Frustrated with dietician

[coelacanth]

At college it is hard for me to find food to eat in the dining hall. I am allergic to onions, lentils, beans, eggs, dairy, and honey and on top of that I am vegan. (Unfortunately onion is an incredibly common ingredient in recipes.) I have been eating a very monotonous diet for the first few weeks of school and thus have felt more faint and had more gastrointestinal issues that I did not have before. (I've considered cooking for myself, but my dorm doesn't have a kitchen.)

However, the school does offer special diets to people who have severe allergies or religious restrictions. I went to the dietician thinking I would be able to make the case for a special diet. Instead she told me that my "choice" to be vegan was too restrictive and bordered on a mental illness. She said that someone with allergies should never consider a vegan diet. I'm pretty frustrated right now because the idea of eating most animal products does not appeal to me at all. If I ate them I would feel like a hypocrite for espousing vegan values without following through myself.

Logically, I know that all I can do is the best I can, and that I need to balance my own needs with the needs of animals and the environment. But it's very hard to choose, "OK, which kind of meat or fish produces the least suffering?"

What would you do in this situation?

[mogenblue]

Vegetarian or vegan was never really an issue to me until my health started to deteriorate. It improved when I switched to vegetarian and it improved even more when I moved on to vegan.

I didn't do it for ethical reasons. However spiritual reasons did gave me the go ahead to finally give it a try. I had learned that spirits in the spheres of light are all vegetarian. So at any point in my evolution I would have to move to vegan anyway.

If I were you I would set the ethics aside for as long is needed. Try to find a way to make your own food asap.
Your health and your study should come first at the moment.
As soon as you are able to cook your own vegan food I would switch back.

Maybe you could buy a freezer for your dorm. Lots of vegan food can be frozen easily: hummus, bean burgers etcetera. If you can get vegan food elsewhere you could freeze it and then you only need to thaw it and perhaps heat it up in a micro wave before consumption.
I almost always freeze my vegan food to preserve it for a longer time. It happens quite a lot that I have hummus on bread which is more then a month old. Still taste great.

[neil]

So what about the rest of the vegan raw foods...

Avocado, nuts, carrots, fruit, celery, vegetable. There are so many alternatives & try wrapping those alternatives in kelp/seaweed sheets.

Or get on the net...there are gazillions of awseome simple vegan food alternatives.

Tofu, tomatoes, cucumber, ( kelp...in different forms)..ext ext ext on their own or on some form of cracker that might best suit your needs.

& there are so many dips, spreads & mayonnaise that do not have in them, what you have mentioned in your post.

Go on line today. ...RIGHT NOW (DO NOT DELAY)...."SMILES"...FIND YOUR NICH FOODS..

Then have another chat with your dietitian...

I hope I have been a help to you and your dilemma....as I have had to suffer similar circumstances.

SMILES FROM ME...NEIL.

Ps & what about rice, can they not boil rice for you, then you could combine it asian style with so many other foods.
Im boiling rice at the moment directly in coconut milk for flavor, then im going strain it then mix it with raw avacado & possibly cury, lime juice,... & if it goes cold I might even mix a vegan shop purchased mayonnaise with it.
Can you tolerate a sweet chilly sauce. .....there are vegan sweet chilly sauces that you could carry with you to add to their boring foods that they supply.

The vegan food web is there with so many alternatives.

Anyway I know that we are not you and that we can only guess as to your needs...so go on line soon as eh SMILES.

[RosieGeller]

you have a million kinds of vegetble combinations left! Boiled, steamed, mixed in salads, different seasoning and sauces.. I recommend you read any vegan recepies web-site, and just save 10-15 recepies, and then ince you get tired, refresh them.

[coelacanth]

Originally Posted by RosieGeller

you have a million kinds of vegetble combinations left! Boiled, steamed, mixed in salads, different seasoning and sauces.. I recommend you read any vegan recepies web-site, and just save 10-15 recepies, and then ince you get tired, refresh them.

As I stated in my post above, I live in a small dorm with no kitchen. I don't have the space to prepare food or the money to look up obscure ingredients.

[mogenblue]

Originally Posted by coelacanth

I am allergic to onions, lentils, beans, eggs, dairy, and honey and on top of that I am vegan.

