During the interview, Marla Rose and Eric Sharer referred to Paula Deen’s coming-out-of-the-diabetic-closet as a spokesperson for pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk and their $500-a-month diabetes drug, Victoza.

Excerts from Marla Rose’s interview with Eric Sharer:

Marla Rose: When interviewed last week, Paula Deen said that her diet played a role in her developing diabetes, but seemed to downplay it and place as much blame on heredity and age. As an RD, how much do you think diet is responsible for Type 2 diabetes? For example, if I were a vegan maintaining a moderately healthy diet and activity level but with two diabetic parents, as a dietitian, would you be concerned about me developing this disease as well?

Eric Sharer Many factors can increase risk of Type 2 diabetes: including obesity, physical inactivity, poor diet, age, and genetics. 7 Over time age can impact diabetes risk, but if this was the major contributor, there would not be such alarmingly high rates of type II diabetes in children and young adults. (8)

Also, if age/heredity was the main issue, than no one would be able to manage their diabetes and even reverse their diabetes with diet and lifestyle changes. Having a family history of diabetes puts you at an increased risk of developing diabetes to an extent, but that risk can be greatly diminished if one follows a healthy lifestyle during their life.

There are several reasons that diet and lifestyle play a huge role on diabetes risk and management. As previously stated, healthy cells and a healthy pancreas are key to preventing/managing type II diabetes.

Healthy cells are soft/flexible, easily allowing insulin in and out of their cells. A diet high in fat/cholesterol will cause the cells to become hard and rigid, making it hard for insulin to get into the cell.

Obesity causes the release of inflammation in the body that damages cells and also makes them rigid. Exercise helps open cells up and improve blood sugar control, so a diet lacking in exercise will further hinder blood sugar control. A diet high in refined grains/sugars causes constant stimulation of the pancreas/cells, many times resulting in decreased control.

(WebMD) Eating a low-fat vegan diet may be better at managing type 2 diabetes than traditional diets, according to a new study.

Researchers in the study found 43 percent of people with type 2 diabetes who followed a low-fat vegan diet for 22 weeks reduced their need to take medications to manage their disease compared with 26 percent of those who followed the diet recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

Eric Sharer, RD, from comments to the vegan in chicago examiner post:

Today while reading a copy of The Vegetarian Journal, I found an interesting study to compliment this article.

A study of more than 200,000 people found a strong and consistent relationship between the intake of red and processed meats with risk of developing type II diabetes (t2d). Researchers found a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) by substituting food for red meat.

They found the following: that substituting 1 serving of nuts showed a 21% lower risk of developing T2D, and 1 serving of grains showed 23% risk reduction. Substituting a serving of fish or poultry had less of an impact on risk reduction.

This study also discussed their belief on why red meat increases risk of type 2 diabetes (t2d):

The high heme-iron content of red meat is very unstable and promotes oxidative stress, which damages the pancreas cells. Also the sodium and nitrates in processed red meat get converted into compounds, nitrosamines, which have found to be toxic to pancreatic beta cells, and increasing risk of diabetes. This study also showed a relationship between red meat intake and risk of obesity in the future.

Some food for thought…
Lower Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Seen in Vegans

Eric Sharer is an RD and culinary expert, dedicated to promoting the health benefits of a plant-based diet for disease prevention, treatment, and optimal health. In addition to working at The Block Center, highly esteemed clinic for integrative cancer care, Eric is a Nutrition Advisor for The Vegetarian Resource Group, and a Food for Life Instructor for The Cancer Project. He is now starting up his own private practice as well.

Some of you may have read my previous comments on cake, and suspected that it was only the beginning. You were right of course.

I am now all about food. I have strong thoughts about foods I’d like to eat, so strong I can almost taste them. Interestingly, aside from cake daydreams, they are not for junk food.

Yes, the Occupy Zoe Movement (a movement of one) has been growing stronger and it has demands! Demands about food mostly, that I have difficulty opposing.

It started with broccoli. I’ve always been fond of broccoli, but now it tastes amazing. It’s the best broccoli I’ve ever eaten. I love it and it’s a good thing Bryan likes it too, or he’d be fixing alternate dinners while I ate broccoli, steamed, stir fried, raw in salad…Num! Wonder if Savvy Veg has a good cream of broccoli soup recipe. Now that sounds really good!

