6 ms·

Vegan diets are much more destructive to children than candy and pop. If a child was only eating candy and pop, then yes, it would be harmful. But usually, kid

by jbob2000 7y ago

Vegan diets are much more destructive to children than candy and pop. If a child was only eating candy and pop, then yes, it would be harmful. But usually, kids eat junk as a supplement to otherwise stable meals. You need protein and iron to grow, you just can’t get a kid to eat the vegan versions of foods that provide this.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Are you seriously saying there's just no way for a parent to get their child to eat vegetables and legumes?
- jbob2000 7y ago
  Didn’t say that, I said that it’s hard to get kids to eat vegetables that provide protein and iron at the same levels that chicken fingers do. Good luck getting a kid to eat a plate of spinach.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    All depends how you're raised. My sisters and I devoured vegetables. My mother would have a plate of cut-up turnips waiting for us when we got home from middle school. Yum. I still eat raw cabbage and turnips as snacks into my 30s because of that while everyone around me asks me how I could eat that. You're thinking of a kid who has been raised on ketchup and chicken fingers suddenly encountering a plate of spinach leaves for dinner. Sure, I'd expect problems in the short term. But let's take a little bit of responsibility as parents. I had a neighbor who was fed so much candy at her house that when she slept over at my house (slumber party) she would throw tantrums because my parents didn't pair candy with dinner. I'm sure her parents thought the same as you: heh, good luck getting children to eat chicken fingers without their side of candy, it's the only thing that works for us!
Madmallard 7y ago
I was told (I believe by a doctor) that the iron you get from vegan sources isn't readily absorbed anyway. It id best to get heme-iron from meat as it is readily absorbed
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  This is true, however it's not as severe as people think and you can easily get several hundred % of the RDA of iron in a day on a whole food, plant based, diet. https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/iron/ https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/iron/ has some content that covers this /r/plantbasediet semi-regularly has this come up in threads too
chunkyslink 7y ago
Please provide evidence? Have you seen The Game Changers movie ?
- jbob2000 7y ago
  I’m sure the evidence is out there, but I have so many first hand experiences of people having health issues from vegan diets, that I’m not terribly motivated to go out and look for it. When I was in high school, I had a few friends who tried to go vegan. One fainted in the shower, another fainted during track and field, one was falling asleep in class all the time. As soon as they went back to their normal diet, everything went back to normal for them. In first year university, a friend lost 30lbs and became very emaciated from their vegan diet. You could say “they were doing vegan diets wrong” and I would agree. That’s the point. It’s extremely hard to do vegan diets “right”.
  - chunkyslink 7y ago
    I know many many, very healthy plant based people and athletes. I regularly run ultramarathons and I cycle 30 miles a day to work (2000 ft of climbing) and I'm plant based. Would you say I'm doing it right? I don't do anything especially difficult with my diet. I would suggest that film. Might open your eyes.
  - HuShifang 7y ago
    Ok, one more anecdote for you: I've been vegan for about five years, for ethical reasons. (Which is to say, I basically have eaten a similar diet to what I did before, only vegan -- so vegan ice cream in lieu of dairy ice cream, sofritas Chipotle burritos rather than steak Chipotle burritos, Beyond burgers rather than cow burgers.) I've taken the occasional multivitamin but nothing special -- I get B12 and all that from fortified soy milk and other foods. I'm physically larger -- at six foot, my weight has ranged from 202 to 185 lbs as a vegan rather than 185 to 170 lbs as it did when I was omnivorous -- and run (my main form of exercise) faster, farther, and more frequently than when I ate omnivorously (I.e. it's not that I've gotten fat). Blood work has always been perfect, recovery times much lower, energy levels fine, etc. Zero health issues. Your friends were doing it wrong. Probably, they were eating nothing but salads, or stacking dietary restrictions (e.g. gluten-free or raw).
ryanmercer 7y ago
