5 ms·

I stopped eating meat 6 years ago. I miss it, but decided to try going veg-only + eggs/dairy and see how it impacted my life. If I found myself unable to keep

I stopped eating meat 6 years ago. I miss it, but decided to try going veg-only + eggs/dairy and see how it impacted my life. If I found myself unable to keep up with my exercise routines (bicycling and sporadic weight work), I'd have stopped. But it really didn't affect things, and I find myself unable to justify the cruelty of meat production. One note: I did notice that it's tougher to control carb intake while eating veg, because meat is a great way to feel full without spiking blood sugar. When that's not an option and you're feeling like snacking, you're faced with a ton of unhealthy options. So I'm probably 10-15 lbs heavier than I would be if I ate meat.

Accacin 7y ago
Not sure what you mean by unhealthy snack options? There are loads, I tend to eat nuts and fruit, hummus, fruit, etc. I'm not sure where you are, but there are some lovely snack bars in the UK called 'nakd' that are cold pressed fruit bars in a variety of flavours that often do the trick when I want to snack. If I'm not wanting any of the former, crisps are always a way for me to feel full quickly though they're hardly a 'healthy' option. Most supermarkets even do ranges of Vegan cookies and other snacks now too!
- hammock 7y ago
  >there are some lovely snack bars in the UK called 'nakd' that are cold pressed fruit bars We have these in the US too, they are called Lara bars and RX Bars.
  - theNJR 7y ago
    Also know as candy bars!
    - hammock 7y ago
      Better than the typical candy bar. More similar to a serving of dried fruit & nut trail mix.
      - AstralStorm 7y ago
        Remember it is still a high calorie count snack. Pretty much due to nut fats.
- rongenre 7y ago
  Yeah, nuts are pretty much my staple snack food. I try to reduce sugars, though -- they've got an addictive quality -- which takes out fruit and most snack bars and cookies.
  - fredsir 7y ago
    I don’t believe there are valid studies showing that sugar in a whole food, like a piece of fresh fruit with all the fiber and water that entails that slows down the intake and the absorption of the sugar, has that ability anywhere nearly as much as in stuff like cookies, snack bars and so on. Like at all. I really don’t think you should limit your (whole) fruit intake. If you know something I don’t, though, please do tell.
yodsanklai 7y ago
> I find myself unable to justify the cruelty of meat production I understand this argument, but it doesn't apply to all meat I suppose. Conversely, eggs/dairy also often involves cruel treatment. Not to say your choice is wrong, I'm just wondering what's the most rationale way of dealing with these aspects.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  It's a lot easier and more affordable to source eggs and dairy from humane sources than it is to source meat.
  - GrzegorzWidla 7y ago
    Sadly there is no such thing as humane dairy or eggs. Cows are identical to human women when it comes to milk production. They are therefore forcibly impregnated (in hardware called "rape rack"), then they carry their child for 9 months and the calf gets taken away in first 24 hours - as they'd "steal" the milk we want to sell. Cows visibly grief when that happens. If the calf was a boy he's sold as veal, slaughtered in his 6th week of life. If the calf is a girl she follows her mom's path. Lastly when dairy cow is spent - can no longer produce milk after 5 or more pregnancies - they are slaughtered and their meat is used for pets (dogs and cats) food. There are rarely dairy farms that avoid some of those actions but none that does not do any. As for eggs, to produce hens we need to breed chickens. Statistically half of them are cocks and are useless for most of the industry so they are macerated (blended alive) as soon as they are born and turned into pate or pets food. Traditionally hens have been able to lay one egg per month. Using selective breeding, feeding methods and artifical light they now do it nearly every day. The process is very painful and impacts their health a lot. It's similar to period of a human woman. Imagine having that every day. So in short, if you dig a bit all animal exploitation we do is abhorrent, especially when we now know it's absolutely unucessary and done for pure pleasure. Any other abuse wouldn't be treated so leniently by so many people.
agentultra 7y ago
Good for you! I stopped two years ago. I live with a vegan so I basically only ate meat on special occasions for years anyway so it wasn't a huge transition for me. Same with exercise: still pulling in a < 30m 5k run twice a week, cycling... hasn't affected anything. Vegetable based proteins are fine. And it turns out the average person even at my level of fitness doesn't need to eat protein like an Olympic athlete.
Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
> I find myself unable to justify the cruelty of meat production. First off, nice job quitting meat. However, > eggs/dairy Just wanted to point out the amount of cruelty going on with eggs/dairy production is also absolutely harrowing. I'd recommend researching that as well and giving it up.
- komali2 7y ago
  It's very possible to get egg and dairy from farms with happy animals. You gotta pay for it, but that just demonstrates market desire for non-cruel farm products so I pay happily.
- haarts 7y ago
  The fact that you eat eggs/dairy doesn't invalidate the entire exercise. Cutting meat out of your diet reduces animal cruelty significantly. While going all the way is better from an animal cruelty perspective there are other factors to consider (going all vegan is hard).
- mercer 7y ago
  Getting a few chickens, if it's an option, can help with the latter :).
lr4444lr 7y ago
I don't know what your pre-veg weight was, but the science we have on the health impact of 10 - 15 lbs. gain from a certain range of base weight is significant, last I read. YMMV, of course.
bfrog 7y ago
You can better control the feeling of full by eating enormous salads. Normally you divvy up the large salad mixing bowl, that mixing bowl is now your salad portion. Congrats if you do this, you'll easily lose 15+ lbs down to a new equilibrium if you don't overload the salad full of crap.
shortoncash 7y ago
I'm in the same boat (but vegan). I supplement B12 and iron out of caution, but I am not sure they are even necessary. Just copy what the Indians do; they get by without meat and their diets and classic recipes seem to have evolved recipes that compensate for lack of meat.
- andy_ppp 7y ago
  If you are male be careful of too much iron, you probably get enough from green leafy vegetables...
- valarauko 7y ago
  The traditional Indian (largely vegetarian) diets rely heavily on seasonal vegetables, grains (wheat, rice, millets), and legumes. Indian cuisines are such a varied lot that you're likely to find one you enjoy. In respect to your concern for B12, an Indian Medical Council study from a few years ago found very few cases of clinical B12 deficiency in the country. This, despite the average Indian diet being deficient for B12 by European & American standards. It was one of the reasons for reducing the suggested daily intake for Indians to 1 mg, as recommended by the WHO, substantially lower than in Europe or the US.
ainiriand 7y ago
I run 5k < 20m and fully vegan so I do not think there is a correlation. You should check what you're missing in your diet because when you remove a pillar you need to replace it with something. For me it is legumes, I eat mostly legumes.
arethuza 7y ago
I moved to a house in a rural area that is pretty much surrounded by fields full of pretty happy looking cattle and sheep - I have to say this has actually made me a bit squeamish, particularly about eating lamb (young lambs being some of the cutest animals you could wish to see).
vaskebjorn 7y ago
With eggs you are probably getting plenty of protein. I have been mostly vegan for a while and I don't think my bike riding has been affected, but I can tell you it definitely affected me when it came to weight lifting. For the first time in my life I just wasn't improving at all from session to session (and this is in the early stages when you just start lifting again after time off when gains come easy). I know there are vegan weightlifters out there but from what I know getting all of your protein requirements from plant-based protein powder is a big undertaking. It's not enough to make me go back to animal products but definitely something I miss from my meat eating days.
- metamet 7y ago
  > With eggs you are probably getting plenty of protein. Eggs are between 6-7g of protein each, which isn't a lot. Depending on your goals, and where you fall between being sedentary and an athlete, you should be aiming for 1.6 g/kg/day and 2.2 g/kg/day [1]. Add to that the satiating affects of protein in a diet, particularly through ghrelin secretion [2], and you've got a stronger incentive to increase your protein intake. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497353 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497353 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19820013 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19820013
- scandinavegan 7y ago
