Can you be vegan and also be involved in fermentation? I go into this and other topics on today’s show.
After living a vegan lifestyle for about 10 years now, I think I can talk to a few of the issues that people bring up all the time. I feel this is one of the best ways to live, but I also think that if you’re living a sustainable lifestyle and you’re not vegan, you could actually be doing more GOOD than the typical vegan idealist is.
Also, if you ARE vegan (or vegetarian), have you truly thought about what your definition of vegan (or vegetarian) is for yourself? Have you actually gone through the thought process and traced the path of where your vegetarian food comes from and how it’s processed?
You can truly be a good force in the world showing your passion for being vegan, but blindly following anything can also have great pitfalls and be harming the planet more than you think it’s doing good.
I hope you enjoy today’s show. Let me know what you think in the show notes!
TOPICS INCLUDED IN TODAY’S FERMENTATION PODCAST:
- Why did I turn vegan and what got me thinking about going vegan 10 years ago?
- What are some great books on veganism etc.?
- Any books by John Robbins
- Food Revolution
- Reclaiming Our Health
- May All Be Fed
- Healthy at 100
- The New Good Life
- Other books
- The China Study
- Slaughterhouse
- Mad Cowboy
- Any books by John Robbins
- The story of my dad and why that still drives me to learn about health and nutrition
- The arguments as to why you SHOULD go vegan
- The arguments as to why you should NEVER go vegan
- My conclusions after 10 years on the following arguments for and against vegan diets including:
- You get more fiber on a vegan diet
- You aren’t consuming cancer-causing meats, dairy products, and eggs
- Less accumulated toxins from bioaccumulation
- You’re not killing animals on a vegan diet (or are you?)
- You’re not supporting a system that’s abusing animals
- Cycling grain through animals is unsustainable
- Grazing animals leads to the degradation of soil and how we could use this to our advantage
- Animals produce large amount of methane and create pollution and how we could harness this energy
- Plants don’t have enough protein or where do you get your protein?
- Plants don’t have complete protein
- There’s no natural form of B12 in a vegan’s diet
- You don’t get enough vitamin D such as the amount in milk
- Never been a culture history that’s lived on a purely vegan diet
- You get more grains on a vegan diet and we’re not meant to eat grains
- Can anyone truly be vegan and what is the definition of vegan?
- What is sustainable and can you be sustainable without being vegan?
- I compare being vegan to that of the organic label and how this is not a compliment
- Different eating styles that are based on starch like The McDougall Diet, the hunter/gatherer paleo diet, the Mediterranean diet, and
- Examples of things I eat on a regular basis
- Can you be vegan and involved in fermentation?
LINKS FOR TODAY’S SHOW:
- Subscribe to Email (to get updates on blogs & new shows)
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- Like us on Facebook
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- Diet for a New America by John Robbins (Amazon)
- Healthy at 100 by John Robbins (Amazon)
- The China Study by T. Colin Campbell
- Dr. John McDougall
- Dr. McDougall’s Newsletter: Where do you get your protein?
- Allan Savory: How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change
- Geoff Lawton: Biogas Digester with 3 Dairy Cows Provides Enough Cooking Fuel for 6 People
- What Enzymes Are Used to Break Down Carbohydrates
I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show so be sure to comment below or if you have an idea for the show, email me at paul at fermentationpodcast.com or just click on the Contact button on top of this page and fill out the form. I look forward to hearing from you!
4 comments
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Great show. I’m finding there is lots of room for fermentation in a starchivore diet. You talked me in to reading “Healthy at 100”. Lucky me, I was able to reserve it online from my local library. Best wishes.
Author
That’s great Letha! I think Healthy at 100 is such a great book to read no matter what kind of a diet someone’s following. If you can find the population of people around the world that live to 100 regularly, they must be doing something right.
Critique on the China Study interpretation by Campbell: http://chriskresser.com/rest-in-peace-china-study
B12 deficiency: http://chriskresser.com/what-everyone-especially-vegetarians-should-know-about-b12-deficiency
Author
I’m always open to new information when it comes to health and diet so I’m always considering new data.
As far as The China Study, I don’t think any study is really perfect, but I think it does have a lot of great information in it that does seem to hold up in terms of populations of people living with less amounts of heart disease and cancer. For me, I think the main idea that I take away from a lot of books and studies really is just getting closer to the whole food and away from processed junk.
For B12, I’ve been vegan for about 10 years now and my levels are fine. It’s possible some people out there might have a deficiency and they would have to supplement, but I think it’s pretty rare. The body has a pretty amazing mechanism for storing B12 in the liver where there’s a 3 year supply, and then it’s reabsorbed, stored, and recirculated again giving a person who went on a strict “no B12″ diet a 20-30 year supply before they would actually run out.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/nov/b12.htm
I’ve seen so many people healthy on so many different diets though. It’s just one way to live your life.