Sport Any advice for vegetarians?

[ophix]

Well, I'm not a true vegan, in that I do eat a very small amount of meat (when I'm eating at someone else's house mainly). But at home I avoid all meats, dairy, etc. Occasionally I may eat a small amount of meat at home as well if I haven't in awhile. Basically I think animal products CAN provide a lot of nutrience, but at the same time I think it's important to reduce your intake of them as much as you can and get the nutrition from plants.

I eat a lot of nuts. Walnuts and some round white nut that's unlabeled at the store (they're pretty much perfect spheres, almost pure white under the shell), and almonds. I also eat lots of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and flax or salba.

I eat plenty of raisins and dried cranberries. I also eat a lot of fruits. Strawberry, blueberry, rasberry, blackberry, gooseberry, peach, plum, banana, etc. I'll eat just about any fruits.

As far as vegetables, etc go. I try to eat lots of beans and lentils, as well as spinach, peppers of all colour, onions, tomatoes (sometimes I buy the multicoloured gourmet packages).

A standard meal for me would be a spinach leaf salad with pretty much everything I've listed above. I always use some sort of fruits and dried fruits, nuts, and seeds, and always base the salad with spinach leaf.

I should be eating broccoli probably. I'm just wondering what advice you can give me on how to eat. I'm not interested in supplements of any sort, I'd rather eat more and just be more active to compensate if need be.

As far as meat goes, I'll eat any meat. I avoid all the fast food stuff, occasionally I'll eat chinese takeout or something, or someone will cook something with bacon or a fattier meat, but generally I try to eat the best meat that I can. I don't eat seafood however. Aquatic foliage (algae and seaweeds) I do eat.

 

[Phate89]

What are your goals?

Doesn't look like you need any advice since you seem to have it down.

 

[tjl]

Looks like you are picking very nutritious foods in general, unlike a lot of people (omnivores and vegetarians). You could add additional types of vegetables for nutritional and taste variety. For example, the broccoli that you mention, but also other broccoli class vegetables like kale, various cabbages, "oil vegetable" (leaves of canola oil plant), etc.. Dark leaf lettuce, pea sprouts, sweet potatoes, carrots, daikon, and other vegetables are also available. Fruit wise, you can add citrus fruits, kiwis, and other fruits if you want even more variety.

When you do eat meat, don't overlook fish, at least those which do not have high mercury contamination (e.g. sardines, wild salmon).

 

[matt182]

I wouldn'y diss supplements too much, how are you getting enough iron etc?

 

[ophix]

Well, firstly, IMHO I think the recommended intake values we're told to consume are a load of crap. Just like the food pyramid they gave us turned out to be.

If you look at their recommended nutritional intake, you'll find that their standards are pretty much unachievable without consuming supplements, or foods we would rarely, if ever, get the chance to consume without technology or domestication of livestock. According to their recommendations, it's virtually impossible to get enough calcium in your diet without consuming dairy. Something which almost half of Americans are unable to digest without problems, and which studies are coming out that suggest most humans don't even have the enzyme required to properly absorb nutrience out of milk. I figure we managed to survive in environments that weren't full of cattle, or wild animals that wouldn't mind some person coming up to milk them, and the remains of those people don't show weak bones, in fact they often show the opposite.

So, just my opinion, but I think as long as you can make sure you're eating all sorts of foods that are good sources of all sorts of nutrience, your body isn't going to starve itself. Those recommended daily values and nutritional information on foods is pretty redundant. Nutrience content will vary with the health of the specimen you're eating, nutritional requirements will vary between individual bodies, and all these calculations about metabolism and nutrition are based on so much assumption and generalization that the factors they predetermine just for the purpose of finding a number to print for the public, are so widespread and crucial to the overall results, that any number you see printed up on a website, or any equation which doesn't require an advanced level of math, is ultimately a redundant number you may as well draw from a hat, because it's giving minimal, if any consideration to your individual health/requirements.

Not to mention that they aren't actually allowed to tell you not to eat something, even if they deem it a health hazard, because the suppliers of that food will get pissed off and make them change it (happened with the beef industry).

I know this is contrary to what many people on these forums probably feel, but I look at health not in terms of "what are we doing and learning now to be healthy" but more in terms of "how did we thrive before our survival was a pretty much given part of life". Our modern concept of health is way too influenced by companies trying to sell us products or get us hooked onto new dietary fads and there simply isn't enough honestly good hearted concern for the consumers' well-being for me to trust what they tell me is "healthy" because often what they advise me to do, ultimately requires me to buy something I wouldn't be buying in the first place for any other reason.

Food's going down the same road as tobacco, and there's just as large corporations and legal issues coming into play. Except instead of proving it's not deadly, they have to prove it's still healthy.