  I don't see how getting enough protein on a vegan diet would be a problem, especially when you mention plant-based protein powder. I think healthy calories may be an issue if you don't include nuts and seeds, but as long as you cover your energy needs from vegetable sources you get enough protein and enough of all essential amino acids. You didn't mention this, but protein combination is a myth, and only very few vegetable sources lack certain amino acids. So does some animal sources as well, but that is almost never reported. You didn't mention this either, but if you want to avoid protein powder, it may be harder to find lean protein sources. I just looked up nuts (peanuts specifically), that have 27% protein but also 51% fat. Chicken breast also has 27% protein, but only 8.7% fat. I'm not a body builder and haven't investigated how to go about it in detail as a vegan though the full cycle of bulking and shredding, but if you just want to gain strength getting enough calories and protein shouldn't be a problem. I've also read that most body-building magazines completely overestimate how much protein you need, citing numbers four times what sports science says. You have first-hand experience in this situation and I'm clearly speculating, but perhaps you didn't get enough calories rather than enough protein? Of course it all depends on what you're eating. When some people say vegan food, they mean raw food or mainly vegetables, while others include a lot more legumes, nuts, and seeds.
dbingham 7y ago
The problem with the ethical argument - that meat production is cruel and vegetable production is not - is that it makes all kinds of assumptions about plant anatomy and behavior that may be wrong. In fact, the growing field of plant behavior strongly suggests that those assumptions are wrong. That plants aren't unthinking, unfeeling at all, but every bit as alive and aware of their environment as animals. It's a really fascinating field of study. They've found evidence of an analogous nerve system (that appears to send pain responses), evidence of non-genetic memory, surprisingly advanced communication (tobacco plants communicate using over 3000 chemical compounds that mean different things), environmental awareness (you can perform pavlov's experiment on pea plants using wind for the bell and sunlight for the food), kin recognition, and more. It's a lot harder for us to recognize the signs of awareness, pain, even - maybe - intelligence of a sort, because plants are completely alien to us. They communicate with chemicals, move by growing, live at a different speed. For example, most of us would immediately recognize and empathize with any animal screaming in pain or fear. Most of the animals that scream to communicate are social animals. The scream serves as a warning, "I'm hurt or afraid, there's danger, watch out!" Grass plants, when cut, release a chemical that cause other grass plants to raise their defenses. It serves pretty much the same biological purpose as a scream, "I'm hurt, there's danger, watch out!" But we would never recognize the smell of fresh cut grass as a scream.
- simonask 7y ago
  Most vegetarians have no trouble swatting a fly or a mosquito, though. The studies of plant "neurology" (if you can call it that) are all very interesting, but the argument that anything that has a nervous system is holy and untouchable is decidedly fringe. To compare the awareness of a tree with the awareness of a cow or a pig or even a chicken is clearly asinine.
- ryandvm 7y ago
  I like to think I have an open mind, but this line of reasoning is a non-starter for me. Releasing chemicals upon damage is a far cry (no pun intended) from the anguish and pain a sentient creature is obviously capable of. Plants just do not have the necessary information processing facilities to allow them to suffer. But hell, supposing they did, what could we even do about it? Are we supposed to switch to some sort of enzyme slurry diet produced by nano-machines? I don't even...
ekzy 7y ago
I stopped eating meat ~4 years ago, but still eat eggs and a limited amount of dairy. I occasionally eat fish when abroad or when there's no other healthy option (maybe it happens once every month or two). I haven't seen any impact on my health and I exercise regularly. Apart from the obvious cruelty / environmental impact etc... What I like about being vegetarian (or mostly veggie) is that I started to eat a lot of different food, a lot of ingredients I would have never touched before. Constraints drive creativity and it's true in the kitchen too. In a world of food abundance, I enjoy the restrictions of a self-imposed diet. Having those rules helps me eat healthy food.
- GrzegorzWidla 7y ago
  Vegan diet alone does not bring a ton of benefits. True health benefits happen only when you eat whole food plant based diet. Remember that fries and soy mayo are vegan. Nobody will call that healthy though.

