Digest Number 1353

[Guest guest]

>Professor Sanders had a piece in the Times

> this weekend:

>

> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article41

> 37426.ece

>

There was a very balanced piece in yesterday's issue by Amanda Ursell

entitled Vegan Babies - also to be found online in the Q & A nutrition

section. Tom Sanders has studied vegans for 35 years and is basically

sympathetic to veganism as a perfectly healthy choice for adults and

children IF people know what they're doing and ensure they get B12 from

fortified foods or supplements, vitamin D from sunlight, and so on. The

damage is done by a very few people who don't or won't realise the need

for careful choices and supplementation in our sanitised and sunless

world.

 

Sadly, none of the recent press articles or the woman from Viva

addressed the fact that vegans and lacto-vegetarians ARE at greater risk

than fish, meat and egg eaters in these latitudes - and those with dark

skins are at even greater risk. For nearly half the year we can't make

meaningful amounts of vitamin D through the effect of sunlight on the

skin (the lighter the skin, the better the absorption) so we need to get

adequate stores in summer and particularly early autumn, but the craze

for factor 300 sunblock at all times works against this, as does our

indoor lifestyle. The alternative to building up good stores (if you're

fortunate enough to be born in the spring) is to take a supplement - in

the bad old days, this meant chewing on the liver of a dead reindeer or

whatever, but we now have pleasanter possibilities and can leave the

reindeer alone. There's plenty of absorbable calcium in dark green

leafy vegetables (not spinach) and various pulses, but you need vitamin

D to go with it for strong bones, so cow milk is not essential though

for young children fortified soya drinks are preferable to filling them

up with fibre at the expense of calories (another potential cause of

malnutrtion, particularly in the children of uninformed raw fooders).

 

Anyway, the Vegan Society does its best to spread the word about all

these things and we seem to have finally got the message through about

the need to get vitamin B12 from fortified foods or supplements. The

next issue of The Vegan will carry a full article on vitamin D and bone

health. Iodine is another issue for vegans, but that will keep for

another day.

 

On a happier note, someone asked about good restaurants in London. For

a fantastic night out, 222 on North End Road (West Kensington tube

station) is our all-time favourite - and everything on the menu is

vegan. For a cheap lunch, Indian Veg in chapel market, Islington,

provides a huge buffet which is 90 per cent. vegan and you can go back

time and again till you can't move - all for £2.95, if memory serves me

correctly. 222 is run by a wonderful Ghanaian adventist called Ben,

while Indian Veg, surprisingly, is run by a Bangla Deshi calle Mohammed

Safa who has three daughters, all doctors, and whose dream is to retire

to Bangla Desh and help people there. There is also a rash of Chinese

vegan buffets, all you can eat for a fiver, run by devotees of a guru

whose name escapes me.

 

All good wishes,

 

Vanessa