Any vegans? Anybody try it?

Mrs. Javelin is vegan. Our house is meat-free, but we have cheese & dairy on hand for me to consume daily. I eat meat 1-2 times a month (out). We are pretty healthy (grow our own veggies and spices, only eat out 1-2 times a month, no fast-food or junk, lots of legumes, veggies, and fresh fruit).

Anyway, I had a close family member die suddenly a few months ago and it turned out to be hereditary heart disease. It kind of freaked me out and next thing I know I've accidentally been vegan for 3 days. When I saw the doc this morning to get my heart tests scheduled, my BP was 104/61. I was also down a solid 7 Lbs compared to last week (and I was already down a good 20+ from the fall).

Is there really something to this? SWMBO's done it for 10 years, but as a choice thing for the animals. The healthy was just a bonus for her. I love my meat and dairy, but if giving it up (or better yet, just reducing it by an appropriate margin, because hot damn I love cheese) means I live 20 extra years, well...

I don't want to live an extra 20 years without bacon.
I feel everything should be in moderation. Cutting out anyone thing 100% is not balanced. Not that you can't do that, but it's not necessary unless you have a health issue that dictates you cut said item/family out totally.

Heh, I sat down to track my grocery expenses some days ago (I do this occasionally just to see) and realized I'd gone 90% of the way to vegan in the last few weeks without even realizing it. If I swapped my breakfast cereal milk for soy milk I'd be there.

I do love my cheese, but I don't eat nearly as much of it as I used to, because I've gotten totally snobby about it. The expensive good cheese is too powerful for an everyday thing, and I refuse to buy cheap bland stuff anymore. So I spring for a block about once a month. Eggs? Butter? Nah.

Been vegetarian since I was 14 which is well more than half my life. It's a bit of a PITA sometimes, but I guess I'm committed now. I can't imagine not being one.

I predict about three posts in this thread before someone starts thumping their chest about bacon...
EDIT: Yeesh! Ninja sniped by Dr. Boost. Make that -1 post.

I've been a lacto-vegetarian for > 20 years.

As long as you both are not, or don't become, militant dicks to meat eaters, I say go for it.

^^ Y'know, I've never met one of them. I'm sure they're out there, but they're anything but the majority. I have, however, met many meat eaters who seem irrationally afraid/angry of the near-nonexistent militant vegans. Yay mass media.

Jay wrote: ^^ Y'know, I've never met one of them. I'm sure they're out there, but they're anything but the majority. I have, however, met many meat eaters who seem irrationally afraid/angry of the near-nonexistent militant vegans. Yay mass media.

I think that they mostly go away by the time they've reached their early-mid 20's. I've seen them since I'm only early 20's. My experiences with them came almost entirely from middle school and high school.

And then that one idiot professor in college.

Jay wrote: ^^ Y'know, I've never met one of them. I'm sure they're out there, but they're anything but the majority. I have, however, met many meat eaters who seem irrationally afraid/angry of the near-nonexistent militant vegans. Yay mass media.

I could be a vegetarian about 90% of the time but damn if the smell of a grill won't stop me in my tracks. Vegan is a whole other thing - no eggs? No honey? No thanks.

Jay wrote: ^^ Y'know, I've never met one of them. I'm sure they're out there, but they're anything but the majority. I have, however, met many meat eaters who seem irrationally afraid/angry of the near-nonexistent militant vegans. Yay mass media.

I've met them and, though rare, they're exactly as described. I also subscribe to the Maddox theory for dealing with it. If they get uppity I tell them that for every animal they don't eat, I'm going to eat three. I think that probably explains why friends don't bring their friends around me anymore.

Oh yea, vegan life style, I've tried it an failed miserably at it. I just like eating tasty cow and lamb too much. Pork I could do without though.

I'd just like to balance this rational thread by saying that bacon is best.
Oh, and "if God didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat"
I saw that on a t-shirt or something once. Just struck me as funny.

Last year I watched 'Forks over knives' then went totally vegan for about 5 months, then I started eating eggs again but kept off of everything else. The reason I weaned off of it was because it's hard to find good quality protein. Soy really isn't that good for you so I stopped eating that. I have an allergy to several kinds of beans so they were out. I was happy and had no issue with being a semi vegan. Then came Thanksgiving and I really wanted a some turkey, so I did that. Then the holiday season was coming up and I drifted further and further until I'm back to being a full on omnivore.

I did if for health reasons, I have no ethical issue with eating animals or their products. My eldest daughter is a veggie so it wasn't a huge change for the family.

I did loose about 10lb's and my C reactive protein went way down which was good, but after that things stabalized and I didn't notice any further improvement.

I am strongly considering going back to Vegan again post East-over this weekend.

Hmm.... munches on burger

I once had a vegan ask me how I can eat pork. And I said a sense of revenge. (have worked on a hog farm before)

Mrs Cole Trickle is. I eat everything. I try her stuff sometimes and every once in a while it is good. I just hate spending triple the amount at Whole Foods, which usually leads to us grocery shopping separate. (but with my money...)

I type younger that I am, MTN. I'm in my younger 30s.

Appleseed wrote: I type younger that I am, MTN. I'm in my younger 30s.

My bad. I assumed you were in your 20's since your occupation says "student"

It's literally impossible for me to meet my macros without meat (ha!) and without turning to soy-products. And soy elevates estrogen levels, which is exactly what I need.

That said, vegans and the like seem to eat less processed foods than the average chubbo, so I'm alright with them.

i consider myself a "stage 2" vegetarian- i let cows, pigs, and chickens eat the veggies and then i eat them..

Cole_Trickle wrote: [...] I just hate spending triple the amount at Whole Foods, which usually leads to us grocery shopping separate. (but with my money...)