Some cravings last longer than others. I went through 6 lbs of cherries before that one went away. I think Bryan got to eat about three cherries total. Thank goodness they were on sale for half price, because if you’ve ever priced out-of-season cherries, and then bought them: A) You make too much money to care about your food budget, B) You are forced to overcome your sticker shock and buy them for a special occasion, or C) You’re pregnant, feel you must have them, and can’t be rational about it.

On the other hand, I had a craving for dill pickles that lasted a week until I finally had some, and I haven’t thought about them since. I just want to point out that since I didn’t also crave ice cream, craving pickles does not (yet) make me a pregnancy cliche. The fact that I had a yen for soaked walnuts and bought a 5 lb bag of them – now that might make me a cliche. There are a LOT of walnuts in a 5 lb bag.

Fruit has been very popular at my house ever since the Occupy Zoe Movement began. I must keep some sort of fruit on hand at all times. Most recently, it has been grapefruit. Juicy, heavy, sweet red grapefruit, peeled and eaten like an orange. Those I have to share with Bryan – apparently I’m not the only one with a thing for grapefruit. In fact, the other day he ate THE LAST ONE! I was very sad. But I had to forgive him, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. Besides, I just bought more. They’re nice and heavy – very promising.

Why I Forgave Bryan for Eating The Last Grapefruit: CAKE. I had an annoyingly persistent craving for cake. It filled my mind and made my mouth water. I tried to let it go but it wouldn’t budge. I tried to sate it with store-bought cake – no luck. It was pumpkin cake I wanted, moist gooey cake with chocolate chips like our neighbor bakes at Christmas time.

At the same time, we were short-handed at work,and I worked 13 days in a row without a full day off. During the first trimester. You know, the one characterized by fatigue? Ugh. I was exhausted. Much as I wanted that cake, I was lucky if I had the energy to bake a potato, forget anything else.

Ten days into the work marathon, I came home hungry and exhausted, too strung out to take care of myself. Bryan sat me down in the kitchen with a cup of tea and made me a snack. That was really nice of him – but wait, there’s more! As I watched in growing wonder, he proceeded to bake me a cake. Not just any old cake either. He got the recipe from our neighbor for that fabulous pumpkin chocolate chip cake, and baked it for me, because he knew I was too tired to do it myself.

It was delicious. Really Really delicious.

An unexpected man-made grapefruit shortage is the tiniest most insignificant event, when I know that I can count on that man to bake me a cake when I need it the most. As far as I’m concerned, he can have the last grapefruit out of this bag too.

Some of the responders felt my pain, but most comments revealed my ignorance and lack of creativity on the subject. Some hinted that I might need an attitude adjustment.

Carrie C: Cooking can be rather tricky when camping, vegetarian or not…

Teresa A: I dont forget about veggie cooking, I can do it rather well camping..

There were many helpful suggestions as well about how to do camp cooking right.

Karen K: cook ahead freeze what ya can

Jennifer from NY: Sometimes when I am camping I bring along Indian MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). There are quite a few that are vegan. You can eat them straight from the bag or you can heat them in boiling water. Super easy and no cleanup. :)

I buy them at my local Indian Supermarket but they are also available at Trader Joe and Whole Foods. You can also find some on Amazon.

Reply to Jennifer: I’ll head for the biggest Indian food store in this area, and see if they have them so I can test them. Gotta pick up some mung dhal too! And I’ll check Amazon

Yoga Gurl:Interesting….never thought of that.

What about “easy” meals? But you are so good at this stuff maybe you already thought of it.

I remember I went camping long ago…we had, I think, quick rice, and chili to go on top for one meal. That was pretty easy.

It’s probably hard for you to do that, you are so used to doing everything on such a quality level. : )

Reply to Yoga Gurl: I’m into easy meals, but I admit it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of making a meal out of processed food. I’m stuck on making everything with fresh food from scratch. But if I go camping again, it’s a whole new world of instant food, I mean it!! :-)

Steve: You really need to try Mary Jane’s Farm’s line of foods. They truly are well made, organic, and could not be easier to prepare. I have no connection with them, I’m just someone who has the same issue; that of finding a way to eat healthy while on the road or camping.

Savvy Veg: I’ll check and see if that brand is available at my local natural food store or online. Thanks for the tip!

Steve: You can order them online, too! Just sayin’…

Joe F: I backpacked for 6 months after college with 3 or kinds of grains, beans, head of cabbage, carrots and grew sprouts in a baggie in my pocket. It can be done!