Accacin 7y ago

Not sure what you mean by unhealthy snack options? There are loads, I tend to eat nuts and fruit, hummus, fruit, etc. I'm not sure where you are, but there are some lovely snack bars in the UK called 'nakd' that are cold pressed fruit bars in a variety of flavours that often do the trick when I want to snack. If I'm not wanting any of the former, crisps are always a way for me to feel full quickly though they're hardly a 'healthy' option. Most supermarkets even do ranges of Vegan cookies and other snacks now too!

hammock 7y ago
>there are some lovely snack bars in the UK called 'nakd' that are cold pressed fruit bars We have these in the US too, they are called Lara bars and RX Bars.
- theNJR 7y ago
  Also know as candy bars!
  - hammock 7y ago
    Better than the typical candy bar. More similar to a serving of dried fruit & nut trail mix.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Remember it is still a high calorie count snack. Pretty much due to nut fats.
rongenre 7y ago
Yeah, nuts are pretty much my staple snack food. I try to reduce sugars, though -- they've got an addictive quality -- which takes out fruit and most snack bars and cookies.
- fredsir 7y ago
  I don’t believe there are valid studies showing that sugar in a whole food, like a piece of fresh fruit with all the fiber and water that entails that slows down the intake and the absorption of the sugar, has that ability anywhere nearly as much as in stuff like cookies, snack bars and so on. Like at all. I really don’t think you should limit your (whole) fruit intake. If you know something I don’t, though, please do tell.

yodsanklai 7y ago

> I find myself unable to justify the cruelty of meat production I understand this argument, but it doesn't apply to all meat I suppose. Conversely, eggs/dairy also often involves cruel treatment. Not to say your choice is wrong, I'm just wondering what's the most rationale way of dealing with these aspects.

stronglikedan 7y ago
It's a lot easier and more affordable to source eggs and dairy from humane sources than it is to source meat.
- GrzegorzWidla 7y ago
  Sadly there is no such thing as humane dairy or eggs. Cows are identical to human women when it comes to milk production. They are therefore forcibly impregnated (in hardware called "rape rack"), then they carry their child for 9 months and the calf gets taken away in first 24 hours - as they'd "steal" the milk we want to sell. Cows visibly grief when that happens. If the calf was a boy he's sold as veal, slaughtered in his 6th week of life. If the calf is a girl she follows her mom's path. Lastly when dairy cow is spent - can no longer produce milk after 5 or more pregnancies - they are slaughtered and their meat is used for pets (dogs and cats) food. There are rarely dairy farms that avoid some of those actions but none that does not do any. As for eggs, to produce hens we need to breed chickens. Statistically half of them are cocks and are useless for most of the industry so they are macerated (blended alive) as soon as they are born and turned into pate or pets food. Traditionally hens have been able to lay one egg per month. Using selective breeding, feeding methods and artifical light they now do it nearly every day. The process is very painful and impacts their health a lot. It's similar to period of a human woman. Imagine having that every day. So in short, if you dig a bit all animal exploitation we do is abhorrent, especially when we now know it's absolutely unucessary and done for pure pleasure. Any other abuse wouldn't be treated so leniently by so many people.

agentultra 7y ago

Good for you! I stopped two years ago. I live with a vegan so I basically only ate meat on special occasions for years anyway so it wasn't a huge transition for me. Same with exercise: still pulling in a < 30m 5k run twice a week, cycling... hasn't affected anything. Vegetable based proteins are fine. And it turns out the average person even at my level of fitness doesn't need to eat protein like an Olympic athlete.

