Is there really no "Cons" to a Vegetable only diet?

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Well, a vegan diet doesn't necessarily mean vegetable-only. They'll be eating nuts, pulses, mycoprotein, stuff like that.

A vegetable-only diet would find it quite difficult to obtain the necessary protein, which vegetarians (and vegans) usually get from the above. Not saying it's not possible; it probably is (with good planning).

Plant based is what you should probably say for a vegan I guess.

Anyway its not impossible to be a vegetarian or a vegan, although if a vegan you WILL have to supp B vitamins, your supply wont run out right away but in a year or two. I think its B12 that has no natural plant source, herbivores create it, only now we can create b12 artifically is it actually possible to be a healthy vegan, in the past it was impossible.



It seems like, and Im not a vegetarian but I have done some research thinking about it and done the no meat monday thing for a while, is the more you restrict your diet, the more you have to think about what exactly you eat and why, get some education on food and not from nutritionists talk to DIETICIANS(the word that actually means real credentials). A stricter diet done right is a planned one.

Theres a tradeoff there though, mental health for physical health, the more you stress over eating right the more healthier physically you might be, but stress is bad. Still some people are just harder mentally and can take more than others. Im not saying that derisively either, I wish I had more mental fortitude for being disciplined but I just dont. We just love our calorie dense fatty food like Bacon.

and be prepared to poop a lot and eat a lot more mass of food. So much fibre.

 

[NPC009]

Theres a tradeoff there though, mental health for physical health, the more you stress over eating right the more healthier physically you might be, but stress is bad. Still some people are just harder mentally and can take more than others. Im not saying that derisively either, I wish I had more mental fortitude for being disciplined but I just dont. We just love our calorie dense fatty food like Bacon.

It's not that bad when you get used to it. In fact, I'd say it's easy once you start thinking in terms of what you can eat, instead of what you can't eat. By the time you've expanded your recipe repertoire to cover all meals and more, it'll be a habit.

 

[lionsprey]

the answer is kinda. you need to get supplements. or have super control over what you eat and when.
the problem is that our bodies are basically the same as back when we lived as hunter gatherers.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Kind of a weird place to be asking this. Gamers aren't really known for eating healthy.

the idea is that you get protein through nuts and whatnot so if you're vegetarian and ESPECIALLY if you're vegan, you really have to take into account where you're getting the nutrients you usually get from meat. Honestly, I would say cut out RED meat. Chicken and fish are not really that bad for you.

As far as cons I would say the biggest one is cost. I'm really surprised nobody has brought this up. Fresh produce is pretty much the most expensive food you can buy. Also a lot of it goes bad FAST. Extremely fast. If you buy enough to fill your food groups, chances are half of it will be starting to rot before you get to it. That's just my experience. But I live alone, so I could see this offset by 2 people being on this kind of diet.

 

[Ratzing]

Wow lol, people can't even pretend to control their biases. Vegetarian and vegan diets have been demonstrated time and again to be as healthy, if not slightly healthier, than diets that incorporate meat. So despite the fear mongering in this thread, while nutrient deficiencies can of course occur in vegetarian/vegan diets, there is no reason to believe they are more common in vegetarian diets than in those that incorporate meat.

B12 deficiency and, for some people, iron deficiency is a very real thing if you abstain from any animal produce. Vegetarian diet can be easily as healthy as omnivore diet, but it is harder to maintain, especially in some regions of the world that doesn't have the greatest availability of plant produce. To say that there isn't any reason for B12 deficiency to be more common in plant-only diets when plants DO NOT have capability of delivering B12 to our bodies is just asinine.

That being said, average vegetarian/vegan will be more healthy than average omnivore for one simple reason - nearly all vegetarians/vegans are far more concerned with what they eat and with their lifestyle in comparison to average person. When you compare properly lead vegetarian/vegan lifestyle with people leading healthy lifestyles and eating animal produce, you will find no significant differences.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

If you take into account your bodies need for the correct nutrition, there's no reason that you couldn't cut out the meat from your diet. However that's not to say there aren't any any major cons...