Catherine T: I love camping and there are loads of things you can cook – risotto, chickpea curry, beany wraps – all in one pot or a bbq. A packet of sosmix and some spices always comes in handy. You basically need stuff that can be cooked in one pot or bbq’d. Staples like pasta, rice and spices take along and the rest bought wherever you are. Eggy bread is a firm breakfast favourite in our household. Should say I love camping?

Maria W: try the camping cookbook by Annie Bell its not all veggie but its a great book lovely cover too.

Its awful seeing so many uninformed veggies struggling wiv broken up veggie burgers lol bring on the stuffed peppers thats wot i say – boil in the bag rice cooked then fill the halved peppers wiv it along wiv crushed garlic and herbs or wotever then drizzle of balasamic vin and maybe splash of olive oil wrap em in foil and stick em on the bbq.

Savvy Veg: Thanks, Maria, excellent idea! I’d use garlic powder and a mediterranean herb mix.

Now that I’ve had a chance to recover and re-group, I’ve come up with a few more positive thoughts about camp cooking:

Another cookbook (besides Annie Bell’s) that would be handy for camping is Vegan Unplugged – Pantry Cuisine Cookbook & Survival Guide by Jon and Robin Robertson. It’s a practical guide not only to surviving, but thriving in any tough situtation.

By following the Robertson’s cooking tips and hints, you can live and eat reasonably healthy out of a car, boat, tent or other temporary shelter, or cook in a motel or dorm room – and not just in an emergency. Sounds ideal for camping, right?

Cooking ahead is an option I’m a little ambivalent about. I’ve done that in other situations, such as car trips, and while it’s helpful on the trip, it’s one more big thing to do before leaving. But I can see the value and will add it to my camping prep list.

Another time saver would be dehydrated foods, like fruit & veggies, and I like the MRE idea. I’ll work on finding edible versions.

Savvy Veg: It’s clear I have a lot to learn about camp cookery, and I appreciate all your tips and suggestions. If you have time to share ideas about doing veggie camp cooking right, please send them along, or comment on this page.

Happy Camping! Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Veg

I have a confession to make. Some of you are going to hate me for this. At least a little.

I have not puked once since I got pregnant. I don’t feel queasy in the mornings, and lately I don’t feel queasy at all.

In fact, the worst I have felt since getting pregnant is when I gave up coffee. The second worst is when I indulged a craving for fried potatoes – for dinner. Please learn from my mistake and don’t do this to yourself.

When the experts say avoid fried food, they really really mean it. The potatoes were tasty, and I virtuously ate peas as well. They went down great and I went to bed thinking “well I guess I’m an exception to that rule as well.”

Smug, overconfident me. Oh man did I feel rotten in the morning. My stomach churned for hours, complaining and threatening illness. Still no puking, but it was a narrow escape.

I did start out feeling queasy in the afternoons, between 2 and 4pm. I would get a bit light-headed and then I’d start to get a headache, and then I’d feel ill. Pretty quickly, I realized that this situation could be headed off with a decent snack. Thank you, fruit and nuts and yogurt.

Blood sugar goes away at an amazing rate when you’re pregnant, I’ve discovered. I used to get hungry and if I ate within 45 minutes, I’d be fine. Now if I try to hold out for 20 minutes, I suffer.

I picture the baby, happily resting on my bladder, slurping my blood sugar like a little vampire. Not that I blame the kid – if I was doubling in size every few weeks, I’d be hungry too.

I had a weepy moment the other day. I was tired after work and there was nothing available of the grab-and-eat variety. Too tired to fix something, I went upstairs and sat down on the couch to read a romance novel. About an hour in, I got to a bittersweet part and was a bit teary eyed – which is normal.

What’s not normal at all is that I set down the book and cried some more. I quickly realized that my blood sugar was through the floor, and as Bryan wouldn’t be home until late at night, too late to rescue me, I’d better feed myself.

Don’t judge me for eating Oriental Ramen and frozen veggies. I know the vegans will be incensed and point out that it has beef extract in the flavoring, but even chicken stock makes me horribly ill, and this doesn’t, so I figure it has to be the merest smidgen.

Besides, when you’re so hungry that you can’t stop crying because the hero and his very best friend realize they only love each other as friends, a three minute cooking time is of paramount importance.

I wished that Bryan would bring home cake. There was no junk food in the house except for ice cream and I didn’t want ice cream. I wanted cake. Moist, gooey carrot cake. Or pumpkin cake. With cream cheese frosting.

Occasionally, being pregnant is like sharing my head with a deranged calorie driven seven-year-old. Have you ever tried to talk a seven-year-old out of cake?

