medman

Thanks for the info, DV. I apologize for my lack of knowledge regarding spriulina and B12.

Thanks... I'm 39 and I'll turn 40 next year WOW. Really? I would never have guessed. Keep it up!!

"Mr. Lee's abs"? Looks more like "Bruce Lee's abs" now! Good work! What core routine have you been doing?

I'm going to do a more thorough check of the place this weekend. The only "protein supplements" they carry under that category are prepackaged and are as expensive as any nutrition store. I just noticed that the "soy milk powder" is essentially a non-isolate soy protein. I'll take a look to see if they have any gluten, rice protein, etc - gluten I'm sure they have, since it's used in a lot of cooking (but I wouldn't want to supplement with gluten instead of soy), but I don't know what else they might have. I'll see. In any case, I'm going to go pick myself up a kilo of the dirt cheap soy milk powder and see how it is! It's definitely less processed and is in less wasteful packaging than what I have now, though I might have to find a way to flavour it a bit.

I think maybe it's more that when you are rich, nobody expects you to do any thinking

Those veggie burgers look great to me, at least! I like ones where you can see the ingredients - the homogenized meat imitations seem much less like real food (and, ironically, it seems that they're meant to look like meat to appease the meat-eaters. I don't know too many veg*ns who care about having their burger look like a meat one).

I'm actually at a very similar ratio! Although two days a week, when I lift, I'm a bit closer to 20% protein. I don't try hard to get that ratio - but it turns out that my regular diet is in that range. I have a feeling my cardio is standing in the way of weight gain right now, but even with heavy cardio and weights just twice a week, I've been managing to add some mass with that diet.

Hypothetical situation: nasty cooking accident. Arterial bleed (spurting, hard to stop). You lose a lot of blood and start feeling fuzzy. Would you actually prefer to die, young and healthy, than to accept a blood transfusion? I guess this situation wouldn't likely come up; if you lost so much blood that you'd need a transfusion, you'd probably have passed out by the time the paramedics got there, and an unconscious victim means implied consent to treatment, hehe. Yes, there are parts of the world where tainted blood and stolen organs are a problem. But do you know how many diseases can be cause by tainted plant-based food? I wouldn't see that as a reason to stop eating, though. I'm not a fan of that kind of argument.

You eat mayo? Is it vegenaise or one of those products? Real mayo is egg-based.

I wouldn't conclude that anything that contains an isolate is necessarily "bad for you" - but it definitely isn't "as healthy" as whole-food alternatives. It would depend on how high up the list of ingredients it's found (something in small amounts in the food will have a much smaller impact!), how much and how often you eat the food. Also, as a recent vegan, there's some value in having a few "direct replacement" products to help ease you into vegan cooking. When I was a newly minted veg*n, I ate a fair amount of those 'meat replacement' products in lunches and things like that, because it was easy and familiar. Now I barely ever eat them because I've become acquainted with a much wider variety of vegan food. Also - keep in mind that peanuts are legumes, not nuts, so if your doctor said to avoid nuts - you should ask specifically about peanuts.

I adjusted to it without sour cream years ago when I went vegan, but I'll have to try soaked cashews and sunflower seeds! Very creative. And yes - you have to watch out for the laxative effect! I'm Your Man: I very strongly disagree with you on the issue of transfusions, transplants & the concept of cannibalism (I missed that post until I saw it quoted). I will tell you something similar to part of my discussion with RTascajr regarding my personal interest in surgery rather than a more preventive form of medicine. There are simply things - both accidents and disease - that diet and exercise can't prevent. If you're out cycling, which is ironically a great way to help with staying healthy, and a negligent motorist hits you, hard - maybe you're now bleeding intracranially. The only thing that can be done to save your life is to drill a hole into your skull to relieve the pressure. Now, you're probably losing a lot of blood in this process - without a transfusion, you would surely die. To the child with leukemia, who needs a bone marrow transplant - do you believe that they and their parents should learn to deal with death, natural a process as it might be, when they have a real chance at living a full life with a transplant? The child did nothing to contribute to their condition - I doubt they were smoking or playing with radioisotopes. There are many babies, children, and adults who need transplants - due to either genetic disorders or accidents that had nothing to do with lifestyle choices. Every donation of blood, tissues and organs can be used to save a life (or try to, at the very least) that would otherwise be lost. We aren't farming people for body parts or anything - the donations to not end life or cause suffering to the donor, but they can greatly help those in need. If I die a sudden, accidental death, I hope that nearly all of my organs are recovered quickly and in good enough condition that they can be transplanted - at least that way, I can contribute just a little bit more good before the story of my life is over.

