Erin called me out in the comments about last week’s newsletter, thinking I was advocating a progressively more restrictive vegan diet (and again Erin, thanks for the feedback and it’s not your reading, it’s my writing that’s to blame for the confusion.)
The truth is, you could eat nothing but mashed potatoes and vitamin pills for all I care, as long as the journey that got you there made sense. The food takes up most of our attention, but being a longtime vegan is about so much more than that:
Like I said in the video, maybe it’s time to focus less on why people stop being vegan and more on why they stay. What non-food related vegan breakthrough did you have in 2010? Let us know in the comments!
Lisa asked what to do when veganism “feels like dieting” and I can certainly understand where she’s coming from. It’s absolutely essential for deeper reasons to exist for your veganism that go beyond health and nutrition, otherwise it feels like dieting because that’s what it is, even if it’s not for weight loss:
The video was getting long so I had to stop rambling, but I want to paraphrase/expand this bit from last week’s newsletter: sometimes it’s OK if things feel like dieting – you could just be taking a break from pushing yourself, and breaks are one of the most important parts of progress (recovery is where the growth actually happens.) For that to work, you need to be pushing yourself the rest of the time, otherwise you’ve got nowhere to go but down, and if “following the rules of veganism” is all you’ve got, then there’s not much room between that and quitting altogether.
Doesn’t it sometimes seem like you need a chemistry degree to be able to understand what’s in packaged food? Good luck figuring out if the ingredients are remotely vegan, right? Actually, it’s not that bad: As mentioned, the Vegetarian Resource Group has a great online guide (also available in print) that you can use to [...]
I hear people say they were vegan until their naturopath told them they had to eat something, and it’s like it’s a done deal. It’s not. Here’s me telling you that: And like I said in the video but you may not have heard, I don’t have anything against naturopaths! I just think it’s interesting [...]
I’ve gone on a few times about the importance of getting credible nutrition information, but here’s a story from a tabling event I was at that illustrates why I care so much about this: And of course, it gives me a chance to throw some props to Ginny Messina for her review of The Vegetarian [...]
A quick followup from Tuesday’s post, not about vitamin D but about another subtle concept (that I’m about to make non-subtle.) Take 3 minutes to find out that there are two many JAGs on the internets, and let me know in the comments where you get your vegan nutrition information! I’ll talk more about this [...]
Is there a difference, when describing what you eat, between “not very good for you” and “bad for you”? Does “bad for you” even get used in your vocabulary for anything other than cigarettes? In this 3 minute video, I talk a bit about this and come up with a “binary diet” challenge that I [...]
This week’s parenting column takes a look at baby foods, specifically some of the very first solids your baby might eat, since it’s something that a lot of parents-to-be have written in about, and hey, even though they’re just doing what you tell them to, this is the point where you really start making a [...]
For this week’s question, we’ve got an email from SB reader Jessica: “I’m curious whether you have advice on omega-3 sources for a 4-year-old? It’s been hard to find the vegan chewables that we had been buying, and my child is resistant to drinking smoothies daily, so flax oil does not appear to be an [...]
As part of “2010 will be different” I’ve finally started taking a multivitiamin regularly. For years I’ve resisted, and here are some of the reasons why, beyond my seeming inability to get into the habit: I didn’t think I needed one. My diet has gaps, sure, but I eat a variety of foods, and overall [...]
