What are the benefits to your body from your veggie/vegan diet?

[mogenblue]

I know there is a thread about why you are a vegetarian or vegan but I would like to focus specifically about the benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet for your own body.

When people with a regular meat diet find out you are vegetarian/vegan they sometimes look at you as if you are from a different planet and don't understand the necessity of a healthy meat diet.
I have some strong benefits from my vegan diet on my health and I use them to confront such people with them. It's not meant to convert them to vegetarianism, it's only to defend myself and to show them that my choice is better for my health then a meat diet. I let it up to them to decide if a veggie/vegan diet would be good for them too. After all I have to admit that it took me until I was 49 before I finally made the switch myself.

My reasons to initially switch to a vegetarian diet were problems with my digestion and a permanent hungry feeling. When I finished dinner in the evening I often felt hungry again right away as if I hadn't eaten at all and so I would want to start eating again. And I began to have heart burn quite regular as well. I also suffered from severe overweight and whatever I tried it was only a jojo effect. My overweight also limited my mobility because it had become very difficult for me to walk. My knees would hurt very quickly.

So:

• bad digestion
• permanent hunger
• heart burn
• overweight
• limited mobility

When I went vegetarian the bad digestion and permanent hunger disappeared. But my heart burn, overweight and thus limited mobility were not solved yet.
I had replaced milk with fortified soydrink to address my daily needs of proteins, calcium and vitamin B12.
When I removed cheese from my diet 2 years after I went veggie my body was suddenly able to tap into it's fat reserves and losing weight started to happen without almost no effort at all. That was an amazing experience.

Losing weight also meant that my mobility was in for change. Because if you are lighter your knees have less to suffer. So I started to walk again with a walkingstick. I gradually expanded my range from 20 to 30 minutes and after six months I dropped the stick. I can now walk for 2 or 3 hours and I feel great.

A few months ago I started to make my own soymilk. That was a great thing to do. I sometimes needed inflammatories because I have arthritis in my right knee. Soybeans appear to have a substance that act as a natural inflammatory. I noticed that when I started to make my own soymilk I didn't need medical inflammatories anymore. My knees have gotten stronger and healthier.
Anybody with arthritis or stiff joints knows what a blessing that is.

All in all I now feel much better about myself. Healthier and good. And that is all due to my vegan diet.

So whenever someone now asks me if I am sane for going vegan I ask them if they have heart burn or overweight and what distance they can walk. That is usually enough to get them quiet and start thinking about their own health.

People are always interested in their own health. That goes before anything else because it triggers your survival instinct. Your life and the quality of your life depends on a healthy diet.

Do you have any benefits for your health from your veggie or vegan diet? I would really like to know.

Well, more or less I gained the same benefits as you , I also feel lighter and healthier in general. And not aging as my other friends :) . I'm mainly on fruits and eat raw. I also have much better mental health than before. When some one asks me about my eating habit or criticize me for being a veggie, I just remind them that our teeth or not made to bite and eat meat, like lion and wolves.. I don't force anyone to become a veggie or vegan, but it would be much easier if they wouldn't criticize me. :)

P.s. I am glad you are in a great health now :)

[LPC]

Originally Posted by mogenblue

When people with a regular meat diet find out you are vegetarian/vegan they sometimes look at you as if you are from a different planet and don't understand the necessity of a healthy meat diet.

I assume that you meant to write, "....of a healthy meatless diet?"

That's a great personal testimony for veganism that you have written in your post. You seem to have approached it after careful research, too. I'm glad that you made sure that calcium and B12 were included.

[sunsoul]

Great summary there..

I do believe that going veggie will help digestion because the food that you are consuming will be a lot easier to process within the body compared to meat!

I have been vegetarian for around 20 years and it has been quite easy for me. I have never felt hungry or tired. Yes, generally I feel lighter on my feet and energetic.

Nutrition is quite a big area and there are lots of theories out there, as well as new information. Personally, I stopped drinking soy milk. There is some research that links soy to heightened risks of cancer and other aliments. We are talking about consuming soy products regularly (i.e. everyday). I think there was also some research done in Japan on this as they tend to consume a lot of soy products as well.

Rice milk may be a better option. Or, just to cut down on soy in your diet and drink soy milk a couple of times a week, for example.

Others will probably know more..

[Lightspirit]

Can I have a go too? I am a vegan if one year and vegetarian of 7 years.

Most noticeable things are:

A kind of an inner peace and respect for living things only other vegetarians relate to.

Look younger.

Feel Clean inside.

More energy because you live on health food.

