Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle  The rules of your diet are what you make it. So if you go on a vegan diet, that doesn't mean it will be healthy for you unless you eat the right foods. Vegan is not the diet, vegan is a lifestyle choice where animals don't play a part in it at all. |
That's correct. Being vegan doesn't stop you from eating tons of junk (processed foods containing refined sugar, salt, bleached flour). Although you
can have a vegan diet and not lifestyle. You can choose not to eat animals but still use leather products for instance. I started out this way because my main concern was health, not ethics. But after a while you do begin to wake up to the animal cruelty as well, I think that's inevitable.
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Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle If you feel bad for animals on a factory farm, then don't eat those animals, but choose free-range animals who are fed good food and not pumped with antibiotics or growth hormone. It's about the person you are. Sure, I could give up meat, but then I would have to settle for meat substitutes, which doesn't make sense to me, because if vegans are so repulsed by meat, then why are they looking for substitutes. |
Not all vegans want substitutes. Most of the substitutes are not particularly healthy anyway, usually high in sodium like many other processed foods (especially frozen ones). They can also contain carrageenan, another controversial ingredient. I'm perfectly fine not eating fake meat, and very rarely do in fact.
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Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle It's kind of like people who give up sugar and use aspartame, which is sweeter than sugar and is very dangerous to the body. If you give something up for health reasons, don't look for substitutes. You're better off, most of the time, eating the real thing. So make your diet according to your own needs. |
There are other sweeteners by the way, that have not been found to be toxic (such as sucralose or malitol/maltitol). However, natural sugar (in refined, concentrated form) is very bad for you in itself. Heavy consumption leads to major tooth decay, obesity, and diabetes (by overworking and damaging the pancreas).
As for giving up meat for health reasons and looking for substitutes, people are looking to substitute the taste (if they liked the taste of meat). Nobody's trying to substitute the contents of meat. Not that you can do that anyway. My health reason not to eat meat is that it's bad for you. I've posted a thread here about the negative effects animal protein has on our bodies. It increases blood acidity and leeches calcium, which eventually can also lead to kidney stones. So I don't need a substitute that will cause osteoporosis like the real thing.