Anyway, aiming to avoid becoming a complete basket case, I am learning new habits. I must always eat breakfast. Always. I also must have a snack between breakfast and lunch, and again right after work (even if there is nothing easy to eat).

The snacks don’t have to be major, but they can’t just be fruit. That doesn’t stick with me long enough. Craisins and soaked walnuts are an amazingly tasty combo. Peanut butter and honey on toast is another winner.

I wouldn’t turn my nose up at cake either … if there were some on hand … pumpkin is very nutritious, right? And cream cheese has calcium…

I’ve heard that ‘real’ cheese is addictive, and I believe it. I think it’s the casein.

One of the hardest things for me to give up when I went vegan was parmesan cheese. I was used to eating it on just about everything.

Eventually, long after the parmesan addiction had lost its grip, I found a substitute, made with ground walnuts, lemon juice and nutritional yeast, among other things. I found the recipe in Bryanna Clark Grogan’s World Vegan Feast cookbook.

Now there’s a woman who understands that ‘real’ cheese is addictive! And how vegans suffer without it. Bryanna has no less than 11 vegan cheese recipes in World Vegan Feast alone, and possibly more in her many cookbooks put together.

Bryanna and other cookbook authors and food manufacturers have made valiant efforts to bridge the gap between ‘real’ and vegan cheese, with varying success.

I’ve tried a few brands of packaged commercial cheese substitutes. Mostly, they’ve convinced me that the phrase ‘vegan cheese’ is an oxymoron.

Some, called veggie slices or other names suggesting they are non-dairy, have casein from cows milk as an ingredient – so they melt well. That taught me to always read labels! It also taught me that the main problem with vegan cheeses is that they don’t melt easily. Never mind if they say they do. That’s just hype.

Commercial vegan cheeses also taste nothing like ‘real’ cheese, to me. That’s not necessarily a flaw, but it’s not what my taste buds expect. Plus, they are often strangely colored, especially the orange ones which claim to be cheddar flavor. Same goes for so-called ‘real’ cheddar cheese, come to think of it!

To my dismay, the cheese alternatives are often VERY expensive - 8 slices which probably cost 50 cents to make go for $3 – $4 in the grocery store. And each slice is wrapped in plastic which is tedious to remove, and has to go in the garbage and live in a landfill for a thousand years or something. Tsk. But it’s the same with ‘real’ cheese slices of course.

The best brand of vegan cheese I’ve found so far is Follow Your Heart. I’ve only tried the Mozzarella style, $4.26 for 10 oz at Earth Origins in Palm Harbor FL. That seemed like a decent price to me, maybe $1 more than the same amount of dairy Mozzarella.

I sliced my Follow Your Heart Mozzarella cheese alternative thin (1/8th inch) for grilled cheese sandwiches (my favorite comfort food). The cheese melted in the middle, and got quite runny, oozing out the long middle cut when I sliced the sandwich. The cheese at the outside edges remained stubbonly firm, and wanted to break apart and fall out when I cut the sandwich.

The taste of FYH Mozzarella straight from the package was bland, like dairy Mozzarella, but otherwise didn’t taste very cheesey to me. I thought a touch of lemon would’ve helped give it that slight cheesey tang of Mozzarella. Still, it had a decent texture, and my grilled cheese sandwich was more than edible.

Now, of course I don’t expect you all to give up buying those vegan cheeses - which hopefully will improve. After all, 10 years ago, they didn’t exist. And I certainly can’t fault anyone for wanting the cheesey taste.

But I must say that I’ve had more success making my own vegan cheese using the Suisse Melty Cheese recipe from World Vegan Feast. It was easy and cheap to make, with no soy or gluten, stored well and firmed up nicely in the fridge, and made a quite satisfactory grilled cheese sandwich. Next time I make it I’ll try leaving out the 2 Tbsp water to make a firmer cheese.

I’ve made the Walnut Parm from the same cookbook, and I look forward to trying the Vegan Gruyere, made with agar and other seaweed thickener so the cheese will melt properly. I’ve often used Vegan Cheese Sauce inspired by the sauce in the vegan fettucine alfredo recipe in Jolinda Hackett’s Everything Vegan Cookbook.

Making my own vegan cheese has shown me that even if cheese alternatives don’t taste quite the same as ‘real’ cheese, they can still be deliciously cheesey tasting and melty.

If cheeses like the ones I’ve made were commercially available, they’d be more expensive to make and priced a lot higher. I’m not sure that I’d pay the price, although as things stand, I hesitate to buy a cheese alternative at any price!

