Veganuary 21 responses

[PSQ]

Maybe it's the fact that I'm (A) a hermit Farmer, (B) I've stopped reading the Guardian, and (C) life's too short to watch any of the tepid shite on the BBC, but I'm hardly seeing any 'Veganuary' stories in the media? Why?

Have all vegan journalists died of malnutrition, or been overcome by COVID or even a mild cold?
I've even looked at the Guardian, and apart from a few half hearted 'Vegan's will invade Poland take over the planet' stories, and a recipe for cold vomit, there's didly squat. I know the new director of the BBC has told the more woke employees to not push their personal agendas, but it seems eerily quiet....

 

[DaveGrohl]

I think they prob realise that their twisted message has now been assimilated sufficiently into the media that they can ease up on the workload. Also there can't be many more hard of thinking people to convert can there? Kids are watching a video game video on Youtube (that is a thing now apparently) and it was interrupted for 10 seconds with a meat-free advert. That's where we're at now apparently.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I think they prob realise that their twisted message has now been assimilated sufficiently into the media that they can ease up on the workload. Also there can't be many more hard of thinking people to convert can there? Kids are watching a video game video on Youtube (that is a thing now apparently) and it was interrupted for 10 seconds with a meat-free advert. That's where we're at now apparently.

and when the present young people get to 60, if they continue to eat processed food, high in carbs/sugar, they will be wracked with diabetes (and the associated problems) and osteoporosis. I think Veganism is a form of eating disorder, which is a whole can or worms in it's own right.

I just read yesterday, that Dementia is associated with diabetes, so high carbs & sugar is a contributing factor to that as well.

 

[PSQ]

Hmm, or they've realised 'the public' have had enough of their whining (doubtful).

It must be galling for the more dogmatic Vegans, to see those fine purveyors of horse meat, Tesco, taking their manifesto, weaponising it, barstewardising it with the cheapest ingredients mushed up with palm oil, and raking in 'huge' profits for the gullible and easily influenced.

I see Morrisons have jumped on the bandwagon too, with fully stocked shelves of 'vegan alternatives' right next to the pork sausages in the meat aisle

 

[DaveGrohl]

and when the present young people get to 60, if they continue to eat processed food, high in carbs/sugar, they will be wracked with diabetes (and the associated problems) and osteoporosis. I think Veganism is a form of eating disorder, which is a whole can or worms in it's own right.

I just read yesterday, that Dementia is associated with diabetes, so high carbs & sugar is a contributing factor to that as well.

Yep, I've mentioned this before on here, science is eventually catching up after decades in the food wilderness. Metabolic diseases are a sad legacy of too many people thinking they knew it all. Ultimately the facts will make it through to the masses but there's a hell of a lot of work to do meantime.

 

[DaveGrohl]

Hmm, or they've realised 'the public' have had enough of their whining (doubtful).

It must be galling for the more dogmatic Vegans, to see those fine purveyors of horse meat, Tesco taking their manifesto, weaponising it, barstewardising it with the cheapest ingredients mushed up with palm oil, and raking in 'huge' profits for the gullible and easily influenced.

I see Morrisons have jumped on the bandwagon too, with fully stocked shelves of 'vegan alternatives' right next to the pork sausages in the meat aisle

They can stock as much as they like on the shelves.....

 

[JP1]

 

[JP1]

View attachment 932304

 

[delilah]

Maybe it's the fact that I'm (A) a hermit Farmer, (B) I've stopped reading the Guardian, and (C) life's too short to watch any of the tepid shite on the BBC, but I'm hardly seeing any 'Veganuary' stories in the media? Why?

Have all vegan journalists died of malnutrition, or been overcome by COVID or even a mild cold?
I've even looked at the Guardian, and apart from a few half hearted 'Vegan's will invade Poland take over the planet' stories, and a recipe for cold vomit, there's didly squat. I know the new director of the BBC has told the more woke employees to not push their personal agendas, but it seems eerily quiet....

The Grauniad will have gone quiet on it because the Moonbat has taken a sabatical to write his book on how we should all eat to save the world. Years ago a member of this household queued in the early hours outside a bookshop to get the next Harry Potter. I now understand the sense of anticipation.

 

[Sid]

View attachment 932304

More repeats than the BBC!!
M

 

[JP1]

More repeats than the BBC!!
M

Maybe. Thanks for repeating it

 

[roscoe erf]

More repeats than the BBC!!
M

It’s a kind of flattery

 

[Ted M]

The Grauniad will have gone quiet on it because the Moonbat has taken a sabatical to write his book on how we should all eat to save the world. Years ago a member of this household queued in the early hours outside a bookshop to get the next Harry Potter. I now understand the sense of anticipation.