Instead she told me that my "choice" to be vegan was too restrictive and bordered on a mental illness. She said that someone with allergies should never consider a vegan diet.

I think you do have good grounds to ask for special treatment.
You have to play the health card.
Being vegan is certainly not bordered on a mental illness. And people with allergies may certainly find solace in a plant based diet.
I think your dietician needs an update on the current state of affairs.

I will show you some links that I regularly use to make my point in discussions across the web. You can use them for perhaps another consult with your dietician.

Healthy Eating Plate & Healthy Eating Pyramid

Risk in Red Meat?

Vegetarian Diets Linked to Lower Mortality

Vegetarian and Vegan Diets

Fresh Fruit Consumption and Major Cardiovascular Disease in China

A Plant-Based Diet Causes Weight Loss, According to New Mega-Study

The Health Advantage of a Vegan Diet: Exploring the Gut Microbiota Connection

Eating More Fruits & Vegetables Tied to Happiness
The actual report:
Evolution of Well-Being and Happiness After Increases in Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables

You could say that a university might be concerned with the overall health of their students on the long term. So promoting a plant-based diet is promoting a healthy diet with a long term vision. Or something along those lines.

For your personal information:
The spiritual side of a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle
Understand that you are a forerunner. Being grumpy about your situation will not help you. You need to be positive and see this as an early opportunity to make a difference.

Try. I know it's not easy. Don't expect to be successful, but at least you can try. Such changes take a long time to take effect in society, very long.

[mogenblue]

Here is one more:

Disease Prevention
Please note: 70% of annual deaths in the US are due to chronic diseases.
And: 75% of US health care dollars are devoted to treat these diseases.

Although professionals at Harvard don't promoot a complete plant based diet their advice does point towards it.
As you can see in their healthy eating plate a healthy diet already is mostly plant based, for up to 3/4 of the total!
You should minimize the importance of animal food and emphasize the plant based alternatives for it. That could be the overall strategy for your talk.

If you should consider another consult with your dietician be sure to be prepared. Work out your arguments ahead of the talk.

[Debrah]

Originally Posted by coelacanth

At college it is hard for me to find food to eat in the dining hall. I am allergic to onions, lentils, beans, eggs, dairy, and honey and on top of that I am vegan. (Unfortunately onion is an incredibly common ingredient in recipes.) I have been eating a very monotonous diet for the first few weeks of school and thus have felt more faint and had more gastrointestinal issues that I did not have before. (I've considered cooking for myself, but my dorm doesn't have a kitchen.)

However, the school does offer special diets to people who have severe allergies or religious restrictions. I went to the dietician thinking I would be able to make the case for a special diet. Instead she told me that my "choice" to be vegan was too restrictive and bordered on a mental illness. She said that someone with allergies should never consider a vegan diet. I'm pretty frustrated right now because the idea of eating most animal products does not appeal to me at all. If I ate them I would feel like a hypocrite for espousing vegan values without following through myself.

Logically, I know that all I can do is the best I can, and that I need to balance my own needs with the needs of animals and the environment. But it's very hard to choose, "OK, which kind of meat or fish produces the least suffering?"

What would you do in this situation?

Have you ever been tested for food sensitivities?

I noticed you mentioned lentils and beans, so I was wondering, does that include green peas and tofu? And do you ever eat wheat or nuts because those would be protein sources for you? For example, whole wheat toast with peanut butter and some fruit would be a good breakfast starter.

Then of course, there's also quinoa that could be added to a bowl of cereal in the morning. I make up a mixture of rolled oats, raw pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, quinoa flakes, some walnut pieces and enough raisins to give it a bit of sweetness and then rice milk. A great raw breakfast cereal that you could store dry and then just pour the rice milk over top. So between the seeds and nuts and rice milk, you'd be getting a bit of a start on your days protein requirements.

[Debrah]

It's sure too bad the dietician was so unhelpful. I know the American Dietetic Association (as well as several other 'authorities) have endorsed a well planned vegan diet for health.

[mogenblue]

That's a good tip, Debrah. I looked it up and added it to my bookmarks.

Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets.

That website has more interesting articles about vegetarian and vegan diets.