6.8: Guest Lecturer

Guest Lecturer: Laurel’s Kitchen

The Vegan Diet

A vegan (pronounced vejjan, as in vegetable, or veegin, as in begin) is a person who chooses to eat no animal-derived foods at all. A strict vegan avoids not only red meats, fish, and poultry, but also dairy products and eggs. Some even eschew honey, since it is made by bees, but most vegans consider this unnecessarily orthodox.

Although the term vegan is new, the concept has been around for thousands of years. In ancient Greece the ranks of well known vegans included the philosopher and mathematician Pythagorus, a remarkable athlete from Sparta named Charmis, the philosopher and astronomer Thales, and two great mystics, Apollonius of Tyana and Philo of Alexandria. Each of these men was a prominent figure who attracted many students, and since the custom was for students to live with their teacher and follow his way of life, these examples probably represent not just isolated instances but several ancient vegan communities.

A vegan meal looks simple, austere, and timeless, as if it had been the typical fare of people close to the earth since the dawn of time. But this impression is probably not accurate. Archaeologic findings in Turkey and elsewhere show that certain animals were domesticated as much as nine thousand years ago, and the Leakeys’ findings in Africa show that animals have figured in the dietary habits of mankind since the early days of human ancestry. No traditional society that we know of, past or present, has been consistently vegan, except in cases of abject poverty or cataclysmic disruption when no alternative was available.

Vegans in our own society were once rare and adhered generally to an explicit philosophy. In the last two or three decades, though, their number has increased markedly, for reasons that reflect real diversity. There are also many vegetarians who, though not rigid vegans, eat very little in the way of dairy products and eggs. Some people are vegans or near vegans for health reasons: all plant diets tend to be very low in fat and relatively free of chemical residues. Others don’t like the way the animals producing these foods are treated on large-scale commercial farms; avoiding animal products eliminates one’s own participation in this trade. And many simply find that eggs and milk begin to taste heavy and fatty next to vegetables and grains.

Whatever the reason, just as many omnivores today describe themselves as “almost vegetarians,” many vegetarians today are almost vegans. (One of our friends calls himself a “pancake-o-vegan”: he faithfully avoids all other sources of milk and eggs, but draws the line at ruling out an occasional buckwheat or buttermilk pancake.) What was a fad is becoming acknowledged as one of many acceptable ways of eating. This trend translates into a real need for up-to-date guidelines on the special nutritional problems of an all-plant diet.

Current Knowledge of Vegan Nutrition

Despite the example of Pythagoras and the rest, it is only today, with a scientific knowledge of nutrition and the available array of special foods and dietary supplements, that it is easy to be a vegan and stay healthy. Uninformed experimentation can be dangerous, because dairy foods are the usual source of certain nutrients that otherwise can only be assured by careful planning.

The main problem areas of a vegan diet are calcium, which is best supplied by milk, and vitamin B₁₂, which is not supplied by any plant food. In addition, vegans reportedly have high incidence of dental disease and higher than normal risks of iron deficiency anemia. Despite these potential problems, though, a majority of modern-day vegans seem to manage quite well on their austere diet. T.A.B. Sanders goes so far as to suggest that a vegan type diet supplemented by vitamins B₁₂ and D may be the diet of choice for victims of ischemic heart disease, angina pectoris, and certain hyperlipidemias (conditions of excess fat in the blood). “The few clinical studies made so far in Britain and United States,” he adds, “have not been able to identity any real differences in the health of vegans compared with omnivores.”

Yet as we have said, care and intelligence are necessary in adopting the vegan eating style. Reports of multiple nutrient deficiencies have surfaced periodically in the literature, especially among children in poorly informed vegan communitics. It is not difficult to avoid such problems, as you can see in the suggestions below.

Vitamin B₁₂

Since it is not supplied by plant foods but comes ultimately from microorganisms, vitamin B₁₂ is usually considered the critical nutrient in the vegan diet. B₁₂ deficiency is a very serious problem, which over time can harm the spinal cord. The problem proceeds unnoticeably and very slowly, but can cause irreversible damage.

Despite this danger, some popular writers today are discounting the vegan’s need for vitamin B₁₂, since deficiency problems have been quite rare in this country. We can’t go along with this attitude. The risks involved are so serious, and preventive measures so simple, that it seems foolhardy to disregard them. Please don’t court a B₁₂ deficiency! If you work into your diet the suggestions below, and make them a habit, you can be a vegan without fuss or worry.

One simple way to get your B₁₂ is by using fortified soy milk. However, commercial soy milk products are often designed not for vegans, but for meat eating children who are allergic to milk, so the amount of B₁₂ supplied may be too low to he practical. Check the label to see what percent of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for B₁₂ is met by one glassful. If it is as little as 10%, you’ll need ten glasses to meet the RDA, and you can suspect that the manufacturer had the allergic omnivore in mind.

Another way to get vitamin B₁₂ is to eat tempeh or miso every day. Of the two, tempeh is the more reliable source of B₁₂, but only if it has been specifically fermented with Kiebsiella bacteria along with the usual mold. Other fermented foods, such as natto and even shoyu, may contain B₁₂, but this should not be counted on.

Some types of nutritional yeast are grown on B₁₂ enriched media, and these too are reliable sources. Regular nutritional yeast has no B₁₂ at all, so be sure to check the label.

Finally, you can take a vitamin pill. B₁₂ supplements generally come in high dosages, so you may need only one a week. The RDA level might also be supplied by daily multiple vitamin pills: again, check the label to see that it lists at least 2 micrograms of B₁₂.

Calcium

Calcium intake is commonly listed among the vegan’s problem nutrients, and our own experience tallies with this. One of our good friends avoided dairy products for fifteen years until he discovered that his bones had deteriorated with severe osteoporosis. As is often the case with this disease, there was no sign of a problem until trivial stress on a bone resulted in a painful fracture. He was under forty years old at the time, very active physically and very well informed about nutrition. While aware that his calcium intake was low compared to the RDA, he had believed that this low intake would be adequate. Now he is using milk and calcium supplements in an attempt to strengthen his compromised bones.

It is not unlikely that this friend has an unusual hormonal problem which causes his body to waste calcium. Most people, evidence suggests, can adjust over time to very low levels of calcium in the diet, by absorbing it with great efficiency. But which of us knows whether he or she is in that fortunate majority? As with B₁₂, we advise caution: the consequences of error are painful and the remedies simple. We suggest that every vegan monitor calcium intake and make sure that it stays at RDA levels.

Protein and Energy Needs

The medical information available on vegans indicates that they have no trouble getting enough protein. The key, though, is getting enough calories. In our experience, it is possible for a vegan to develop a marginal protein deficiency if he or she simply gets too little food. To be a healthy vegan, in other words, you have to be a big eater. The sheer volume of a vegan’s normal meals can give the impression of gluttony. Yet according to the literature, very few vegans are overweight—certainly none we know. It simply takes a lot of food to run a vegan body.

Vegans we know tend to have a sweet tooth. We suspect that this is partly due to a need for calories—plain energy. Some of the medical cautions against too much sugar may not apply here, since the available literature on vegans’ blood lipids and ability to handle glucose show that as a group, they are at very low risk for obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. However, as noted earlier, vegans reportedly do have more dental caries than normal. (You can’t have everything.)

Actually, the most important threat that sweets pose for vegans may be simply letting sugar, even in fruits, crowd out more nutritious foods. Fortunately, most vegans probably stay clear of junk foods like candy, soft drinks, commercial potato chips, doughnuts, and fast food items, the worst offenders in nutrient crowd-out.

_{Excerpted with permission from The New Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition. Ten Speed Press. Berkeley, California.}