He's still bleating on on twitter apparently

 

[Ffermer Bach]

‘I tried to improve my health through veganism, but it made my life so much worse’
Like many others, Kate Mulvey adopted a plant-based diet to improve her wellbeing... but she was caught offguard by some worrying outcomes

ByKate Mulvey8 January 2021 • 11:21am

At first, Kate Mulvey felt great but things went downhill CREDIT: Geoff Pugh/The Telegraph

Many of us are embarking on Veganuary in a desire to be healthier, save the environment or even just to lose weight as we hunker down in lockdown once again. This year a record 500,000 people have signed up to the Veganuary challenge to eat only plant-based foods for a month; double the number who pledged to go vegan in January 2019.
Yet we should be careful what we wish for.
According to a report commissioned by the Health and Food Supplements Information Service (HSIS), an influential group of doctors and nutritionists, many of us are adopting plant-based diets but that could mean a serious lack of vitamins, minerals and omega-3 fats in our diets – with worrying health implications.
I couldn’t agree more. In 2019, I embarked on a strict vegan diet to cure my crippling migraines. After years of throbbing pain, I started to look at alternative remedies. One thing I kept hearing was how certain foods such as meat, chocolate and cheese could trigger migraines.
Those of us who live in a twilight world of low-grade wellness are suckers for anything that offers us a respite from chronic pain. When a nutritionist friend told me to try a plant-based diet – “It will cure your migraines overnight,” she trilled – I immediately turned to Google. Hundreds of sites promising instant cures popped up.
Yet, following a vegan diet, I was not only thin and gaunt but I permanently lost my hearing in one ear (This, however, was not conclusively because of veganism, but a speculative association between a virus I have permanently in my body and the deficiency of several essential nutrients).
Despite the warnings about deficiency in important minerals and vitamins, veganism continues to soar in popularity. Glamourised by slim beautiful health bloggers and sold as an aspirational aesthetic by hip celebrities, we are all rushing to fill our stomachs with nut rissoles and smashed avocado.
A week after deciding to go vegan I emerged from my local Waitrose groaning under armfuls of vegetables and birch juice. I threw out my tins of tuna, walked hastily past the aisles of lamb and sirloin and stocked up on nut butter and chia seeds. At first, I don’t deny that I felt fantastic. My skin glowed and I lost a stone in weeks not months. Problems, however, started to creep in slowly. After less than a month in, I began to experience waves of extreme tiredness. My limbs felt heavy and just going to the shops felt like wading through treacle.
Eventually, I went to see my GP. “It’s probably just the menopause,” she said, as I sat slumped in the chair rattling off all my symptoms. As time went by I felt increasingly worse and continued to lose weight at an alarming speed. My face looked drawn and friends commented on my appearance. “What's happened to you?” one woman asked. “You look anorexic.” Others joined in.

Kate Mulvey's weight loss was causing concern
I was also being affected psychologically. There is hard evidence that the joyful response to food gives rise to better health. Sitting down to a plate of grass when you are a confirmed meat-eater is more like a prison sentence than a pleasurable experience – over the next few months my mood imploded like an egg-free souffle.
I became that awkward guest at dinner parties nibbling on my emergency stash of hemp seeds and rolling my eyes when the meat course is brought out. Finally, after five months I felt so weak I practically fainted on the bus one day.
The doctor sent me for blood tests. Could this be cancer I wondered, my blood running cold? I had read that one symptom is sudden weight loss and by now I looked like a wizened stick.
Thankfully it wasn’t, but the results were shocking nevertheless. I was so low in iron I had become dangerously anaemic and my lymphocytes (killer immune cells) were also on the lowish side. But the clock was ticking on a much bigger health issue that I was unaware of.
A couple of weeks later, as I settled into our annual family summer holiday, I woke up one morning unable to hear in my right ear. “I can’t hear a thing,” I wailed as I handed the phone back to my sister, unable to hear a word my father had been saying.
At first, doctors back in London diagnosed middle ear infections and ear wax with no success. Finally, in September I was sent for an emergency MRI scan. The ENT specialist said it could be an acoustic neuroma – a benign brain tumour that will need surgery if it grows too large.
Two very anxious weeks later, I was so relieved to hear the scan was clean that I hardly registered when the specialist told me I would be permanently deaf in one ear.
Desperate to know I asked if it had been caused by my low level of vitamins and iron.“Unlikely,’ she said. “It's ideopatic [no known cause].”
She did explain however that there was a potential link between certain viruses. especially herpes which could potentially travel up the nerve to ear and cause sudden hearing loss. I have Epstein Barr which lies dormant in my central nervous system and flares up when I am run down. Being so depleted of nutrients due to the vegan diet could potentially have reactivated the virus, she explained.
To learn you are partially deaf for the rest of your life is devastating; to realise that it could have been avoided is even worse. Whilst I know that it was not directly caused by veganism, even a tenuous link is a worry.

