raw food vegans, was Michael Jackson ... Vegan or Vegetarian or?

June 28, 2009

Jay Dinshah, the head of the American Vegan Society, died some years

ago of a heart problem (maybe a heart attack?). So Michael Greger,

MD, who at the time was touring the country promoting veganism, put

together a talk on how vegans can eat for optimum nutrition. (Other

vegan MDs may also have written articles asking whether a vegan dying

of heart probs was an outlier or a warning to all.) He maintained

that vegans have the potential to be healthier than any other cohort,

but (assuming they're not eating junk) can do two things to make sure

they're living up to that potential: take a vitamin B12 supplement or

eat B12-fortified foods (IIRC, it was 10mg twice a day, 100mg once a

day, or 1000mg once a week), and eat some flax seeds to get

omega-threes.

AFAIK, that talk is available on the web, and there used to be a pdf as well.

I eat lots of raw food in the summer, to keep up with my garden's harvest.

But I personally have not met any all-raw vegans who are paragons of

health. I have run into some of them at veg conferences and talks,

but perhaps they were recovering from something or other, or hadn't

worked out what to eat to get enough calories. One of them was eating

several avocados a day to get enough calories, and looked overly

skinny and greasy at the same time! I've also been put off by all the

food-processor " cooking " and the overuse of banana chips (ick) in raw

food demos I've seen.

So that's one of my quirks: I need to experience evidence for myself.

And I haven't heard anything persuasive from the raw vegans I've met.

I'd imagine there's an optimum amount of fresh fruits and vegetables

-- the U.S. government was saying 5 servings a day (as a compromise),

and I've heard other sources saying 7 or 9 servings a day.

And I also haven't heard of any well-designed studies that prove

raw-only is better than vegan with lots of fruits and vegetables. I

also wonder who would fund such a study! It would take some legwork

just to find enough subjects.

At 11:20 AM -0700 6/27/09, Terry Aley wrote:

There are always exceptions to every rule. But if you look at the

data, raw vegans have dramatically less incidence of non-communicable

diseases....

.....

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