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Best Vegan Nutrition Websites

I’ve been writing in my examiner column about some things to watch for when evaluating vegan nutrition resources. Today I listed my favorite websites for finding reliable information on vegan diet and, for those who don’t read the Seattle Vegan Examiner, I want to reprint them here.

Eating well—both from a culinary standpoint and a health standpoint—is good activism for animals. After all, when studies reveal health problems among vegans, it’s obviously bad for the image of vegan diets. And when vegans make diets needlessly complicated, it makes others view veganism as a chore.

So, […]

By |2009-06-19T11:55:00-04:00June 19th, 2009|Tags: , |5 Comments

Easy Vegan Dinner: Tequila Tempeh & Coconut Lime Rice

I blog recipes only occasionally since there are so many great vegan cooks on the internet—and I’m merely a good-enough cook. But sometimes I stumble over a recipe that is so fantastic or I find myself pulling together such an exceptional menu that I feel compelled to share. And that’s the case with last night’s dinner. Here is the menu:

~Tempeh Marinated in Tequila

~Rice with Corn, Coconut Milk and Lime

~Spinach (fresh from the garden)

~Salad (even fresher from the garden)

I think this menu sounds a little fancy, and it would, […]

By |2009-06-13T14:24:00-04:00June 13th, 2009|Tags: , , , |2 Comments

The Atkins Diet Goes Vegan

Dr Atkins must be turning over in his grave. Researchers from Canada and the United States have taken his diet and—yikes!—veganized it. Their findings were published in the June 8, 2009 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Everyone knows about the infamous Atkins Diet, of course. It promised weight loss to anyone who severely restricted carbohydrate intake and filled her plate with fatty meats. For whatever reasons—and the possible explanations are hotly debated among nutritionists—the diet works for weight loss.

But there are some obvious problems with the Atkins approach. First of all, while […]

By |2009-06-10T12:42:00-04:00June 10th, 2009|Tags: , , |37 Comments

Supplements for Sad Vegans

Are you sad? I often am. Anyone with a genetic predisposition to depression knows what it’s like to have the blues for no earthly reason. And when you are an animal rights activist, it can make things a whole lot worse.

Let’s face it, when you care about animal suffering, it’s pretty easy to feel despondent and despairing. How many of us can read about factory farming or puppy mills or fur farms without feeling anger at the least, and more often a sense of overwhelming sadness.

Maybe we can’t change our genes or control all of the things in the world […]

By |2009-06-08T09:26:00-04:00June 8th, 2009|Tags: , , , |11 Comments

Saturated Fats, Heart Disease, and Other Things We Still Don’t Understand

What is this love affair that everyone seems to have with bacon these days? It seems to appear in every other recipe published on the internet. The most recent ones I saw were for bacon candy and bacon brownies.

Now the latest internet claim is that lard—which is rendered fat from pigs—is supposedly good for us. Ugh. The basis for this idea is that much of the fat in lard is either monounsaturated (like the fat in olive oil) or is the type of saturated fat that doesn’t affect cholesterol levels.

I don’t know–maybe so. […]

By |2009-06-04T14:41:00-04:00June 4th, 2009|Tags: , , |2 Comments

Vegan Foodies: Great Recipes and Great Activism


I’ve never had a very high opinion of the foodie movement. To me it’s no great coincidence that foodie (sort of) rhymes with snooty.

Sure, I like food that tastes good. But I can’t help being turned off by an extreme and expensive obsession with luxurious foods in a world where 2 billion people don’t have access to clean water and another billion don’t get enough calories. Who cares if your goat cheese is handcrafted or your guindilla peppers were cooked in […]

By |2009-05-26T09:57:00-04:00May 26th, 2009|Tags: |4 Comments

Help Animals With Healthful and Practical Vegan Diets

I take some flak for my stance on raw foods and low-fat-vegan diets. But that’s okay; I stand by my opinion that neither is a good idea. I’m bothered as a dietitian because I don’t think these diets are the most healthful way to eat. But it bugs me way more as an activist since I don’t think either approach helps animals. In fact, I think it hurts them.

If our goal is to put an end to the inhumane treatment on factory farms, we need to encourage as many people as possible to embrace vegan diets. […]

By |2009-05-20T14:25:00-04:00May 20th, 2009|Tags: , , |6 Comments

The Best Vegan Dinner: No Cooking Skills Required


Okay, I’m no food photographer. But when I plated up this dinner last night, I was so impressed with myself that I had to take a quick photo. It’s not just that this meal is fabulously healthy, delicious, and pretty. It’s that it took me all of 10 minutes to pull it together.

Granted, the grains were leftovers. But if I hadn’t had those, I would have substituted something quick-cooking, like quinoa, or maybe just a nice slice of toasted grainy bread. […]

By |2009-05-12T14:02:00-04:00May 12th, 2009|Tags: |2 Comments

Outside the Vegan Comfort Zone

I treasure my wonderful group of vegan friends and colleagues, people I know both on and off the internet. They provide a sanity-saving little oasis for me in this non-vegan world. They are also a source of information and inspiration, which I think helps me to be a more effective activist.

Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where everyone shared our vegan values and goals? Where you could always find vegan food on the table and didn’t have to watch other people eating meat? How great would it be if no one […]

By |2009-05-07T11:50:00-04:00May 7th, 2009|Tags: |6 Comments

Getting Enough Zinc on Vegan Diets


It’s safe to say that we have more questions than answers about zinc in vegan diets. This mineral is found in a wide range of plant foods, and many studies show that vegans have intakes on a par with omnivores.

But other evidence suggests that vegans fall short. In addition, zinc absorption from plant foods can be low. In fact, the percent of zinc absorbed from different meals varies dramatically—from around 8 to 32 percent.

Because of the absorption issue, […]

By |2009-05-05T12:40:00-04:00May 5th, 2009|Tags: , |23 Comments
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