Accepting my new silent reality has not been easy and my social life has suffered. When I go out with a group of people, I can only pick up snippets of the conversation and I can't identify where the sound is coming from. I spin round in all directions trying to keep up with what is being said. The only recompense is I have rekindled my love affair with pulled pork and goats cheese salad. My cheeks have filled out, I sleep deeply and my energy has come zinging back.
Nevertheless, there are lessons to be learnt. I believe I have paid a hefty price for changing my diet so drastically and not getting proper medical advice beforehand.
Dr Nisa Aslam, a GP who is one of the authors of the HSIS report, explains: “The HSIS research found that six in 10 do not examine their health needs before switching to plant-based diets. Awareness of nutrient shortfalls is also very low, with fewer than a fifth of plant-based adherents identifying vitamin B12 as an issue, and no-one name-checked vitamin D despite the fact that nearly all major dietary sources of the ‘sunshine vitamin’ are animal or fish-based. Awareness of zinc, iodine and selenium – other nutrients that are hard to obtain on plant-based diets – is almost non-existent. That’s why taking a multivitamin and multimineral supplement is so vital.”
Dr Chris Blatchley, medical director of the London Migraine Clinic, says supplements are essential: “Whenever you are embarking on such a vegan diet, it is imperative to take vitamins and supplements – particularly B12, iron and omega-3 – in order to ensure you don’t get deficient.’
A modest restriction on meat and dairy have been shown to have health benefits, as has an increase in consumption of vegetables and wholefoods, yet the wellness industry is often peddling extreme dietary advice which can be dangerous. Criminalising certain foods (since when did eggs become a nutritional no-no?) and cutting out entire food groups as a route to optimum health, can make us ill.
A spokesperson from the Vegan Society pointed out that just because a food is labelled vegan does not automatically make it healthy: “'A vegan diet is great when done properly, but make sure you don't miss out on essential nutrients. Just because you're vegan that doesn't mean you're 100 per cent healthy, as there are vegan versions of almost every type of junk food you can think of.”
Nowadays I am glad to say I am back to eating tasty lamb chops and mozzarella salad. I realise the benefit of introducing more plant-based foods, and lentils and beans are now a staple. I have even learnt to love tempeh (fermented soya).
Hopefully one day the tide will turn and we will stop to think before we throw that tasty pack of Cumberland sausages into the dustbin.
Have you tried a vegan diet and struggled? Tell us in the comments section below
Related Topics

• Vegan,
• Veganuary,
• The January Health Reset

150
The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our commenting policy.

 

[kill]

Nice to see another good video on YouTube by the Funky Farmer supporting good quality local produce for his Full English breakfast and if only other organisations could push similar positive thoughts it would be fantastic. Well done Richard

 

[DaveGrohl]

I read that yesterday. There are a lot of ex-vegans around who are furious about being conned having realised too late it's a dangerous road to go down. 84% of vegans in America quit in less than a year. If people want to do that to themselves then go right ahead, we'll wait. It's the nutters that force their kids to go vegan that I can't abide.

 

[Ted M]

I read that yesterday. There are a lot of ex-vegans around who are furious about being conned having realised too late it's a dangerous road to go down. 84% of vegans in America quit in less than a year. If people want to do that to themselves then go right ahead, we'll wait. It's the nutters that force their kids to go vegan that I can't abide.

And Tesco are right behind pushing that angle with their ad featuring the little girl who "doesn't want to eat animals anymore".
If an adult wants to try it well on their head be it, but a multi national company should hang their head in shame, its irresponsible and disgusting imo.

 

[Ted M]

Redirect Notice

The woman who wrote this is a prominent ex-vegan who if I remember correctly believes that veganism helped damaged her spine and wrecked her reproductive system.

 

[The Ruminant]

You can have my evergreen tweet for free, still get the odd like and retweet 3 years later.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/959708308365041664

I’ve got a similar evergreen tweet that’s still getting liked

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1064634920872615936

 

[Bruce Almighty]

So far this January, I have

1. Managed to get my veggie wife to eat a bacon sandwich. ( first meat for about 3 or 4 years) & she admitted to enjoying it. More of that then.

2. She's going to have some pork pie for breakfast in a minute.

She was diagnosed with Parkinson's 2 years ago & Ive told her plenty of protein will help her brain, she's beginning to believe me at last

Edit
She ate chicken soup tonight, with real chicken not packet soup rubbish