How? On a whole food, plant based, diet it's easy to get EVERYTHING with the exceptions of B12 and vitamin D which can easily be supplemented either as pill or by fortifying foods (fortified nutritional yeast, fortified grains). Since going plant based I get far more vitamins/minerals/micronutrients than I EVER did eating a largely meat-based diet. Go take everything you'd eat in a day and plug it into Cronometer (or a typical standard american diet) . Then take a whole food plant based diet that comes close to (or does) hit the daily dozen [1] with the kcals within 5% of your typical diet and look at the differences. Purely subjectively I feel incredibly better eating plant based. Last year I was eating 1-1.5lbs of meat a day and a bunch of processed foods as a strength athlete with vit a in limited quantities from the occasional organ meat and some vitmain c from the occasional sweet pepper with minimal fiber. Now I'm eating a fraction of the protein I was (yet my strength keeps going up, my recovery is far better and DOMS severity is way down). Yesterday in 2086 kcals I had: - 182% of my daily fiber (pre-plant based I'd hit 20-30% and poop something the consistency of modelling clay) - 71% calcium (which I further supplement with a pill) - 0% b12 (which I supplement via pill once a week) - 100% folate - 349% vitamin A - 48% B1, 76% B2, 49% B3, 55% B5, 268% B6 - 466% vitamin C - 0% D (which I get daily in my calcium supplement) - 36% Vitamin e - 157% Vitamin k - 68% copper - 261% iron - 62% magnesium (which I supplement 100% RDA at sleep anyway because it helps me fall asleep fast) - 87% manganese - 41% phosphorous - 201% potassium (before plant based I'd rarely hit 100%) - 13% selenium (was travelling last weekend so didn't get to the health food store to buy more brazil nuts) - 69% sodium (pre-plant based I would hit several hundred % to over 1000% daily) - 19% zinc - 108% protein (77.7g with via cystine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine and valine) I ate 65g mixed greens, 536g bananas, 11g of carrots, 28g of dates, 1g of turmeric, a great value 'keep it green fruit & vegetable smoothie' pack I found in the bottom of the chest freezer, 544g of yellow potatoes, a single serving bag of quest protein chips I had leftover from going pre-whole food, 1 g ground cinnamon, 432g of black beans, 285g of drained sweet corn, 174g of sweet peppers. On a typical weekday pre-plant based I'd have had 1lb of ground chicken, a #2 from McDonalds for breakfast (sausage egg cheese mcmuffin with a hash brown and a diet coke), about a half pound of chicken breast, 40-60g of protein powder and a pouch of Uncle Ben's microwave rice or some microwavable macaroni and cheese. Using the rice pouch in the former meat-heavy diet instead of mac, and 40g of protein powder, I was getting: 2141 kcals - 18% fiber (6.9g) - 21% calcium - 138% b12 - 12% folate - 21% vitamin A - 72% B1, 106% B2, 393% B3, 147% B5, 291% B6 - 6% vitamin C - 2% D - 20% Vitamin e - 4% Vitamin k - 51% copper - 180% iron - 40% magnesium (which I supplement 100% RDA at sleep anyway because it helps me fall asleep fast) - 8% manganese - 193% phosphorous - 96% potassium (before plant based I'd rarely hit 50%) - 185% selenium - 140% sodium before hot sauce on the rice and ground chicken - 88% zinc Now, in which scenario do you think I'm getting better nutrition... [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-challenge/ https://nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-challenge/
seanhunter 7y ago
I'd love to see a source demonstrating that vegan diets are more destructive to children than candy and pop. As to your assertions around protein and iron, this is a commonly-held belief that is partially correct, but based on a fundamental misconception about how diet works. Your body doesn't make protein directly using dietary protein. It digests protein in the diet into amino acids, which are transported through the bloodstream and used those amino acids to make protein. As long as you have a balance of all the essential amino acids in your diet it doesn't matter where they come from. Animal protein sources are "complete proteins" (ie they contain all essential amino acids). Although there are complete protein sources that are vegan (eg soy), most vegan protein sources are incomplete (they contain some essential amino acids but not others), so vegans need to be more careful than non-vegans. However as long as they have some grains and some legumes they are getting all the amino acids and will be fine from a developmental standpoint. For example, see https://www.verywellfit.com/vegan-protein-combinations-2506396 https://www.verywellfit.com/vegan-protein-combinations-25063... Likewise, there's also no reason for a vegan diet to be deficient in iron or anything else, but again, it's necessary for vegans to be a little more thoughtful than meat-eaters to ensure this. See for example https://www.everydayhealth.com/anemia/anemia-risk-for-vegans-and-vegetarians.aspx https://www.everydayhealth.com/anemia/anemia-risk-for-vegans...

