Answering the bell - do vegans get the right nutrients?

I was sitting at the bar at Graze a couple weeks back, likely eating one of their fine dinners and sipping on a Kombucha. I'm there fairly regularly, being as it is a few blocks from my house, and there are days when I need to eat dinner after an evening yoga class and/or am too lazy to prep my own dinner. Besides, the food is good and the service is always friendly and welcoming.

Anyway, I was there one evening and a little conversation broke out, as it does, with Michael, the owner, and the wait staff. Michael apparently has a place on Saltspring. It must be a fair place, because during the year he often invites a number of families up there. It is a 100% vegan house. No animal products. He was telling of how many times people sneak food in, ham n cheese sandwiches and the like, because they are concerned they or their children won't get enough to eat.

This is actually a good thing, as then there is the opportunity to discuss what vegans eat and how they get the nutrient balance they need to maintain a healthy life. In a previous blog I posted a cartoon of a cheetah asking a gorilla where he gets his protein from. There are some fundamental misconceptions about protein and what foods contain it.

Fact: plants have lots of amino acid content. I used this guide as a reference in the beginning to ascertain nutrient values of foods.

We are bombarded with studies about foods and how this particular nutrient is important for this that or the other in order for us to be healthy. Often these studies are bought and paid for by organizations representing companies who sell their products - dairy, meat, wheat marketing boards and councils etc. I think it is good to have a healthy skepticism regarding self-promoting studies. One should always check who funded the study before taking it as anything near gospel.

Brendan Brazier, in his book Thrive Guide maintains that water soluble nutrients as found in plant based sources are more easily absorbed into the body than oil-based animal nutrients. This is because the body needs to convert the oil-based into water soluble. It is a process that takes time and energy (know that post-dinner sluggish feeling) and it not 100% efficient. According to Brazier, eating plant-based foods provides all the proteins which are absorbed faster with more complete absorption.

Vegan strongman Patrik Baboumian breaks a world record by carrying 555 kilos 10 metres on the West Jet stage at the Harbourfront Centre September 8, 2013 .Torstar News Service

This past September a new world record for weightlifting was set in Toronto. 550kgs! 1216 pounds! Monster! He has some simple advice, starting at 1:20 of this interview after his lift. "Do your research." Certainly not going to ask him if he gets enough nutrients!

Getting Started.

When I first talked to my friends about going vegan, the most popular question was, “How are you going to get enough protein?” Followed by “I'm not going to hang around so much if you are going to go on an all-bean diet!”

With some experience growing up in a lacto-ovo vegetarian house, being fed and cooking for lacto-ovo fishetarians I learned to balance foods for that diet plan. Readings of “Diet for a Small Planet” and “Let's Cook it Right” helped in that regard. I felt confident I could learn the balance for full vegan. That said, I am not a nutritionist, and I am going to presume few of those reading this are either.

At the end of my introductory piece, I was taking about the wonderful array of educational material available today. When charting of into the great unknown, or even leaping into waters a little deeper than you are familiar with, a little knowledge can go a long way. Today Google is your friend.

Now the internet is full of stuff. Some of it great, useful bits of insight that can help you step forward in the right direction. Others vague, almost crack-pot claims of cure-all diet plans which invariably lead to links to books or DVDs you should buy. The wonderful world of internet marketing means you will find a lot of these links. They all look different at first, but lead to the same place. Yeah, I passed on that.

Knowing specifically what I felt I needed to know helps me greatly in narrowing down my initial searches. My question was “what do vegan athletes eat?” In my mind, here was a group of people for whom getting the right balance of nutrients is vital, especially if they are looking to to perform at the world class level. Let's get one thing straight. I am not an athlete. I'm a renovations carpenter, not afraid to get on a bike and go for a cycle for a few hours, or place some squash, active , but NOT an athlete. Still my logic was, they understand the balance. Could I find anywhere where they could explain it to someone like me.

Enter Brendan Brazier and his Thrive, The Vegan Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life. This book gave me a significant leg up on learning how to plan my diet requirements. Well written, it contains a simple, yet informative summary of how the body absorbs nutrients. I'm going to summarize some of the key chapter elements as I understood them.

1. Stress. In this Chapter, Brendan outlines the relationship between stress and your health, and more importantly from a dietary point of view, how poor nutrition, actually increases your stress levels.
2. The Thrive Diet. Here Brendan outlines how it works to reduce your body's internal stress levels, increase the body's ability to burn fat first and build lean muscle mass. The key component is 'high net-gain nutrition, a result of eating foods that the body absorbs quickly and easily, satisfying the body's nutritional needs.
3. Food Production, Energy Consumption and The Environment. In this chapter, he discusses the economic and environmental challenges to today's industrial food processing industry. This one I struggled with a bit. There were some valid points made of the energy costs of producing and distributing food, However, living in here in Canada, where fresh produce is not an option year-round, the argument needs more work. But hey, that is me asking questions outside the box.
4. Exercise. Pretty straightforward you would think. The body needs to exercise. Exercise allows the body to flow properly. (The body is mostly water – and if you think about of stagnant ponds and then think of the liquids in your body not getting swished around properly leaving stagnant pockets.... yeah I think about things this way sometimes. I'll stop now.) Most importantly here, Brendan also includes what foods to eat before and after exercise, so the whole routine is complimentary to your body.
5. Staple foods. What foods are ideally suited to giving your body high net-gain nutrition? How are they best prepared for them to be to be most efficiently absorbed into the body? Curiously (to me) the concept of nutritional absorption increases through sprouting or soaking some nuts and grains made me thing more outside that little box of what I know.

The final chapters cover recipes and meal plans. All good. But to me, the information contained in the previous chapters opened up the doors, turned on the lights and said “There you go Martin, you now have enough knowledge to be a little less dangerous and reckless with your path towards a successful Vegan diet”.

This is a book That should be read by all, vegan, vegetarian, and omnivores. I could read all I wanted about what foods have what nutritional value, but without knowing how nutrients were absorbed and worked through the body, I would still be struggling with the right balance.

Food Value Guides
We've all seen the National Food Guides as published by the government (whoever you are, they have one for you). I am a natural skeptic when it comes to information issued by the government. If came by me naturally, some would blame my father. On this charge, I think he's OK with it. We've all heard the “Hi I'm here from the government and I'm here to help you.” In my humble opinion, these national food guides (x amount of meat products, x amount of dairy, x amount of grains, x amount of fruit and veg.) are devised by those in whose interest it is to sell these products. Just have a look at who funds the research.

One online guide I refer to, was one I found through my friend, Mr Google. It is an online chart outlining the nutritional content of various foodstuff. Yes, these charts are 'guides'. The actual numbers will vary by source and food quality. The general outline is useful for those trying to keep track or vitamins, mineral and such. Check it out, The site does have some printable charts as well.

OK, on to restaurants I love to visit. Gojo's Little Africa Cafe has fast become a great place for me to get my Ethopian food fix. Well priced and conveniently located on Commercial Drive, just south of 12^th, it offers a simple, authentic selection of great tasting food. The vegetarian combo has me sated for under $15. Omnivorous friends have also said great things about their meat dishes. So yes, it is a place you can go to with people who need their meat fix.

Until next time.