The Eat Vegan Experiment

Introduction

In the two months leading up to the start of this experiment, I have read an amazing amount of information on the health benefits of a proper vegan/true vegetarian diet — things like vegans have lower rates of heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer and also that vegetarians are less likely than meat-eaters to be obese. Vegans who follow a well-planned diet are less likely to get osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, or asthma; they have healthier immune systems and live 6 to 10 years longer than their meat-eating friends. There are even studies that suggest that switching to a vegan diet can prevent or even reverse a chronic ailment.¹

As a sufferer of chronic illnesses and a person who could stand to lose a few pounds, the benefits sounded appealing to me.

The Theory

Due to my current health issues, I have 3 areas of interest:

• IgA Nephropathy (Autoimmune Chronic Kidney Disease)
  Studies indicate that animal-based proteins are far more likely to overwork the kidneys which, in persons already suffering from damaged kidneys, will speed along the decline in kidney functions — their ability to carry out their function in filtering waste from the body in the form of urine.  Animal protein is high in sulphur-containing amino acids, which leach calcium from the bones where it is excreted in the urine and may form painful kidney stones.  Meat and eggs contain 2 – 5 times more of these types of amino acids than can be found in grains and beans.  Thus, vegan/true vegetarian diets are likely to be less of a burden on the kidneys.

  
  

  Vegan diets can also be regarded as a valid alternative to the standard conventional low-protein diet (CLPD) that is the nutritional treatment for patients with chronic kidney failure. According to the American Dietetic Association: “A well-planned vegetarian diet may be useful in the prevention and treatment of renal [kidney] disease. Studies… suggest that some plant proteins may increase survival rates and decrease proteinuria [proteins in the urine]… and histological renal damage [kidney tissue damage] compared with a non-vegetarian diet.”²

• Chronic Migraines
  Next to stress, food is most often blamed for triggering migraines.  Have you ever taken a good gander at the complete list of foods you’d have to avoid to attempt an elimination diet?  Your migraine might have been triggered by bananas, beans, yeast, soft preztels, pizza, Spam, canned meat, beef jerky, any jerky, those Vienna sausages, bacon, sausage, hot dogs,  canned tuna, aged cheese, sour cream, whole milk (that stuff they tell you to drink 2x a day to make your body good), alcohol, chocolate, coffee, tea, caffeinated soda, Chinese food, anything with MSG, artificial sweetners, vinegar, and more…

  
  

  In his book Eat to Live, Dr. Fuhrman suggested that the majority of patients who stuck to a whole-food vegan diet, avoided added salt,  and avoided packaged and processed foods, which are notorious for containing hidden food additives, were able to remain mostly headache free.  It’s not hard to see that more than 50% of the list of trigger foods are animal-based or processed.  Recognizing that, how much easier would it be to eat to be pain-free?

• Weight Loss
  

  Dean Ornish, MD, president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in California, found that overweight people who adopted a plant-based diet lost an average of twenty-four pounds in the first year just by giving up animal foods and had kept that weight off more than five years later. (This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello)

  Researchers have found that overweight people consume about the same number of calories as slim people—but they don’t consume the same kinds of food. Animal products contain much more fat than plant-based foods—animal flesh, after all, is designed to store calories, which makes it one of the worst things that a dieter can eat. Vegans and vegetarians typically eat diets that are higher in carbohydrates and dietary fiber and lower in calories, protein, total fat, cholesterol, and saturated fat. The only weight-loss plan that has been scientifically proved to take weight off and keep it off for more than a year is a vegetarian diet. It’s possible to be an overweight or obese vegan, of course, just as it’s possible to be a thin meat-eater, but adult vegans are, on average, 10 to 20 pounds lighter than adult meat-eaters.

The Experiment

So, what does this all mean?

I’m ready to see for myself if any of these studies, theories and reports are true. Will eliminating animal-based foods and products from my diet have a significant affect on my health? Will I lose weight easier? Will I feel better?

Here’s the plan:

• Starting August 1, 2009, I will begin the transition from pescetarian to dietary vegan.  (On the advice of This Crazy Vegan Life and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Vegan Living, I will not start cold Tofurky, but will give myself 31 days to adjust my brain, pantry, and refrigerator.
• Starting September 1, 2009, I will begin 365 days of eating vegan.  I will keep everyone up-to-date on my doctor visits, lab results, weigh-ins, and struggles.  I will write about my trials and tribulations involving trying to order in a restaurant, explaining to my mother again, cooking with new and strange ingredients, and shopping for those interesting ingredients.