But maybe people who don’t have time or inclination to make their own vegan cheese would pay for the improved taste and meltability. Would you buy vegan cheese if it wasn’t an oxymoron?

I’m not a veteran camper and far from an expert on campsite cookery. I’ve been camping maybe 10 times in my 65 years, for a total of about 3 months. However, most of my camping involved vegetarian cooking. So naturally I feel qualified to talk about it.

My camping experiences have ranged from extremely primitive: a makeshift plastic shelter on a windy beach on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island at age 21, to almost civilized: a modern campground in Florida with hot showers, washers & dryers, electrical hookups, every kind of store and restaurant nearby, even primitive wi-fi at the nature center.

That was the latest experience, 2 weeks tent camping at Oscar Scherer State Park in Dec. 2011. I don’t think that will be my last experience tent camping because I still love sleeping on the ground in the fresh air. But I hope it will be my last experience with serious vegetarian cooking while camping.

I’ve come to the conclusion that to really enjoy all the perks of camping: fresh air, hiking, swimmng, boating, watching wildlife, lying on the beach, sitting around the campfire, gazing at the stars, doing nothing, it’s absolutely necessary to spend almost no time cooking.

Let me tell you what led me to that drastic state of cooking negation, so foreign to my nature.

I love food, and normally I love cooking. It takes up a big chunk of my day, maybe 2 hours, 3 hours with cleanup, plus food shopping a couple hours a week. It’s all for worthy causes – testing and developing recipes for Savvy Vegetarian, feeding us tasty healthy food so we age gracefully and blissfully, plus a creative outlet.

Cooking is pretty easy when you have a modern kitchen with electric lights, hot & cold running water, a good stove, and lots of gadgets & applicances.

But when you’re camping, trying to eat even a stripped-down version of your usual diet takes 3 times as long and is 10 times as difficult. I’m a well-supplied (okay – over-supplied) camper, and pretty organized and energetic if I do say so, but I found myself spending most of my day in camp on food preparation.

That was because of my husband’s special dietary needs, and because I and our fellow campers are in the habit of eating well. My husband is handicapped, and this was his first time ever camping at age 69. It was great for him to have the experience, and he was a very good sport. He hardly complained at all about freezing his fanny off sleeping on the ground in a tent, and peeing in a bottle at night – we all did that, rather than stumble around in the dark.

But if he goes camping with me again, diet or no diet, he’ll eat tofu dogs and other fake meat, canned beans, ramen noodles, instant rice, bread, nut butter, instant oatmeal, pre-washed & cut raw veggies & salads, fresh fruit & nuts – because that’s what you can do in the total daily cooking time I have in mind: 30 minutes tops. There will be lots of eating out, on the way to and from the nearest beach.

And there will be no running to Walmart to buy the cooking equipment and supplies that I deliberately left at home.

This last camping trip, it was absurd. There were four of us camping. We brought 3 tents, a mini-fridge, big & little coolers, 2 power strips, extension cords, double hot plate, crockpot, coffee maker, electric frying pan, spice grinder (yes!), pressure cooker, 5 pans of various sizes, a variety of knives and utensils and dishes and other kitchen equipment. Our handy friend Ken rigged up a light on a pole so we could see to cook and eat dinner (it gets dark early in Dec, even in Florida and battery powered lanterns don’t do the job).

We were barely able to squeeze all the stuff we brought into the spacious rear seat and cargo area of a Toyota Sienna and a roof top carrier. There was no room to see out the back window of the car, we had to use the mirrors. The only reason we didn’t bring even more stuff was because we would have had to carry it on our laps for 1400 miles, or tie it behind the car.

As for the time I spent on food prep, it wasn’t that I was the only one cooking or cleaning up. Everybody did their share. It just took s-o-o-o darn long to do everything! And that was civilized camping. The only thing more civilized about it would have been to rent an RV, but I’d rather cook in a motel room than drive one of those things around.

About the time I went camping for a month on the beach on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island: we backpacked everything in with us, slept on the sand under a plastic shelter, cooked over an open fire, walked about a million miles, and I lost 10 lbs I didn’t need to lose. It was like one of those survivor shows on TV, only without the drama. I shudder to think of it, and have never had the urge to repeat the experience.

There is a happy medium to eating vegetarian successfully while camping, and I think I’ve just about figured out what it is. I’m pretty sure the secret is to forget trying to cook while camping. Maybe the next camping trip I’ll get it right, and I’ll have more time to work on my fitness and my tan, instead of spending most of the day producing food in far less than ideal conditions.

