
blatantly ignoring the rather impressive number of studies that have linked nuts to protection against chronic disease.

The article had references and sounded authoritative and […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-05-06T09:15:00-04:00May 6th, 2010|Tags: Nutrition, Resources|7 Comments

More on Low-Fat Diets and an Update on Heart-Healthy Fats

My recent post on low-fat vegan diets inspired some good and thoughtful comments, which I really appreciate. Coincidently, just a few days after I posted, an important study was published that supported some of what I was saying. There are lots of studies to support the content of that post (I don’t make this stuff up; I swear) and the idea that eating some fat is good for you is hardly a new idea. But this was a particularly interesting bit of research coming just on the heels of the discussion here.

And so I wanted to talk about that […]

By Ginny Messina|2010-03-30T13:13:00-04:00March 30th, 2010|Tags: Fat, Heart health, Nutrition|25 Comments

Fat in Vegan Diets: How Low Should You Go?

I’ve been living among stacks of nutrition research papers over the past six months while working on an update to The Dietitian’s Guide to Vegetarian Diets, a textbook for health professionals and dietetics students. The last edition was published in 2004 so my co-authors and I have looked at all of the studies on vegetarian and vegan diets that have been published since then, along with hundreds of other nutrition papers that are pertinent to vegetarianism.

I’ve learned a lot in the process. It’s reinforced my opinions about some aspects of nutrition and forced me to change my mind […]