I'm not taking sides in the fight, I'm just saying I don't trust the fight enough and instead have dropped out of the issue entirely, opting to eat whatever doesn't have a label, doesn't get advertised, and that I'd be likely to find outside, had we not covered outside in pavement. Seems to make the most sense to me. The simplest solution is often the best.

I will say though, after dropping meat almost entirely out of my diet, and after eating things as they'd be if I found them, and only things I'd ever be able to actually find, after about 3 weeks of this, I noticed improvements in my digestion, and generally more energy than I'd have normally. I've been eating like this for 4 months now, and have just started doing some real exercise, but prior to the exercise I was able to move a lot easier and wasn't running out of energy anywhere near as fast as I'd used to. Even when I do eat meat now, I find that it drags me down for a bit. It's harder on my stomach, and I'm generally just not as up for doing stuff after a meal with meat. So for me at least, the whole veggie thing seems to be working out quite well, otherwise I wouldn't be bothering.

 

[ophix]

I got side-tracked, posting a second reply just to try and divide it up (so you're not faced with a single huge wall of text).

Anyways, I just want to make sure there's nothing major that I'm neglecting. I know pure vegetarians worry about protein, etc. I'm just wondering what else there might be for me to worry about and whether it sounds like I'm getting enough of it.

Iron? No problem. Spinach and lentils, loads of them. My blood has better colour than most people who are eating meat regularly.

The etc. Well, they're plants, virtually void of calories, any calories they do have, it's all nutrience. Eat as you become hungry, eat until you're happy, and eat with a huge variety of everything at once to make sure you get it all. I haven't been rapidly losing weight or anything, and since starting this my skin is noticeably better colour, I don't have dark patches under my eyes like I used to, and I'm recovering from injuries and avoiding illness much better than I used to, so, all signs seem to suggest that my body is functioning properly on the cells' level.

By avoiding most juice and all soft drinks I can keep my calorie intake low enough that I can pretty much make full use of my metabolism to process useful calories from the plants, rather than having to reduce the amount I eat to make up for all that sugar energy I'll just have to waste.

My goals? Be as healthy as I can. I'm not looking to be a particularly fast runner, or a basketball player or trying to bulk up tons of huge muscle, just good lifestyle, and a good, strong body that's resistant to disease and injury, and has the strength to move freely, easily, and effectively.

 

[stingo]

Where's the grains? Rice? Potatoes? They will help you form complete proteins.

 

[ophix]

Ahh yes, that's the advice I was hoping for

Now that you mention it, I should be eating more potatoes and rice. I love sweet potato though, just haven't bought much recently. I should also be buying carrots.

As for the grains though, I did mention flax, I also eat whole wheat bread, but not large amounts.

What is the main problem vegetarians often run into with their diet? People have given me general advice saying "basically all you need to do is eat more beans and nuts which people generally don't get enough of, and you should make up for everything you're missing" but this sounds a little 1 dimensional to me to trust entirely.

Reason I haven't been eating rice is because I've been eating apples pears, and I have been having some potato in there. As well as noodles and a bit of bread as well, it just seemed like a lot of starch to be adding in there for relatively low nutritional value. Didn't consider brown rice though, and I'm sure I could benefit from that, but, that's why this thread's here.

 

[tjl]

Anyways, I just want to make sure there's nothing major that I'm neglecting. I know pure vegetarians worry about protein, etc. I'm just wondering what else there might be for me to worry about and whether it sounds like I'm getting enough of it.

If you were completely vegan, you may need to supplement B12 if you do not eat foods fortified with it.

Protein should not be too much of an issue if you are eating some combination of legumes, nuts and/or seeds, and/or (preferably whole) grains. Also, if you eat a lot of green vegetables, a high percentage of the few calories that they provide comes from protein. However, fruit has a very low percentage of calories from protein, so if you diet is very fruit-heavy, it may be low in protein. How much protein you actually need depends on the amount and type of exercise you do.

What is the main problem vegetarians often run into with their diet?

I would guess eating too much junk food and other foods of poor nutritional value (the same as with non-vegetarians). That does not seem to apply to you.

 

[stingo]

As for the grains though, I did mention flax, I also eat whole wheat bread, but not large amounts.

What is the main problem vegetarians often run into with their diet?

I'm not sure that flax seed counts as a grain, at least in the sense we're talking about here. I think it belongs more with the nuts and seeds you mention in your first post.

One of the problems vegetarians have is forming complete proteins from what they eat. Carnivores have it easy in that meat has all (I think it's) 20 amino acids that the body needs. Vegetarians though need to be more creative, as, for example, rice has some of those 20, and beans have some of those 20, but taken together you get them all. The key here is to do some research on combinations for complete protein for vegetarians and see what you should eat with what to be sure you're getting the protein you need. Carbs and Fats you should be good on already as most non-meat sources are good for one or both (potatoes being an example of the former and nuts being an example of the latter). Dairy products may help as I believe they are complete proteins as well.