Even the most enthusiastic cook needs a holiday from the kitchen. What better time than when you’re staying at a place that doesn’t even have a kitchen?!

There are Things They Don’t Warn You About Before You Get Pregnant, Probably For the Good of the Species.

I thought pregnancy would have a couple of upsides. Besides, of course, a tiny precious baby at the end.

I figured it would be the one time in my life I’d finally have a decent set of boobs. I mean, the ability to run without a bra is awesome, and most of the time I would take that over cup size any day. I just thought it would be fun to have bigger ones for a year. And now I do – but I’m not enjoying them. They are seriously sore. Plus I have to wear a bra. So unfair. They better not stay sore the whole time. I’ll complain to management!

I also though that not having periods would be great. No cramps, no bloating, no tampons! YAY! It’s true there are no more tampons, But there are cramps. And bloating! From gas! The symptoms don’t quit after four days either.

Apparently, your digestion slows down, which increases absorption. Great for nutrient needy baby, not so good for nearby noses. “Nobody,” says What To Expect When You’re Expecting, “does gas like a pregnant woman.

Great. Also true. I have eaten eggs and drunk beer in the same meal and had to live with the results before. I know what smelly is. Or I thought I did. When I got pregnant, I became the fart queen!

At work I would fart all day long, vile smelly things that lingered in the air. I am truly shocked that no one said anything. It’s not like you could mistake the source; they weren’t quiet either. It was so bad, I gave up any notion of polite concealment or shame. Pregnancy and dignity, I have discovered, do not go hand in hand.

I will say it’s kind of fun to have a license to fart gratuitously. Sorry, can’t help it, I’m pregnant, don’t you know….I picture myself dissipating lines at the grocery store, deliberately farting next to people I dislike, wandering into bath and beauty at the mall and letting a couple rip…take that you overly scented lotion pushers!

Fortunately for retailers everywhere, and my poor co-workers, the heavy farting stage only lasted about a month. I suspect that it is one of the benefits of the higher fiber diet that vegetarians eat. Proper hydration has also been very helpful, especially a warm cup of herbal tea in the morning before breakfast. I am almost back down to pre-pregnancy farting levels.

Almost. Except that some days I eat eggs….and don’t drink enough…you can just imagine.

One lovely benefit of pregnancy, that makes up for the farting and the bloating, the sore boobs and even the fatigue, is Bryan’s response to the whole thing.

When he found out I am pregnant, it is as if I flipped a switch in his head and he went into nurturing mode. He has started doing more housework (without my having to ask!!), he brings in all the wood for the wood stove, he makes me tea. If I say I’m hungry, he offers to cook. He quit drinking coffee so I wouldn’t be tempted by the smell. I get snuggles all the time. If he were a radio, he’d be tuned to my needs.

Now that is much more in line with my idealized vision of pregnancy, full of glowing and nesting and bonding. If I can only figure out how to make that switch stay flipped after the baby comes…I will be so happy and smug that I will be forced to write relationship advice books just to have an outlet.

Zoe Keeland

Enthusiastic convert to healthy plant based diet unintentionally loses weight along with the meat, and wants to know how to keep his weight up and eat healthy too.

Hello Savvy Vegetarian,

I recently started changing my diet. I am juicing fruits and veggies and cutting out meat. I feel GREAT! I am very excited about my new, far healthier diet.

The only problem is that I am losing weight. While this is generally considered a “good” thing, I’m not overweight and I would like to maintain the size I am.

Do you have any advice regarding good calories and how I can keep the weight on in a healthy way?

Thanks so much!! ~Max R.

Savvy Vegetarian Advice:

Hi Max,

Most people I’ve heard from consider weight loss the #1 benefit to a veg diet. But I have heard from a few like you who are alarmed by the weight loss.

From my own experience, I know that vegetarian or vegan diets are no quarantee of weight loss. It’s just that many new veggies naturally embrace low calorie foods like salads and smoothies with enthusiasm – they are fabulous! – but tend to neglect carbs and high fat foods, so they take in fewer calories.

That’s ok if you want to lose weight, but to maintain a healthy weight, you need a balanced nutritious diet which includes plenty of fresh veggies and fruit, but also whole grains, beans & tofu, nuts & seeds, a reasonable amount of added fat – and enough total calories.

What’s a reasonable amount of fat?

According to the latest nutrition theories, you should consume 10 – 15% of your daily calorie intake as fat. On a 2000 calorie diet, then, 200 – 300 calores should come from fat. Ideally, most of that would be fat from foods.