Japhy_Ryder 7y ago

> I find myself unable to justify the cruelty of meat production. First off, nice job quitting meat. However, > eggs/dairy Just wanted to point out the amount of cruelty going on with eggs/dairy production is also absolutely harrowing. I'd recommend researching that as well and giving it up.

komali2 7y ago
It's very possible to get egg and dairy from farms with happy animals. You gotta pay for it, but that just demonstrates market desire for non-cruel farm products so I pay happily.
haarts 7y ago
The fact that you eat eggs/dairy doesn't invalidate the entire exercise. Cutting meat out of your diet reduces animal cruelty significantly. While going all the way is better from an animal cruelty perspective there are other factors to consider (going all vegan is hard).
mercer 7y ago
Getting a few chickens, if it's an option, can help with the latter :).

lr4444lr 7y ago

I don't know what your pre-veg weight was, but the science we have on the health impact of 10 - 15 lbs. gain from a certain range of base weight is significant, last I read. YMMV, of course.

bfrog 7y ago

You can better control the feeling of full by eating enormous salads. Normally you divvy up the large salad mixing bowl, that mixing bowl is now your salad portion. Congrats if you do this, you'll easily lose 15+ lbs down to a new equilibrium if you don't overload the salad full of crap.

shortoncash 7y ago

I'm in the same boat (but vegan). I supplement B12 and iron out of caution, but I am not sure they are even necessary. Just copy what the Indians do; they get by without meat and their diets and classic recipes seem to have evolved recipes that compensate for lack of meat.

andy_ppp 7y ago
If you are male be careful of too much iron, you probably get enough from green leafy vegetables...
valarauko 7y ago
The traditional Indian (largely vegetarian) diets rely heavily on seasonal vegetables, grains (wheat, rice, millets), and legumes. Indian cuisines are such a varied lot that you're likely to find one you enjoy. In respect to your concern for B12, an Indian Medical Council study from a few years ago found very few cases of clinical B12 deficiency in the country. This, despite the average Indian diet being deficient for B12 by European & American standards. It was one of the reasons for reducing the suggested daily intake for Indians to 1 mg, as recommended by the WHO, substantially lower than in Europe or the US.

ainiriand 7y ago

I run 5k < 20m and fully vegan so I do not think there is a correlation. You should check what you're missing in your diet because when you remove a pillar you need to replace it with something. For me it is legumes, I eat mostly legumes.

arethuza 7y ago

I moved to a house in a rural area that is pretty much surrounded by fields full of pretty happy looking cattle and sheep - I have to say this has actually made me a bit squeamish, particularly about eating lamb (young lambs being some of the cutest animals you could wish to see).

vaskebjorn 7y ago

With eggs you are probably getting plenty of protein. I have been mostly vegan for a while and I don't think my bike riding has been affected, but I can tell you it definitely affected me when it came to weight lifting. For the first time in my life I just wasn't improving at all from session to session (and this is in the early stages when you just start lifting again after time off when gains come easy). I know there are vegan weightlifters out there but from what I know getting all of your protein requirements from plant-based protein powder is a big undertaking. It's not enough to make me go back to animal products but definitely something I miss from my meat eating days.