It would mean giving up bacon.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Vegetarian diet can be easily as healthy as omnivore diet, but it is harder to maintain, especially in some regions of the world that doesn't have the greatest availability of plant produce.

Again, you're insisting on this idea that it's somehow harder to be healthy as a vegetarian compared to when eating meat. Yes, very strict vegans need to take the occasional B12 supplement, but I wouldn't call that hard. People who want to be healthy eating meat also need to make an effort to get the right nutrients. It's not like it's rainbows and unicorns for one group and meticulously weighing kale leaves for the other.

 

[MCerberus]

Aside from the usual "but no bacon" responses and the like, there are certain amino acid chains that the human diet commonly gets from animal protein that you'll need to plan to get from other sources. Remember Jurassic Park? We're talking that 'Lysine Deficiency' thing, only it's real. During the switch, you also have to contend with the fact that you're an omnivore whose normal foodsources got shuffled around. Your digestion may act... erratically.

Tried it once on a dare, didn't last long. Everything I have recipes for use milk, eggs, or animal products and I *despise* soy. And if you're doing it for sustainability issues, the other common substitute is almond milk, which has rather intense water-usage issues.

edit- there's been some discussion of losing your ability to digest meat. To my knowledge that's only an issue for children, in which case they simply never really develop an adult's capabilities. Have a step-sister-in-law that was vegan but let her kids eat meat so they could decide later.

 

[manic_depressive13]

As far as cons I would say the biggest one is cost. I'm really surprised nobody has brought this up. Fresh produce is pretty much the most expensive food you can buy. Also a lot of it goes bad FAST. Extremely fast. If you buy enough to fill your food groups, chances are half of it will be starting to rot before you get to it. That's just my experience. But I live alone, so I could see this offset by 2 people being on this kind of diet.

But meat is mostly substituted with stuff like lentils, tofu and beans, which tend to be cheap and lasting. A healthy meat eater would be buying a similar amount of fruit and vegetables to a vegetarian.

 

[EvilRoy]

Vegetarian diet can be easily as healthy as omnivore diet, but it is harder to maintain, especially in some regions of the world that doesn't have the greatest availability of plant produce.

Again, you're insisting on this idea that it's somehow harder to be healthy as a vegetarian compared to when eating meat. Yes, very strict vegans need to take the occasional B12 supplement, but I wouldn't call that hard. People who want to be healthy eating meat also need to make an effort to get the right nutrients. It's not like it's rainbows and unicorns for one group and meticulously weighing kale leaves for the other.

"Harder" can come in many forms, however. B12 supplements aside, finding proper nutrition in places that are not wealthy first world cities, or climates that are very conducive to year round farming is extremely difficult. Leaving the US, and traveling north to Canada, you will find the amount, quality, and quantity of fresh produce drops off quite quickly because we have to grow it in greenhouses or ship it up from the states if we want it in the winter. Large cities will be fine most of the time, but anything less than a population of around 20,000 (which covers off most of the population centers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, eastern BC, large chunks of Manitoba, etc.) will not have everything a person needs. I have been to towns of 10,000 people for work, where there are three grocery stores and they all do not stock anything beyond peanuts (no almonds, no soy, no 'vegan' anything) unless it is around christmas (for almonds at least) because nobody eats them. This gets worse as you move around the globe to countries with less money/arable land/shorter growing seasons.

I see nothing wrong with vegan or vegetarian diets, but they absolutely are a First World/Climate Jackpot kind of diet. There are certainly places that are not wealthy where people can healthily get away with these diets, but they are few and far between.

 

[manic_depressive13]

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While in many parts of the world meat is a luxury and people mostly survive on staples like beans, rice or potatoes. The idea that only the wealthy don't eat meat is ludicrous. You qualified "healthily" at the end there, but if the people in these towns are eating as few fruit and vegetables as you claim they're not particularly healthy. That's the unfortunate reality of being poor.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Well there is a big environmental con.

