Should I be a vegan?

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I have never cared much for meat, and I tend to lean towards dairy a lot, but it gives me some oedema, so I am thinking of being vegan. Has anybody tried this?

I've tried it before and it just wasn't for me.

If you want to be a vegan, then be a vegan. I have not tried being a vegan, however I have been a vegetarian since late 2005; that is fun.

Being vegan makes sense in so many ways. It is the healthiest diet, it avoids all that cruelty and it means that you aren't taking up ten times your share of the world's food resources.

Personally I couldn't eat a dead animal - that is so disgusting, the thought makes me shudder. For a long time I was just a strict veggie - no eggs either - eating an embryo - foul. But it meant that I was relying too much on dairy which is very unhealthy and there is lots of cruelty involved there too. So for the past few years I've been vegan. I love cooking and the food is delicious. Some might find it too time consuming to cook everything from scratch but there are lots of prepared foods available too. At this point chocolate, once a vice of mine, just seems nasty, a lump of fat. And even cheese had lost its appeal, I did used to love it. But now chick peas hold far more appeal.

Go for it:)

That's your decision. I personally could never be one although I'm not entirely happy about eating animals even if they are delicious. Also you need to follow a special diet and take all kinds of supplements and stuff that I know would be ridiculously expensive but if you don't it's like if you put hummingbirds on a sugar-free diet and gave them only artificial sweetener.

Fruits, vegetables and plants are living things too, why isn't it cruel to eat them? And then there's habitat for wild animals being destroyed to make space to grow crops.

Fruits, vegetables and plants don't have nervous systems that enable them to suffer. Duh.

It takes 10kg of crops to produce 1kg of meat. So ten times as much habitat is being destroyed to provide you with meat as to provide me with veggies. Actually even less for me as I grow most of what I eat and buy organic food when I need staples that I can't grow. Thanks for making my point for me:)

plus vegetarians tend to live longer and in better health. the only supplement a vegan needs is vegan (from bacteria) B12. and maybe some vit. D3 (but don't we all.) eat plenty of dark leafy greens to get your iron.

Most vegans will respond with a big fat "YES!" obviously

But before you decide to take the plunge you need to educate yourself on a proper vegan diet so you do not end up hurting your health by doing it wrong, like many people have.

I don't think being a vegan (in the extreme or absolute sense) is a healthy lifestyle, but that's my own opinion. I eat all things in moderation, and use common sense in choosing what I eat. I avoid all fried foods, and avoid most packaged food, but I do eat all types of basic food including red & white meats, and grains, dairy, fruits & vegetables.

I think being a vegan could be a health threat for some people, because there are certain types of protein which are only present in meats or dairy. Some people will argue that a human does not need those particular proteins, so it's an open debate I guess.

Bottom line is do what makes you feel healthiest.

Charles

In theory, it can be healthy if you use supplements, but this can get tedious. If you don't want to eat meat, you could always chose to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian, which can be a healthy choice.

Yop, and its only about 1/30 of the space that you need, if you eat instead flesh, that comes from animals, that are as well feeded with nutrition that grows on field. So avoiding to eat flesh, as well helps to minimize the area that is needed for agriculture. And I think its about that vegetables and plants have no nerve and pain system as most animals do.

I am no vegan or vegetarian, so I do like milk products and eggs, and eat flesh around once a week, but in general all reduce of flesh consume is were positive, because of vegan diet needing much less agrar space, fertilizer, machine work and producing less garbage.

For healthy recipe abut vegan and vegetarian diets, try older cooking books and recipes. Because of flesh being more costly then vegetables, people in earlier times were forced to cook much more with vegetables and lenses, beans, .... so there are tons of good recipes to ensure you a good diet with much variety.

As long as you care for that, the only supplyment truly vegans normally need is B12 as much as I know, so thats not a tons of supplements.

If you want to be vegan, then I reckon you should go ahead.
It's your decision to make, after all.

Plenty of people claim all sorts of things about a vegan diet being unhealthy, but bear in mind that the majority of these people fit at least one of the following criteria (and often all three) -
(1) have no qualifications in nutrition whatsoever, and certainly won't have specialised in study of vegan nutrition.
(2) Have been conditioned to have all manner of bizarre notions about veganism
(3) Eat a diet which is not especially balanced and/or is deficient in nutrients themselves, and just kid themselves that they are eating healthily ; when often they're not.

Also, just ignore anybody who starts talking piffle about "needing meat protein" ... the fact of it is, all of the amino acids which are required for good health can be found in plant foods in abundant quantities and great variety.
A lot of people have little or no knowledge about good nutrition... but that won't stop them from coming up with all sorts of arse-pulled notions about how "unhealthy" a plant-based diet is anyway !

Half the time I've been given stick in the past for being an unhealthy vegetarian it's been from someone who's obese, and/or an binge drinker. I went vegetarian in late 2005 and I'm athletic, fairly lively and hardly as sickly as I've historically been.

I'd recommend veganism as it's no worse or better in health, while being far more ethically and environmentally sound. If you're American or if like me, you're English, the average diet of others around you is going to be too high on sugar, fats, salt and refinery as well as protein even, and the average person barely exercises either. Those are the fundamentals to me. Provided you're not skimping on portion sizes you'll get enough protein. Calcium will be tougher but is possible if you look up on it—that'd be the main aim for me if I were you. B12 shouldn't be a struggle either, honestly. My plant milks always seem to have B12 enrichment and my bran flakes have so much in it that I don't even have to consider making up for it. It's better still if you like Marmite, which is full of the stuff too. Without those and a few others you can still fill yourself up with it via vitamin tablets, and if anyone thinks tablets are wrong then they're wrong.

It's good that people have concerns for balanced vegan diets across the board rather than trashing the diet full stop. I wish we'd be as vigilant as that towards everyone else's diets.

My main opinion on starting any sort of new diet is this. Don't put yourself on the highway to hell. If you're vegan and legitimately feel good on it, then that's wonderful. However, if you feel like crap, don't chalk it up to "detoxing" or your body needing to get used to it, etc. Obviously the first week or two or whatever, this won't apply, but I'm talking if you long term feel negative on any sort of diet, you should stop it and either modify the diet to make it work better, or if you can't modify the framework, ditch it and go back to where you started.

It's also important I think to not be an extremist with your diet. Yes, you should eat as healthy as you can, but if you want, say, a can of soda once in a while, it's fine. Just don't go drink 2L of soda a day. In this regard I feel veganism is a bit extreme with total lack of animal products (though I do think most people could get away with less than they currently eat and would be healthier,) but it's not too bad assuming you can balance your nutrients well. It takes a bit more organizational capacity, in my experiences with doing vegan diets short term. I'd also say to NOT do raw veganism, or diets like 80/10/10 etc. Those are very extreme diets not good for the majority of people.

Also if you do veganism, it might be best to look into Indian food, Asian food, and Orthodox Christian Lenten food as those societies have vegetarian and/or vegan diets. The Indians for Brahmin Hindus, Asians for Buddhist cuisine, and Orthodox Christian for Lenten fast days/food eaten by monks. You do have to keep in mind almost none of these societies were strictly vegan, nor has there been any society in recorded history that's been. Buddhist monks are vegan, except if people give them meat they eat it, Orthodox monks sometimes have fish, and usually eat pork/lamb/etc on Pascha, and the Indian Brahmins eat dairy.

But eh, that's my view. I think as long as you don't fall into extremism, and stop if the diet negatively affects you, you'll be fine.

Try eating only fish for meat