Nodoji, What is the go-to reference for the diet that you are advocating? I have been a vegetarian but having read Mark Sisson, William Davis, paleo etc, have been trying to bring in some animal foods in and giving up on wheat. Would like to know more about the plant based diet and see if it helps with fatigue, tendonitis, IBS, low Vit D etc. The more one reads on Diet, the more confusing it gets. But wish to read up on this too. Thanks.
Hello NoDoji! It's pleasure to read your informative posts about plant based diet. I'm also on plant based diet for year now. We have 2-years old kid, who also do not eat meat, but i faced a lot of criticism from my parents, friends, local doctors and so on. The main arguments they have is that it is very dangerous not to eat meat and fish for so little kid, because his body is forming and he needs to eat meat, as meat is the best source of iron, B12 and other amino acids. I doubt if i have right balanced diet for my kid right now, cause if i'm wrong that can be irreversible process for kid healths. I even though to gave my son meat once a week. So i need your qualified advise about this. Can you point me out for good scientific source, or book about right plant based diet for little kids? Thank you and waiting for your answers.
Plant-based diets provide very high quality nutrients. B12 can be got from many fortified sources or a supplement. Meat is not necessarily the best source of iron. Meat contains heme iron, the absorption of which the body doesn't regulate. So its possible to get more iron than is needed and this is not healthful. Non-heme iron from plant sources is absorbed as needed. If you're low on iron, you'll absorb more, if you have enough or too much iron, you'll absorb less. Here are my favorite resources for plant-based nutrition: http://www.drmcdougall.com/free.html http://nutritionfacts.org/ And here's my favorite book for kids: http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Your-Child-Feeding-Right/dp/0312338082
One of the reasons that it's confusing is that there is no "one-size-fits-all" diet. There are few things that most nutrition scientists seem to agree on: 1. Transfats are bad 2. Processed foods are bad (the more sugar, the worse it is) 3. High Omega-6 relative to Omega-3 fatty acid intake is bad. I tried vegetarian and vegan diets and failed miserably because I'm insulin and leptin resistant, as is about 40% of the US population. A low-carb/high-fat diet works best for me. I do not eat processed foods or vegetable oils (other than coconut oil and a little olive oil on occasion). I eat meat, poultry, fish, lots of green veggies, some seeds, nuts, dairy and just a little fruit. My health improved tremendously. But that doesn't mean it's the right fit for everyone. If you're not insulin resistant, you may do very well on a vegetarian/vegan diet. Doesn't work for me, but it might for great for you. I orginally bought into the idea that there's a perfect diet that everyone should be on. When I really dug into the science, I found out that's not true.
During my nutrition certification studies, the mass of evidence presented indicated the whole foods plant-based diet to be the most effective at reversing insulin resistance. Again, although a WFPB is a vegan diet, a vegan diet isn't necessarily a WFPB diet. Insulin resistance is caused by a buildup of fat inside cells, called intramyocellular lipids. This interferes with your insulin’'s ability to bring glucose into the cells, and this called insulin resistance. Dr. Neal Barnard, who has been studying at length the effects of a WFPB diet on type II diabetes, warns that when "beginning this kind of diet, some people find that their blood sugars go up for the first few days. If you are very insulin resistant, it will take a little time for that to improve as those fat droplets gradually disappear from your muscle cells." The time needed to see positive results in the majority of these types of studies was three weeks. If you don't give it at least a full three weeks (without cheating), then you won't really know if the diet can be helpful. The best way to avoid cheating is to keep a food log of everything you eat, even if it's just a taste of something. Almost everything found in restaurants will have refined ingredients such as oil and white flour, so that alone would be problematic. Also, most prepared foods from the store such as crackers, cookies, dips, chips, frozen dinners and such will have forbidden ingredients. I definitely agree that no particular diet is perfect for everyone, but there are no known dangers to a WFPB diet as long as you get the minimum requirements for B12, which is only found naturally in healthy soil, unfiltered water, and meat. What's most important is whether a diet measurably improves your health over time.
I was on a strict journal-keeping dietician-supervised vegan diet for over three months. My triglycerides were over 800, and worst of all, I was hungry all the time. I woke up hungry and I went to sleep hungry. I was tired and miserable every waking moment. If I limit myself to 50-70 grams of carbohydrate a day (impossible on a vegan diet) my blood sugar is stable, my triglycerides are below 60 and my hunger is perfectly regulated. The central issue for many of us is insulin/leptin resistance (the insulin-leptin double whammy is what nutrition scientists refer to as a "metabolic hormone regulation" problem). A carb-restricted diet of healthy foods (no sugars, grains, processed foods, vegetable oils, etc) solved the problem for me. As I said in my previous post, different people will find success with different diets. I spoke to researchers all across the country and they're reaching the same conclusion -- there's no one diet that's right for everyone.
If you were hungry all the time, you were definitely not on the diet I advocate, which is an "eat as much as you want all day long and do not count calories" diet. No sugars, processed foods or vegetable oils...Works for me!
Agree on this. And this is something which most people have a consensus on. Problem is whether low carb/high protein/high mono fat is the way to go or high carb etc as McDougall recommends. The former is recommended through paleo diets and through following links. http://www.archevore.com/get-started/ http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.in/2008/09/anti-inflammatory-diet.html and many others who do not sound unintelligent to me. And both the schools cannot be right. Though I am not on strict one diet or another, it would really be great if at least one would know what to ultimately try to reach for.
I ate vegetables and fruits without restriction and was hungry all the time. I was consuming almost 3000 calories a day. Then I stopped eating fruits. That didn't help either. Even when my stomach was full to the point of feeling nauseous, I was still hungry because metabolic hormones were masking the leptin in my bloodstream. Does the diet you advocate have fewer that 50-75 grams of carbohydrate per day? That's what it takes to get my metabolic hormones low enough so that my brain can "hear" the leptin and send a signal to stop eating. That was the problem for me (and millions of other people). When I reduce my carbohydrate intake to low levels, my brain can hear the leptin and sends a signal to stop eating. My hunger instantly (within 24 hours) returned to normal levels. The hunger went away like somebody flipped a switch. When my carbohydrate intake is low I eat about 1800-2000 calories a day. When I get hungry, I eat until unmasked leptin kicks in and my brain tells me to stop eating. The hunger just goes away.
Actually, both schools can be right. One of the top researchers at Stanford University Medical center told me that some people respond better to a low-carb high-fat diet and others to a high-carb low-fat diet. It may be a result of evolution as humans spread out around the world and adapted to living in different parts of the planet. We know there are genetic variations in people from various parts of the world and "metabolic hormone regulation" may be one of those variations. Perhaps scientists will someday find a definitive answer and be able to prescribe an optimal diet for each of us based upon our DNA. ************************************************ If you're looking for good links to low-carb eating try these sites run by physicians: 1) This site is run by Peter Attia, MD http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/what-i-actually-eat 2) This site is run by Andreas Eenfeldt, MD http://www.dietdoctor.com/