Can't remember what it is like to be constipated.

Don't feel sluggish after meals like I did with eating meat.

Don't get issues with salmonella or accidentally get cross contamination food poisoning anymore.

Did I mention not ageing fast and everyone thinks your younger than you are?
:)


No diabeties or high blood pressure or bad blood test results. The doctor patted me on the back at my last checkup and said keep doing that and you will live a long time.

Very low bad cholesterol blood test results.

[Lightspirit]

Originally Posted by sunsoul

Great summary there..

I do believe that going veggie will help digestion because the food that you are consuming will be a lot easier to process within the body compared to meat!

I have been vegetarian for around 20 years and it has been quite easy for me. I have never felt hungry or tired. Yes, generally I feel lighter on my feet and energetic.

Nutrition is quite a big area and there are lots of theories out there, as well as new information. Personally, I stopped drinking soy milk. There is some research g that links soy to heightened risks of cancer and other aliments. We are talking about consuming soy products regularly (i.e. everyday). I think there was also some research done in Japan on this as they tend to consume a lot of soy products as well.

Rice milk may be a better option. Or, just to cut down on soy in your diet and drink soy milk a couple of times a week, for example.

Others will probably know more..

soy milk is yuk. Of all of them fake milk things if you can find some nice tasting almond milk it is the best option by far

[mogenblue]

Originally Posted by LPC

I assume that you meant to write, "....of a healthy meatless diet?"

That's a great personal testimony for veganism that you have written in your post. You seem to have approached it after careful research, too. I'm glad that you made sure that calcium and B12 were included.

Thank you LPC.
No, I did mean to write meat diet. I was talking from the perspective of a meat eater. I just had a talk with one two weeks ago. I noticed some disdain in his attitude towards me, but when I asked him about heartburn and his overweight he gradually got quiet. I told him I had lost considerable weight with my vegan diet and then he replied it probably felt good on my knees too....
So I eagerly confirmed that and told him I am now able to walk for two or three hours and gave him a few examples of the distances I can walk here in Amsterdam. That got him real silent and he bowed his head.
That man was 60 and he had a big belly. He also had heartburn and because of his weight his knees would hurt easily. You could see he walked carefully too because of his joints.


I read an interesting article about soy at veganhealth.org: Soy: What's the Harm?. It's written by Jack Norris RD. An abridged, less technical version of this article is Response to Not Soy Fast.

My personal experience with soy is very positive. The most remarkable thing is the disappearence of joint inflammation. Soy is also very cheap. Almond and coconut are much more expensive but I am thinking of mixing almond flour and coconut fibers in the soy spread that I use for sandwich spread. I think it will be tasty. I hope so.

Originally Posted by Nana

P.s. I am glad you are in a great health now :)

Thank you Nana. Yes it's great to be so alive again. I suppose you must experience similar things then. Two years ago I didn't even dream of being so mobile anymore. I thought I was going for a stainless steel knee. Well, the way it looks now that is never going to happen.

Originally Posted by mogenblue

Thank you LPC.


Thank you Nana. Yes it's great to be so alive again. I suppose you must experience similar things then. Two years ago I didn't even dream of being so mobile anymore. I thought I was going for a stainless steel knee. Well, the way it looks now that is never going to happen.

Yes I almost had the same experiences. I broke my right knee in 2009, had a really hard time with that and since I was not walking I put on weight. But then when I became a veggie in 2009 I started feel all better in many areas. :)

[sunsoul]

One of the main issues is the difference between non-processed and naturally fermented soy and the kind of soy products that we consume in the West:

"Unlike the Asian culture, where people eat small amounts of whole non-GMO soybean products, western food processors separate the soybean into two golden commodities—protein and oil. And there is nothing natural or safe about these products.

Dr. Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story, points out thousands of studies linking soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune-system breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and infertility—even cancer and heart disease."

articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/18/soy-can-damage-your-health.aspx

Good summaries:
vegnutrition.com/soy/
experiencelife.com/article/soy-to-eat-or-not-to-eat/

[mogenblue]

I agree that soy in moderate quantities would be recommendable.

A few months ago I started making my own soy milk from dried soy beans and it was way to powerful at first. I used 80 grams of beans for 1 liter and drank a liter a day. Some recipes I read stated to use 100 or 120 grams per liter.
I have now brought that down to 50 grams for 1.2 liter and use only 0.4 liter a day. Plus the residu which I use on bread. I'm great with it and it tastes good.

So the soy milk I now use is home made. So that means without any factory processing. As pure as can be. It's not even fermented.