Anyone on a vegan diet?

[Vetseun]

Vegetarian / vegan diet.

Have been vegetarian for 12 years, have no issues with protein. Much healthier than eating meat.

The stuff that I eat is on a vegetarian diet.

[Veebee]

I have been vegetarian for about 20 years now, growing up I was always involved in sport and had no issues with nutritional requirements. Then a few years I stopped all sport, picked up weight and got very lazy.

 

Last year I was introduced to cycling, and because of this my goal was to get back into shape and loose all that extra weight I gained.

 

Been on a vegan diet for the past 2 months, lost 8kg with just cycling [1100km] and have never felt better in years.

 

I have a eating plan from a dietician which has worked for me. IF anyone is interested I can e-mail them to you. Just inbox me your addy.

[Mojoman]

I am vegan, been this way for almost 2yrs now. Wasn't a difficult transition for me from vegetarian. For me it was about my health (google what is going into your meat these days) and the welfare/suffering of animals. I eat pretty well, its not that hard these days however what can be difficult is when you go to eat out with friends or supper at a friends house etc (as well all the usual crap jokes which I have heard a gazillion times before!). Sometimes you just have to make a concession...

 

But I feel pretty good and certainly don't suffer from lack of energy etc when onthe bike or at gym. However I used to be a chef so it definitely helps ifyou are the sort of person who can cook their own food.

[VicanZA]

Life to short to skip on that juicy steak, not like I wanna live past 61...

 

I say stop riding the high horse and get back on the bike, I don't give a rats ass what's on ur plate, u don't need to justify it to me.

[Letum911]

"Vegan": An ancient Mayan word for "bad hunter".

[droenn]

I haven't eaten meat in over 6 years. I was on and off vegetarian and vegan throughout my 20s, but then settled on a fairly strict vegetarian diet.

 

My reasons are predominantly ecological over personal health, but this year I've been swapping out breads and pasta for higher amounts of sweet potatoes, legumes and pumpkin etc. It seems to be a good move.

 

I'm not that against others eating animals so much these days, just the way our society shovels down prepacked slabs of meat from the supermarket without giving a thought to how that was produced is sickening.. I don't see myself eating pork, beef or chicken ever again - intensively farmed animals like that I find as quite barbaric. Hunting game, or eating feral animals, that you shoot and slaughter yourself (or at least know how it was done) I can see a rational argument for. Some fish (e.g. small ones like sardines/pilchards) and sustainable fisheries (pretty much just Hake here), or one you catch yourself, can also be argued for.

 

Otherwise you can live pretty healthily on a fruit and veg based diet

[Shebeen]

Two time world champion adventure racers jacky and mimi went full on raw vegan last year. As you can imagine a 6 day non stop race has serious nutritional requirements.

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_news.php?article_id=5308

 

It will be especially interesting to watch them race this year as they are now one hundred percent raw vegan, hence the name Raw Adventures, which is also the name of their newest project, a raw whole food sports retreats in the Canary Islands.

 

Indeed, their June wedding in Font Romeu, France was entirely raw vegan as they decided to come out of the proverbial closet and introduce all of their family and friends to their raw lifestyle choices. They very kindly invited this SleepMonsters reporter to join in the festivities and beforehand I gleefully painted a picture of a bunch of the worlds best adventure racing athletes in full de-tox mode over the weekend; I merely overlooked that I would be detoxifying as well ! Let’s just say there was a brisk trade in contraband cheese in the parking lot.

 

 

They bonked hard on the last stage of world champs in Ecuador . Got all agro and announced immediate retirement. #justsaying

[Dgas]

The stuff that I eat is on a vegetarian diet.

That is a really stupid answer. I guess you will not care about the conditions that the animals are kept in and the way they are killed. Possibly for your own sake you should read up, let's assume that you have read a book before, what goes into the meat and what a meat based diet does to your body over the long term.

[Blackbeard]

For me it was about my health (google what is going into your meat these days) and the welfare/suffering of animals.

 

Each person is entitled to their own dietary choices, but the sentence above is a gross generalisation. There are a number of highly ethical farmers rearing grass fed beef, free range chickens, etc. Google Farmer Angus, Frankie Fenner Meat Merchants or go to www.facebook.com/buffaloridgemozzarella (interest in the last declared). There are many others if you look.

 

Check you ingredients list to see what is going into the goods you are buying. Why does yoghurt which only requires 2 ingredients, milk and culture, have 17 ingredients on average? Do you trust the producer to accurately record the ingredients?

 

On the issue of health, consider, just off the top of my head, GMO crops, artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, preservatives, chemical additives to alter mouth-feel, the effects of monoculture farming on the environment, etc.

 

If health, and/or the ethical treatment of animals, is your concern, you would do well to identify producers that you believe have the necessary integrity.

[Blackbeard]

That is a really stupid answer. I guess you will not care about the conditions that the animals are kept in and the way they are killed. Possibly for your own sake you should read up, let's assume that you have read a book before, what goes into the meat and what a meat based diet does to your body over the long term.

I would suggest that you broaden the range of your reading material as you are not coming across well.

[nonky]

^{Been a meat eater my whole life but I've been thinking about the whole animal farming business of late.}

^{Dunno why, really.}

^{It just seems that a huge amount of cruelty goes into the farming and slaughtering processes to put that piece of chicken/beef/lamb on your plate.}

^{ALL meat in SA is slaughtered halaal which, as far as I know, means that the animal's jugular gets cut by a guy with a knife...that's simply an inhumane thing to do to a cow or other mammal.}

^{Battery chicken farming is on a whole different level of cruelty...}

^{It's not as simple a matter as, "yussis, steak is lekker hey..."}

[dirtrider]

Aartapels , rys en vleis , nie hoender , vark of volstruis nie , regte vleis . Eet nie slaai nie en sal groente eet as dit in botter gaar gemaak is met suiker . En die beeste wat ek eet word in hulle slaap VERMOOR , so as hulle wakker word is hulle steaks !

[Fruity]

Nope. I make sure I have my portions of protein and carbs for breakfast and lunch, then just protein for dinner. It's just part of the meal plan I'm on to lose more weight.

[_David_]

Each person is entitled to their own dietary choices, but the sentence above is a gross generalisation. There are a number of highly ethical farmers rearing grass fed beef, free range chickens, etc.

 

Farmer Angus is the only pure grass-fed and finished beef operation in South Africa.

 

His farm is located just outside of Stellenbosch. He uses high density grazing, running 350 cattle on 114 hectares. He also has 4,000 laying hens that lay their eggs in 'eggmobiles' that are moved daily to new pasture.

 

http://www.farmerangus.co.za/

[droenn]

If everyone just made one or two simple changes in selecting meat and animal products more wisely (investigating processes behind its production) we'd be a lot better off...

 

Same goes for fruit and vegetable imports - eat local, in season when possible.

[Ed-Zulu]

This guy http://www.richroll.com/claims he is full on vegan, doesn't even take supplements...I read his book and it is astonishing how many kilo's of grass and leaves this dude eats to sustain himself.

 

he's also big on spirulina still