Meat and other animal foods such as dairy are often high in fat, which is why omnivores usually have no problem maintaining or increasing their body weight. When you cut animal foods out of your diet, you need to eat some high fat foods to get enough fat in your diet – unless you WANT to lose weight!

Most plant foods have some fat - some just have more than others.

1 Tbsp of added fat in the form of unprocessed cold pressed oil such as olive oil, coconut oil etc has about 150 calories, plus essential fatty acids and a few other nutrients which your body needs – in tiny amounts. So it makes sense to get most of your fat from nutritious foods such as avocados, coconut milk, nuts & seeds, and whole soy foods like tofu or tempeh.

Consult the list of high fat foods in the advice post How to Gain Healthy Weight on a Vegetarian Diet. And consider other ways to boost your calorie intake enough to maintain a healthy weight.

Each meal should include both carbohydrate and protein rich food, plus a bit of fat in addition to the fruit and veg. Grains and legumes (beans & lentils) together are the healthy alternative to meat. Except for B12, they replace the nutrients in meat, but not most of the fat. So that’s where the high fat foods come in.

By the way, carbs are important foods, worthy of respect. Unless you’re (diabetic, you can get carbs from all forms of grains and high carb veggies. Whole grains especially have valuable nutrients not plentiful in other foods, plus they’re high in fiber, so they digest slowly and sustain your energy for several hours. If you’re not getting enough carbs in your diet, your body will burn fat for energy – which you don’t need.

Try tracking your calorie intake for a week, using a free service like nutritiondata.com. Adjust what you’re eating and the serving sizes to bring your calories up to a level that keeps your weight up.

This vegetarian pregnancy series is written by Zoë Keeland, the youngest and most pregnant daughter of Savvy Vegetarian. She’ll continue to produce new episodes until her brain completely dissolves into mush.

Veg gets pregnant

Having been married for almost six years, and casually trying to get pregnant for most of the time, I had mostly given up pining for a baby. I wasn’t even tracking my cycle, aside from the vague: it oughtta show up pretty soon, I think. So when my boobs got tender, and stayed that way for two weeks, I thought I had a heckuva bleed coming on, probably soon.

My husband Bryan, who obviously pays way more attention to my boobs than I do, gave them a critical eye. “Go get a pregnancy test,” he said. I humored him, and picked one up at the grocery store. I got the box that has three in it. “That way I won’t have to run out for one next time Bryan gets paranoid,” I thought.

Anyone need a pregnancy test? I have two I won’t be needing….unless they stay good for a couple years.

Screw this pink line stuff, I thought, and bought the digital one that would either say: Pregnant, or Not Pregnant. I didn’t want to be squinting at the thing trying to decide about colors.

When it came up Pregnant, I nearly fell off the toilet. “Really?” I choked, squinting at it anyway. “Pregnant,” it said – no NOT anywhere in sight. I was stunned. I was thrilled. I wondered how the heck we were going to pay for this!

I sat on the steps and called Bryan with the news. Then I sat on the steps some more, my brain firing with all the things I would now have to do and worry about. You would think, after years of going wistful over other people’s babies, having the odd cry over my non-pregnant state, that I would be dancing and singing and posting it on Facebook. Nope. I went straight to worrying.

“Crap,” I thought. “I’ll have to give up coffee.”

If I had realized that I was still allowed to take Tylenol before I quit coffee abruptly, it could have been a less awful experience. As it was, I staggered through my work day, pale and headachey, worrying my coworker. I felt wretched. I went home from work and went straight to bed. Bryan kindly did some research and went out to fetch some Tylenol for me. My hero!

Having jumped that hurdle, I dreaded the prospect of facing the medical establishment. I worried that they would freak out over my vegetarian diet and try to convince me I had to eat meat to survive. Preparing myself to combat hidebound institutional veg-skepticism, I did what any angsty pregnant woman does – I called my mommy.

“Just cite the American Dietetic Association position paper on vegetarian diets,” she said. Aha! Now I was armed with medical clout! If anyone gave me trouble, I could just sneer and imply that their medical knowledge was sadly out of date.

“Don’t you people even read your own literature?” I would say, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. The doctor would be cowed, and never bring up meat again – to anyone.

It was disappointing, after all that build-up, to get only one ignorant comment, from a nurse. All she said, on hearing about my vegetarian diet, was: “Oh, well, you want to be sure and get all your protein.”

