Veganism has become increasingly polarizing over the years with people viewing it as either the best thing ever or as being a sign of insanity. For health nerds and environmental/animal rights activists, being vegan is a badge of honour… Proof that you’re willing to take things to the next level, or from a layman’s point of view, provides you with a platform from which you can shove your moral superiority in everyone else’s face. After all, there’s the well known joke; “How do you know if someone is vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.” However, true vegans who are genuine about their love for the land and who don’t choose to be vegan because of the way it will affect how they’re viewed by society, are people who inspire me because true dedication to anything these days is increasingly rare. In fact, I was vegan for a hot second and managed to last 7 months. Now, before you think I’m implying that I’m one of those inspiring vegans, I’ll explain why I decided to be vegan. You see, at the time I had bad acne and I thought drastically changing my diet would clear up my skin as well as help me lean out a little more. Apart from my entirely superficial reasons I just wanted to see if I was capable of being disciplined enough to abstain from eating all the foods I associated with happiness. Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to see that I’m not an activist and I didn’t have a passionate reason for going vegan. Yes, I’ve seen the factory farming videos and yes, they disgusted me and still do, but I would classify myself as more of a realist than an idealist and so unfortunately I wasn’t that surprised by what I saw.
So why did I have a semi-serious relationship with veganism when I knew after a month that it wasn’t having the desired effect on my skin? Because being vegan made me feel good and I was actually enjoying all the new foods I was being introduced to! You see, I wasn’t the healthiest eater before veganism. I LOVE sugar (I have a killer sweet tooth) and I love milk, eggs, meat and fish too. To give you a better idea, when I was a freshman in college I ate mostly Smuckers Uncrustables (peanut butter and grape jelly of course), cupcakes (because I’d only ever had muffins before being introduced to Sprinkles), and Chipotle burritos (again, I had never had a burrito before and Chipotle is incredible so I was naturally doomed the second my roommate introduced me to it). Hello freshman 15! Anyway, to this day I still get made fun of for my past obsession with these foods, probably even more so now that I’ve done a complete 180° and am all into being healthy. Anyway, one day I was driving back with a friend from a cafe when we passed Real Food Daily on La Cienega and my friend said that she’d heard they had pretty good vegan food there. Now, at this point I had never heard the word vegan before and when she explained what vegan was I honestly wasn’t even sure if it could be classified as food without a single animal product in it (I grew up in Switzerland so you can understand why that was). I was intrigued though and so we decided to try it out for dinner the next night. Cheese made from cashew nuts?! Tempeh bacon?! What was all this stuff?! Despite finding it all bizarre I can’t deny that I thought it tasted good and I was excited to explore all the other food substitutes out there so I decided to be vegan for a week in order to do that. I lasted a day… I mean, where could I even buy vegan food? How do you cook it? Are there many vegan friendly cafes and restaurants? I soon found out there was more available than I had realized and so a few days later I properly set out for a week of veganism. The week went well and after the week was over I was heading back home to Europe for the holidays so I decided not to extend my foray into what was still fairly unknown territory. However, a few months after returning for the new semester I really wanted to give veganism a serious go and so decided to do it with no end in sight.
The first month was really quite difficult as I would dream of all the food I wasn’t allowed, with medium rare beef burgers being a particular focus. Knowing that I’d given myself such a vast challenge also made it harder as there wasn’t a specific goal or finish line that I could focus on. My pride however wouldn’t let me give up so soon and so I continued because I was determined to persevere. It also didn’t help that I continued to go to my favourite pre-vegan places (that had few vegan options) and so would be surrounded by foods I would usually be able to enjoy with abandon. As I eased into the second month I started to notice that my cravings (notably my burger filled dreams) started to fade and my enjoyment of the vegan food started to increase. As time went on this continued until after about 4 months I couldn’t even remember what dairy milk, beef and other animal products tasted like. Soy milk tasted a bit weird at first but it got better with every taste, kind of like how when you buy a new toothpaste it tastes weird for the first few days and then it tastes like every other toothpaste you’ve ever used - minty fresh. I also remember going to Veggie Grill (a vegan burger restaurant) and having to ask one of the employees for confirmation that the burger was indeed beef free because I was convinced I was eating meat. More importantly however was how my palette had changed in relation to vegetables. You see, there’s a veggie wrap I got a couple times at the start of my vegan challenge that I soon stopped ordering because it was incredibly bland (didn’t really taste of anything but crunchy water). However, a couple months into veganism I found myself back at this restaurant and ended up ordering the wrap again because I wasn’t quite hungry enough for one of the bigger meal options and that first bite was a revelation. As you can imagine, my expectations were pretty low but where before I had hardly tasted anything I was now experiencing the full force of the flavours the vegetables had to offer and it was tasty! Having cut all preserved food out of my diet and therefore having a much lower saturated fat and sugar intake my taste buds were more sensitive and thus able to pick up all the flavours and not just the overpowering ones I’d previously been accustomed to. This is where veganism was an incredibly valuable experience because it taught me that healthy food was enjoyable providing you dedicated the time to allowing your body to adjust. Not only that, but experiencing this also hammered home just how terrible my diet had been before.
Benefits of Being Vegan
Taught me to be more aware of what I eat.
Made me want to understand the effects of food on my body.
Ate more vegetables.
More likely to have a low glycemic (sugar) diet.
Gave me increased energy levels.
Lowered my body fat percentage (when I wasn’t doing intense training).
Lowered my LDL levels and total cholesterol.*
Drawbacks of Being Vegan
When I increased the intensity of my training I started to lose muscle mass and my body fat percentage started to go up due to not having enough protein.
Raised my HDL and triglyceride levels.*
Had to take supplements to maintain healthy B12 levels and they're recommended for omega-3 and calcium too (though not necessary if you're eating lots of seeds and leafy greens).
Not very filling (had to eat carb heavy meals to feel satiated).
Lots of soy (it can be avoided though) which is a phytoestrogen** and 90+% of soy is genetically modified (GMO).
* Read Cholesterol to learn more about what this means and why it's good/bad.
** A phytoestrogen is a “dietary estrogen” that can activate estrogen receptors and thereby disrupt natural hormone function.
To close, my only real complaint about veganism is that I found there wasn’t a sufficient amount of protein easily found in the diet for my active lifestyle and so I would recommend adding at least one animal product (ideally fish followed by lean meat and then eggs). This also means you don’t have to worry about protein or B12 levels and given the added protein your meals will be more satiating and so you can lower your carbohydrate intake too. As for the effect or lack thereof it had in regards to trying to treat my acne, I have since discovered that gluten and sugar are what cause my acne to flare up and given the low protein and oftentimes low fat content in many vegan meals grains are quite a staple of this diet. Then again there are alternatives to grains such as potatoes and rice but when already limiting yourself so significantly it’s hard having to limit yourself even further.
Vegan Diet (09/13/12)
Total Cholesterol = 124 mg/dL
Triglycerides = 70 mg/dL
HDL = 48 mg/dL
LDL = 62 mg/dL
TC:HDL = 2.58:1
TRIG:HDL = 1.46:1
Paleo Diet (01/24/14)
Total Cholesterol = 195 mg/dL
Triglycerides = 58 mg/dL
HDL = 56 mg/dL
LDL = 127 mg/dL
TC:HDL = 3.48:1
TRIG:HDL = 1.04:1