metamet 7y ago
> With eggs you are probably getting plenty of protein. Eggs are between 6-7g of protein each, which isn't a lot. Depending on your goals, and where you fall between being sedentary and an athlete, you should be aiming for 1.6 g/kg/day and 2.2 g/kg/day [1]. Add to that the satiating affects of protein in a diet, particularly through ghrelin secretion [2], and you've got a stronger incentive to increase your protein intake. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497353 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497353 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19820013 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19820013
scandinavegan 7y ago
I don't see how getting enough protein on a vegan diet would be a problem, especially when you mention plant-based protein powder. I think healthy calories may be an issue if you don't include nuts and seeds, but as long as you cover your energy needs from vegetable sources you get enough protein and enough of all essential amino acids. You didn't mention this, but protein combination is a myth, and only very few vegetable sources lack certain amino acids. So does some animal sources as well, but that is almost never reported. You didn't mention this either, but if you want to avoid protein powder, it may be harder to find lean protein sources. I just looked up nuts (peanuts specifically), that have 27% protein but also 51% fat. Chicken breast also has 27% protein, but only 8.7% fat. I'm not a body builder and haven't investigated how to go about it in detail as a vegan though the full cycle of bulking and shredding, but if you just want to gain strength getting enough calories and protein shouldn't be a problem. I've also read that most body-building magazines completely overestimate how much protein you need, citing numbers four times what sports science says. You have first-hand experience in this situation and I'm clearly speculating, but perhaps you didn't get enough calories rather than enough protein? Of course it all depends on what you're eating. When some people say vegan food, they mean raw food or mainly vegetables, while others include a lot more legumes, nuts, and seeds.

dbingham 7y ago

The problem with the ethical argument - that meat production is cruel and vegetable production is not - is that it makes all kinds of assumptions about plant anatomy and behavior that may be wrong. In fact, the growing field of plant behavior strongly suggests that those assumptions are wrong. That plants aren't unthinking, unfeeling at all, but every bit as alive and aware of their environment as animals. It's a really fascinating field of study. They've found evidence of an analogous nerve system (that appears to send pain responses), evidence of non-genetic memory, surprisingly advanced communication (tobacco plants communicate using over 3000 chemical compounds that mean different things), environmental awareness (you can perform pavlov's experiment on pea plants using wind for the bell and sunlight for the food), kin recognition, and more. It's a lot harder for us to recognize the signs of awareness, pain, even - maybe - intelligence of a sort, because plants are completely alien to us. They communicate with chemicals, move by growing, live at a different speed. For example, most of us would immediately recognize and empathize with any animal screaming in pain or fear. Most of the animals that scream to communicate are social animals. The scream serves as a warning, "I'm hurt or afraid, there's danger, watch out!" Grass plants, when cut, release a chemical that cause other grass plants to raise their defenses. It serves pretty much the same biological purpose as a scream, "I'm hurt, there's danger, watch out!" But we would never recognize the smell of fresh cut grass as a scream.

simonask 7y ago
Most vegetarians have no trouble swatting a fly or a mosquito, though. The studies of plant "neurology" (if you can call it that) are all very interesting, but the argument that anything that has a nervous system is holy and untouchable is decidedly fringe. To compare the awareness of a tree with the awareness of a cow or a pig or even a chicken is clearly asinine.
ryandvm 7y ago
I like to think I have an open mind, but this line of reasoning is a non-starter for me. Releasing chemicals upon damage is a far cry (no pun intended) from the anguish and pain a sentient creature is obviously capable of. Plants just do not have the necessary information processing facilities to allow them to suffer. But hell, supposing they did, what could we even do about it? Are we supposed to switch to some sort of enzyme slurry diet produced by nano-machines? I don't even...

ekzy 7y ago

I stopped eating meat ~4 years ago, but still eat eggs and a limited amount of dairy. I occasionally eat fish when abroad or when there's no other healthy option (maybe it happens once every month or two). I haven't seen any impact on my health and I exercise regularly. Apart from the obvious cruelty / environmental impact etc... What I like about being vegetarian (or mostly veggie) is that I started to eat a lot of different food, a lot of ingredients I would have never touched before. Constraints drive creativity and it's true in the kitchen too. In a world of food abundance, I enjoy the restrictions of a self-imposed diet. Having those rules helps me eat healthy food.

GrzegorzWidla 7y ago
Vegan diet alone does not bring a ton of benefits. True health benefits happen only when you eat whole food plant based diet. Remember that fries and soy mayo are vegan. Nobody will call that healthy though.