Regarding bang (protein) for your buck (energy, and area spent to create that protein), animal sources are a lot more efficient when it comes to protein creation.

 

[EvilRoy]

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While in many parts of the world meat is a luxury and people mostly survive on staples like beans, rice or potatoes. The idea that only the wealthy don't eat meat is ludicrous. You qualified "healthily" at the end there, but if the people in these towns are eating as few fruit and vegetables as you claim they're not particularly healthy. That's the unfortunate reality of being poor.

The people in the towns aren't necessarily poor, they just don't have access to the foods that make a healthy vegetarian/vegan diet tenable. As to meat as a luxury - certainly there are a lot of places where you can't get a nice big red steak, but there are plenty of other ways to get animal protein and fats, all of which are quite strictly non-vegetarian. As much as I would never really be willing to try the things my friend showed me from the very poor sections of rural China, it was most certainly meat of some description.

 

[Dizchu]

Vegetable only diet? Is there anyone who only eats vegetables?

If you mean vegetarian and vegan diets, vegan diets can be difficult to maintain if you haven't planned it out but a vegetarian diet is pretty much effortless. Since becoming a vegetarian the most difficult thing I've had to deal with is finding which sweets don't have gelatine in them.

Also I do find it funny how a lot of the "mmm bacon" Epic Meal Time crowd think they're suddenly a dietitian when they encounter vegetarians and vegans, while they eat nothing but cheeseburgers.

 

[Musou Tensei]

Well, you can't eat meat, knowing that is enough for me to not become a veg.
Hm, gonna make burgers for dinner.

 

[Worgen]

Uh, no. There are negatives.

For starters, it'll hurting using the bathroom. This can last from a few weeks to over a year. Yeah. If it persists that long you should really consult a doctor about it. Not a "nutritionist", a doctor. I've seen far too many nutritionists who don't know shit about the human body or how their diets might negatively impact somebody.

The problem is that a nutritionist is someone who decided to call themselves a nutritionist. What you want is to talk to a dietitian, which requires at least a 4 year degree. Anything a nutritionist says can probably be ignored. there are fully qualified ones which do have degrees but they tend to food manufacturers, retailed businesses and call themselves "food scientists." They don't really have any medical knowledge like a dietitian would.

Personally I don't really get going vegan or even vegetarian. I can understand wanting to limit suffering of animals since we do tend to keep them in not the best conditions. But humans have a tendency to kill what isn't useful to us and really if everyone stopped eating animal products then the best case scenario would be humans leaving them to starve. Then again I doubt that most vegans or veterinarians are as crazy as peta seems to be.

 

[manic_depressive13]

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I'm not too keen to keep this up given that it doesn't really have much to do with my initial point. I'm just going to go ahead and assume that most of us hanging out on a gaming forum have access to a shop that sells vegetables. Sorry if that's an unreasonable assumption, but I'm going with it.

 

[Politrukk]

Seeing as the thread states vegetable only.

The answer is no.

You see this in most vegeterians/vegans where they grow thinner in an unhealthy way, grow paler, hair and nails tend to grow brittle.
They try to explain this away or don't care because they are doing it for the animals, the truth is they're suffering from malnutrition.

Let me clarify : Yes by using supplements and genetically engeneering+ adopting a very strict varied diet in vegetables/nuts/fruit you can get to a healthy form of this diet, but that taked discipline and when I mean discipline I mean Buddhist Monk/Navy Seal/Japanese Marching standards of discipline.

Most people don't have this and this is why on the one hand people feel that vegan diets are unhealthy and on the other people are claiming it can surely be done.


Edit:

I would argue that it's also bad for the entire global warming thing because crop yield has to increase massively to sustain a whole world of vegans and we just don't have the room, animals in that sense can be more energy/production efficient.
I assume some will counter this but one can't deny that we'd need to shift production values.
If someone has a definite study with substantial evidence (not a blog post) I'd like to read it especially if it disproves this notion.