All my protein? Really? That’s all she could think of? Hadn’t she heard of B12, or Omega 3′s? Wasn’t there a nutrition class in her curriculum? There were too many scathing comments to pick from, and the moment passed before I could settle on one. Probably just as well. It’s not a good idea to flame the people who will be taking care of you.

The ObGyn was a total let down. She didn’t even blink about my diet. I suspect that since she had my lab results, she could already see I wasn’t anemic or otherwise malnourished. All she wanted to talk about was breastfeeding being the best option and not needing to supplement it with formula, no matter what some pediatricians say. I rather liked her.

So there. I guess the medical establishment does read its own nutritional studies – eventually. Or at least has learned that it’s not PC to ask a vegetarian to eat dead animals. They do still make you wear hospital gowns, though. And put your feet in stirrups.

Zoë Keeland

Dr. John McDougall has written an article to set the record straight about Steve Job’s pancreatic cancer in relation to his long time vegan diet.

In this long and informative article, Dr. McDougall uses cancer statistics and research to show that Steve Jobs most likely would have had pancreatic cancer since he was in his twenties, and that it was almost certainly caused by his exposure to toxic chemicals used in his early hands-on days of building computers.

Dr. McDougall pointed out:

“His diet was in sharp contrast to that of his Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, who ate at Denny’s and whose favorite foods were typical American pizzas and burgers.(189) Wozniak, who is overweight, was four years older than Jobs and is still alive. Because of this apparent paradox many people discount the importance of a healthy vegan diet.”

“Steve Jobs getting cancer was an unfortunate accident—like being struck by lightning or hit by a car. The carcinogen(s) entered his body and due to genetics, “bad luck,” or other unknown and uncontrollable factors his body was susceptible. The cause of his cancer was not due to his vegan diet. In fact, his healthy diet likely slowed the growth of his tumor, delayed the time of diagnosis, and prolonged his useful life.”

The article clears up a lot of confusion and mis-information about Steve Jobs death from pancreatic cancer, in particular the idea that he behaved irresponsibly, stupidly and selfishly in sticking to his vegan diet and refusing surgery in 2003. According to Dr. McDougall’s analysis of the probable cause and course of the disease in Steve Jobs, surgery in 2003 would have had no effect on the course of the disease, as it didn’t in 2004, and again in 2009 when he had a liver transplant.

I was struck by what Dr. McDougall said about Jobs unnecessary guilt and regret, stemming from what his doctors told him: “Jobs lived the final 8 years of his life with regret, guilt, and remorse over delaying his surgery for 9 months after the initial diagnosis of cancer. With one honest sentence his doctors could have relieved him of this heavy burden. This simple fact could have been told: “Mr. Jobs, you had a body full of cancer long before October of 2003, when you were diagnosed by a needle biopsy.” Apparently, not one of his doctors—not Jeffrey Norton, who had operated on his pancreas in 2004, nor James Eason, who had performed his liver transplant in 2009—told Jobs this indisputable truth.”

Dr. McDougall’s article confirms my suspicions that cancer often begins early in life and takes a long time to manifest symptoms, so the idea that doctors can “catch it early” and successfully treat cancer is misleading. After seeing many friends go through horrendous months and years of cancer treatment, I feel that chemo, radiation or other cancer treatments often cause terrible suffering, while survival and recovery statistics aren’t encouraging.

Alternative medicine and special diets likewise seem to have limited usefulness considering the typical cancer time line. By the time you notice symptoms and start doing something different, it’s often too late. However, from what I’ve seen, alternative medicine and diet can as Dr. McDougall said, delay the growth of cancer, improve quality of life and give you more time.

Cancer is an epidemic. There are so many ways that you can get cancer – just breathing the air can do it. It amazing that we all don’t have cancer. But people who get cancer often feel that there must have been something they did to get cancer, there must have been something they could have done to prevent it, and there must be things they can do to stop it. Sometimes that’s true, and sometimes cancer just seems arbitrary, capricious and cruel.

I’m sure Steve Jobs would agree that it’s better to be alive than dead, and it’s good to do whatever we can to be healthy. He did what he felt was right for him and his body, and I’m sad that he regretted anything about his remarkable life.

I feel, after reading Dr. McDougall’s analysis of Steve Job’s pancreatic cancer, that who gets cancer or other catastrophic illnesses, and who survives, is a mystery known only (perhaps) to the higher powers. And that maybe disease is a hint that we should contact our favorite higher power and ask for guidance.

Read Dr. McDougall’s illuminating article on Steve Jobs, cancer and vegan diet