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

Are you seriously saying there's just no way for a parent to get their child to eat vegetables and legumes?

jbob2000 7y ago
Didn’t say that, I said that it’s hard to get kids to eat vegetables that provide protein and iron at the same levels that chicken fingers do. Good luck getting a kid to eat a plate of spinach.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  All depends how you're raised. My sisters and I devoured vegetables. My mother would have a plate of cut-up turnips waiting for us when we got home from middle school. Yum. I still eat raw cabbage and turnips as snacks into my 30s because of that while everyone around me asks me how I could eat that. You're thinking of a kid who has been raised on ketchup and chicken fingers suddenly encountering a plate of spinach leaves for dinner. Sure, I'd expect problems in the short term. But let's take a little bit of responsibility as parents. I had a neighbor who was fed so much candy at her house that when she slept over at my house (slumber party) she would throw tantrums because my parents didn't pair candy with dinner. I'm sure her parents thought the same as you: heh, good luck getting children to eat chicken fingers without their side of candy, it's the only thing that works for us!

Madmallard 7y ago

I was told (I believe by a doctor) that the iron you get from vegan sources isn't readily absorbed anyway. It id best to get heme-iron from meat as it is readily absorbed

ryanmercer 7y ago
This is true, however it's not as severe as people think and you can easily get several hundred % of the RDA of iron in a day on a whole food, plant based, diet. https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/iron/ https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/iron/ has some content that covers this /r/plantbasediet semi-regularly has this come up in threads too

chunkyslink 7y ago

Please provide evidence? Have you seen The Game Changers movie ?

jbob2000 7y ago
I’m sure the evidence is out there, but I have so many first hand experiences of people having health issues from vegan diets, that I’m not terribly motivated to go out and look for it. When I was in high school, I had a few friends who tried to go vegan. One fainted in the shower, another fainted during track and field, one was falling asleep in class all the time. As soon as they went back to their normal diet, everything went back to normal for them. In first year university, a friend lost 30lbs and became very emaciated from their vegan diet. You could say “they were doing vegan diets wrong” and I would agree. That’s the point. It’s extremely hard to do vegan diets “right”.
- chunkyslink 7y ago
  I know many many, very healthy plant based people and athletes. I regularly run ultramarathons and I cycle 30 miles a day to work (2000 ft of climbing) and I'm plant based. Would you say I'm doing it right? I don't do anything especially difficult with my diet. I would suggest that film. Might open your eyes.
- HuShifang 7y ago
  Ok, one more anecdote for you: I've been vegan for about five years, for ethical reasons. (Which is to say, I basically have eaten a similar diet to what I did before, only vegan -- so vegan ice cream in lieu of dairy ice cream, sofritas Chipotle burritos rather than steak Chipotle burritos, Beyond burgers rather than cow burgers.) I've taken the occasional multivitamin but nothing special -- I get B12 and all that from fortified soy milk and other foods. I'm physically larger -- at six foot, my weight has ranged from 202 to 185 lbs as a vegan rather than 185 to 170 lbs as it did when I was omnivorous -- and run (my main form of exercise) faster, farther, and more frequently than when I ate omnivorously (I.e. it's not that I've gotten fat). Blood work has always been perfect, recovery times much lower, energy levels fine, etc. Zero health issues. Your friends were doing it wrong. Probably, they were eating nothing but salads, or stacking dietary restrictions (e.g. gluten-free or raw).