B12 is a serious issue if you have no source of it for a prolonged period of time - like the case study of an elderly lifelong vegan who woke up blind one day. After an intravenous B12 infusion, he was up and back to normal. B12 deficiency can also cause symptoms of pernicious anemia (pernicious anemia is technically cause by impaired absorption of B12, but a lack of B12 intake can produce similar symptoms). B12 really is essential to health - but it is also the vitamin that you require in the least quantity. If you're not a raw vegan, chances are you get plenty from soy milk alone since it's usually fortified with B12. Those processed meat replacements are also fortified.

Tumbleweed - health is certainly one of the big reasons to go vegan. The great thing is that, regardless of what draws you to veganism, the end result is threefold - positive health, environmental, and animal rights effects. You're right about the "counterculture" aura around veganism. In the US in particular, the media is insane. Oops, I mean "overly conservative". If you aren't enjoying your steak and apple pie with red white and blue sparklers in it, you're a communist and the terrorists have won. A lot of great things are slapped with a "hippie" label and are made taboo - a great example is hemp. It's great for you, great for the environment, and you can make clothes and paper out of it. It's still banned from being grown in the US because it's related to marijuana, even though it doesn't contain THC in it and isn't a drug! You and your brother should both be proud - you've managed to find and make a great lifestyle choice despite the media and attitudes around you.

This is absolutely true - if one 'medium' banana has 105 calories (nutritiondata.com), then eat two, and "bam!" you have 210 calories of banana. If you want to count calories, a kitchen scale is an incredible tool. You can weigh your food and do the math. One cup of shelled sunflower seeds weighs about 128g and has 745 calories. Do some simple math and you'll find that you get 200 calories from just under 1/4 cup. You can find the nutritional info for pretty much all your foods on the package (if it's packaged) or online (if it's something like produce). Combine that info with a scale and a pocket calculator and you can eat as many calories or whichever food as you want!

Those recipes with beets sound sooo good. If you're not a raw vegan, a good cold bowl of borscht is incredibly refreshing in the summer as well! There's probably even a way to make a raw borscht-type dish as well.

Aside from being offended by the policies (which I could totally understand), there are a lot of blood products they can make without using your blood for a regular transfusion. My type AB+ blood would probably be used in the same way. They still need it (I really need to go make an appointment now, hehe).

I loved the spelling mistakes. Truly an entertaining read. Oh, especially about how getting too many fruit and vitamins weakens the immune system

I don't, and I know I should. It's one of my secret shames. I've kind of been relying on the rationalization that I'm AB+ (the only people who can use my blood are other AB+s, and we're the ones who can take absolutely anybody's blood - we're the universal recipient). It's not a good reason at all; there are AB+ people who need blood, and there are blood products that could be made from my donation that really are needed.

Tuc, I just wanted to tell you that you are a real inspiration! I've been going through your posts and seeing the results you've gotten over the months. Really impressive! Especially considering you were doing it at home. I'll have to take some of your tips to heart!

"It's a mountain, of course it's steep." "We've gone through 75 pounds of bananas over the past 3 days" Those two made me laugh out loud, just picturing the scenario that led to them. Sounds like a blast!

Thanks for the welcome, everyone!

There are plenty of non-soy legumes that you can use...chick peas, lentils, kidney/navy/lima/romano/(insert 20 other names) beans. They are all high in protein. And as for non-wheat grains, there are tons and tons of great things out there. Quinoa is one of the most nutrition-packed grains out there, you should definitely give it a shot. There are also lots of non-wheat pastas out there made of everything you can imagine (my most recent local discovery was a health food store that had a brown rice/quinoa macaroni!). Of course, if you want to try your hand at eating raw, you'd be avoiding most things made with soy or wheat anyway. My experience with this is pretty limited but there's an entire subforum here dedicated to it with a lot of experienced people in it!

I know exactly what you mean. I consider it an investment in health - both my health, and the planet's health, plus an investment in the good farmers out there (the farmers are often taking an economic risk by growing organic). Some people invest in pharmaceutical companies or oil companies, etc, etc in the stock market...while my investment might not be giving a financial return, the 'returns' are in my health and in supporting the farmers out there who are "doing things right." I could save a lot of money by eating McDonald's and Wonderbread sandwiches, but I'd just have to spend it again on all that pesky insulin and lipitor. And then think of how much money I'd be losing when I retire and/or die years earlier because of it.

I have to agree - that's quite the upper body for a "starting point"!! Good luck with your 5x5 - let us know how it goes!

The cost of meat will be rising a lot more. There's a LOT more fossil fuel that goes into all the transport/agriculture involved in growing all that grain to feed the cattle, and the transportation of the cattle and (refrigerated) meat as well. The cost of meat hasn't skyrocketed yet because the beef farmers are still selling cows raised a couple of years ago. With the rising cost of fuel and grain, the meat industry will be hit hard. Many times the amount of fuel and grain go into producing meat compared to vegan food. They will feel the crunch soon, the 'current stock' was just a bit of a price buffer for the short-term. On a related note, my uncle is a beef farmer. My whole immediate family is veg*n. Makes for some interesting holiday get-togethers.