See, I don't really find that. My groceries seem to be about 1/2 the cost of what non vegetarians I know spend. Granted I don't spring for much pre-packaged things like veggie burger patties and the like; I tend to cook from scratch instead, and in Germany staple stuff (veggies, rice, beans, etc.) is pretty cheap. But I probably live comfortably on €20 a week (not including drinks.) And I eat good, proper meals almost every night.

With four little ones in the house we concentrate on buying ingredients - meat, dairy, veggies, fruit - and using that to make food. Keep it balanced, avoid processed foods and work on creating a healthy association with eating real food. It's a different game when you're not just eating to be healthy, but are consciously shaping future attitudes about food.

I don't eat cheese or eggs, and almost no dairy other than the cream in my coffee. Otherwise it just wreaks havoc with my digestion.

I only eat meat on special occasions... and having said that, I just HAVE to tell you guys about the dinner we had at Del Posto in NYC last night. I know you guys are gonna love this...

When they bring out the bread basket, there's a little platter with whipped butter, and something else that looks like butter but beige. It's whipped pork fat – that's right, the spreadable equivalent of bacon. It was obscene and good at the same time.

I went all natural food diet similar to this. I was on it 1 year. http://www.hacres.com/

I juiced carrots every day. Felt great. No meat. I lost 40 pounds. It was constant work and food prep. Grabbing a quick snack was a hassle.

I quit 10 years ago and packed 50 pounds back on.

Lesley wrote: When they bring out the bread basket, there's a little platter with whipped butter, and something else that looks like butter but beige. It's whipped pork fat – that's right, the spreadable equivalent of bacon. It was obscene and good at the same time.

I know a guy on the paleo diet who made bacon-grease frosting. Probably a similar system... I didn't know if I should drool or vomit.

My wife and I have found that every 10 years, regular as clockwork, our metabolisms slow down and if we don't adjust what we eat then we begin to gain weight.

A few of months ago we had to begin our newest lifestyle change of eating. A friend of ours who is younger than us and looks healthier than us had some heart trouble while out biking and took it upon himself to suddenly become a Vegan. Man that sucks!!

We can't take him anywhere if it's around a food time because there's never anything for him to eat. Full Vegan is more of a commitment than can easily be done if you ever have to leave home. You CAN do it, but it takes rearranging your schedule and the places you travel to find enough variety in food to not go batty.

We learned from him and decided to cut back on our meats and fats and up our veggies, which isn't a hard thing for us to do. There's one BBQ we go to and get their veggie plate because they are so good. That's sacrilegious to go to a BBQ place and not eat meat.

We eat more fish than we used to. I thought I hated fish only to find out that what I hated was freshwater fish. Tilapia, Catfish, Crappie, etc were just funky, low flavored cotton in my mouth, but Mahi, Cod and Ono are very good and you can buy them inexpensively at Costco & Sams. Oily fish like Salmon is too strong for my palate. More fish and less beef and chicken is our goal.

After a few months we've settled into a new routine that works for us. We switched out our milk for Almond milk or coconut milk. Suddenly we go through a lot of milk. It adds a new dimension to many things.

We've also begun to do one meal a day as a smoothie. You can really get creative there if you remember you've got a spice shelf. Our most common smoothie is the equivalent to a salad (spinach & carrots) with some fruit (usually a tropical blend) maybe a little yogurt, but more times than not we skip it, fruit juice, almond or coconut milk and some flax meal. Then once it's blended well we add a teaspoon and a half of Guar Gum. That's for fiber but it also makes it the most creamy substance known to man. The texture alone fills you up. It's almost sinful.

We pigged out today for lunch, at the BBQ place of course, only this time we had the meat and several rolls, but did the smoothie for dinner.

We almost don't have to take the Prilosec anymore as our acid reflux is all but gone. Partially it's because you're eating prechewed food in the smoothie and it's chewed much better than you'd have done so it's easier to digest. It's also the blend & quantity of other foods we eat.

When eating out we've gone to soft drinks of mostly diet with a squirt of regular soda to give the flavor back (it's amazing how many calories a day you drink in soft drinks), fruit juices (mostly grapefruit) in the morning, Zero calorie soft drinks I get from Walmart and Splenda sweetened decaf iced tea when we make it at home.

No extraodinary changes. Incremental changes of things we liked and could do. As I mentioned it was a lifestyle change, not a short term diet so it had to be something we could do long term.

I still eat ice cream at night, just not every night and in not as great a quantity.

What we looked at was keeping our weekly average below our old weekly average. For instance I only eat pizza buffet every other week instead of every week. If we have a day or so of over the top eating we counteract it with more smoothies or other lower calorie, high fiber meal. To date I've been able to lose and keep off 15 lbs. My wife has lost only 8, but she cheats with a drawer full of cookies and candy that she slips in in the afternoon.

I have checked my cholesterol levels for years so I have a handle on what they normally are and when I do it again next month I'm hoping my cholesterol levels will have dropped. I've never had high cholesterol, but I've had levels that were almost high with too much of the bad cholesterol. From what I've read I believe my levels will have dropped a small amount but I'm expecting the most drop in the bad cholesterol.

It's good to be worried and it's good to watch what you eat, but moderation in all things Grasshopper.

a lot of my friends are either vegan or vegetarian for various political or personal reasons, but me and the wife eat everything.. on that note though, i subscribe to the everything in moderation idea of eating, try to eat balanced and healthy in general (i.e. no fast food, no sugar, and only slow carbs, {except once a week where there are no rules}).

exercise (in moderation) is important too. but if you are really concerned with heart health, i don't think you need to go full vegan, you just need to have a healthy diet plan in place.

in a semi-related note, a handful of my friends are freegan, i think it's awesome, but i'm pretty sure i'd only ever dumpster the dunkin' doughnuts.