ryanmercer 7y ago

How? On a whole food, plant based, diet it's easy to get EVERYTHING with the exceptions of B12 and vitamin D which can easily be supplemented either as pill or by fortifying foods (fortified nutritional yeast, fortified grains). Since going plant based I get far more vitamins/minerals/micronutrients than I EVER did eating a largely meat-based diet. Go take everything you'd eat in a day and plug it into Cronometer (or a typical standard american diet) . Then take a whole food plant based diet that comes close to (or does) hit the daily dozen [1] with the kcals within 5% of your typical diet and look at the differences. Purely subjectively I feel incredibly better eating plant based. Last year I was eating 1-1.5lbs of meat a day and a bunch of processed foods as a strength athlete with vit a in limited quantities from the occasional organ meat and some vitmain c from the occasional sweet pepper with minimal fiber. Now I'm eating a fraction of the protein I was (yet my strength keeps going up, my recovery is far better and DOMS severity is way down). Yesterday in 2086 kcals I had: - 182% of my daily fiber (pre-plant based I'd hit 20-30% and poop something the consistency of modelling clay) - 71% calcium (which I further supplement with a pill) - 0% b12 (which I supplement via pill once a week) - 100% folate - 349% vitamin A - 48% B1, 76% B2, 49% B3, 55% B5, 268% B6 - 466% vitamin C - 0% D (which I get daily in my calcium supplement) - 36% Vitamin e - 157% Vitamin k - 68% copper - 261% iron - 62% magnesium (which I supplement 100% RDA at sleep anyway because it helps me fall asleep fast) - 87% manganese - 41% phosphorous - 201% potassium (before plant based I'd rarely hit 100%) - 13% selenium (was travelling last weekend so didn't get to the health food store to buy more brazil nuts) - 69% sodium (pre-plant based I would hit several hundred % to over 1000% daily) - 19% zinc - 108% protein (77.7g with via cystine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine and valine) I ate 65g mixed greens, 536g bananas, 11g of carrots, 28g of dates, 1g of turmeric, a great value 'keep it green fruit & vegetable smoothie' pack I found in the bottom of the chest freezer, 544g of yellow potatoes, a single serving bag of quest protein chips I had leftover from going pre-whole food, 1 g ground cinnamon, 432g of black beans, 285g of drained sweet corn, 174g of sweet peppers. On a typical weekday pre-plant based I'd have had 1lb of ground chicken, a #2 from McDonalds for breakfast (sausage egg cheese mcmuffin with a hash brown and a diet coke), about a half pound of chicken breast, 40-60g of protein powder and a pouch of Uncle Ben's microwave rice or some microwavable macaroni and cheese. Using the rice pouch in the former meat-heavy diet instead of mac, and 40g of protein powder, I was getting: 2141 kcals - 18% fiber (6.9g) - 21% calcium - 138% b12 - 12% folate - 21% vitamin A - 72% B1, 106% B2, 393% B3, 147% B5, 291% B6 - 6% vitamin C - 2% D - 20% Vitamin e - 4% Vitamin k - 51% copper - 180% iron - 40% magnesium (which I supplement 100% RDA at sleep anyway because it helps me fall asleep fast) - 8% manganese - 193% phosphorous - 96% potassium (before plant based I'd rarely hit 50%) - 185% selenium - 140% sodium before hot sauce on the rice and ground chicken - 88% zinc Now, in which scenario do you think I'm getting better nutrition... [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-challenge/ https://nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-challenge/

seanhunter 7y ago

I'd love to see a source demonstrating that vegan diets are more destructive to children than candy and pop. As to your assertions around protein and iron, this is a commonly-held belief that is partially correct, but based on a fundamental misconception about how diet works. Your body doesn't make protein directly using dietary protein. It digests protein in the diet into amino acids, which are transported through the bloodstream and used those amino acids to make protein. As long as you have a balance of all the essential amino acids in your diet it doesn't matter where they come from. Animal protein sources are "complete proteins" (ie they contain all essential amino acids). Although there are complete protein sources that are vegan (eg soy), most vegan protein sources are incomplete (they contain some essential amino acids but not others), so vegans need to be more careful than non-vegans. However as long as they have some grains and some legumes they are getting all the amino acids and will be fine from a developmental standpoint. For example, see https://www.verywellfit.com/vegan-protein-combinations-2506396 https://www.verywellfit.com/vegan-protein-combinations-25063... Likewise, there's also no reason for a vegan diet to be deficient in iron or anything else, but again, it's necessary for vegans to be a little more thoughtful than meat-eaters to ensure this. See for example https://www.everydayhealth.com/anemia/anemia-risk-for-vegans-and-vegetarians.aspx https://www.everydayhealth.com/anemia/anemia-risk-for-vegans...