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onlyifchased
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Diet: Vegetarian

Re: Hi everyone!

Post by onlyifchased »

I'm going to try to respond to all your points, please call me out if you see any omissions. CW: I'm going to talk about my disordered eating problem in some amount of detail.
brimstoneSalad wrote: What kind of replacements have you tried? Our bodies don't really crave specific nutrients as linked to foods so much (e.g. an iron deficient person might crave ice -- that doesn't make sense). It's probably a matter of psychology and taste addiction.

Have you tried tofu scramble with black salt? Nutritional yeast? Any vegan cheeses, or non-dairy milks?

[...]

Have you tried the daiya vegan cream cheese? It's made from coconut, and spreads pretty nicely for toast applications. You might like it.

I've found in the past that coconut oil works well on pancakes, and doesn't have a strong taste.
I'm aware that cravings aren't indicative of dietary needs. I'm not claiming I "need" eggs/dairy, but rather than psychology and taste addiction (and social pressure, if we're talking about outside-the-home veganism) have been difficult hurdles for me.

I love tofu scramble, black salt, nooch, etc. and eat them often. I drink my whey protein shakes mixed with chocolate soy milk and make my pancakes with "vegan buttermilk" (unsweetened soy milk + vinegar) most of the time. I have two giant tubs of coconut oil (refined for high heat cooking, unrefined for making no-bake treats). Daiya cheeze is gross to me, but I make a mean cashew-based nacho cheeze and I like Follow Your Heart cream cheeze okay. I make my own soy yogurt about half the time that I eat yogurt. All this stuff was instrumental in drastically reducing my animal product use... but it just doesn't taste the same.

I completely agree with the notion that "it tastes good" isn't a sufficient reason to harm sentient beings. That's why I went vegan in the first place. However, if I try to stick to these replacements and be 100% vegan, I end up binging on a giant plate of cow-cheese nachos or something like that, which makes me feel super guilty (both for binging and for eating an animal product) and leads me to intense calorie restriction. It amazes me that I can be fully aware of this issue and still repeat the pattern, but this has been the cycle for two years now. I have sought professional help for my issue, but multiple mental health professionals have assured me that the established firstline treatment for an eating disorder is ceasing all food group and calorie restriction. And... that works. That makes me better. Regardless of what vegan youtubers say about having cured their own eating disorders with veganism, I am not them.
brimstoneSalad wrote: What about [rice, hemp protein powders] do you not like? Do you have problems with soy?

How about beans as a protein source? Have you tried mock meats?
Soy is fine too. I make my own seitan on a weekly basis, and eat beans almost every day. Sometimes I buy field roasts for cookouts, etc. I'm 100% happy with meat replacements and have no desire to ever eat meat again. Maybe a rope-grown oyster or two at most. :)
brimstoneSalad wrote: Studies demonstrate that there's no real benefit to ridiculous amounts of protein for strength training.

Are you sure your consumption patterns are evidence based, rather than habit, or a sport myth?
http://www.eatright.org/resource/fitness/sports-and-performance/fueling-your-workout/protein-and-the-athlete
Recommendations

While protein needs of both endurance and power athletes are greater than that of non-athletes, they're not as high as commonly perceived.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada and the American College of Sports Medicine recommend the following for power and endurance athletes, based on body weight:

Power athletes (strength or speed): 1.2 to 1.7 grams/kilogram a day
Endurance athletes: 1.2 to 1.4 grams/kilogram a day
This is a pretty good article debunking in detail the 1g/lb myth of protein for body builders:

http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-protein-intake-for-bodybuilders/
I recommend reading the whole thing, but here's the point:
Based on the sound research, many review papers have concluded 0.82g/lb is the upper limit at which protein intake benefits body composition (Phillips & Van Loon, 2011). This recommendation often includes a double 95% confidence level, meaning they took the highest mean intake at which benefits were still observed and then added two standard deviations to that level to make absolutely sure all possible benefits from additional protein intake are utilized. As such, this is already overdoing it and consuming 1g/lb ‘to be safe’ doesn’t make any sense. 0.82g/lb is already very safe.
YES I 100% agree!! I am the evangelist for this at my gym haha. I follow the Renaissance Periodization diet for strength athletes, which recommends 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass and not a gram above that. For most female weightlifting athletes who aren't super heavyweight class this is going to be close to if not exactly .82g/lb, given most female weightlifters myself included train around 20%bf. I personally am in the 69kg/152lb weight class and eat 115g of protein per day (1.7*69=117). There is a massive amount of bullshit out there that strength athletes fall prey to. According to my coach, even the Olympic Training Camp had their weightlifting athletes on 1.5-2g of protein per lb bodyweight, which is insane. Fortunately most of the American weightlifters going to the Olympics this year have Renaissance Periodization diet coaches. Their slogan is "science is stronger." :)
brimstoneSalad wrote: If you can link me to what studies you're talking about, I'd be glad to look at them, but it's really irrelevant because even if that is true for some other study participants if you have digestive issues with dairy, the whey is probably holding you back.

You should see overall better health and performance on a diet more suited to you.

Considering digestive issues cause so many problems and are so well correlated to ill health, maybe avoiding eggs and dairy (for you, with your particular issues) would be wise for those reasons as well.

It's probably not actually an advantage for you if you're having issues with dairy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10867064

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18090657

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21912246

Given that my stomach seems to respond poorly to any food I'm not recently acclimated to, I see no reason to assume that I have a particular issue with dairy. Notably, I had the same type of stomach issues when I first started eating beans regularly. As I said my doctor thinks the most likely issue with dairy is lactose intolerance, and whey protein isolate doesn't have any lactose...
brimstoneSalad wrote: Creatine supplementation and others would probably be more useful: and cutting out the eggs and dairy so your digestive system functions better.
It was hard for me to start supplementing creatine because there is an initial scale weight gain due to water retention, and I was afraid that would trigger a disordered eating episode. But I did eventually start it and I was fine. :) I also take B12, algae oil, and vitamin D. Out of curiosity, did you mean anything else by "other" supplementation?
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brimstoneSalad
neither stone nor salad
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Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
Diet: Vegan

Re: Hi everyone!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

onlyifchased wrote:Out of curiosity, did you mean anything else by "other" supplementation?
Beta-alanine, as explained here: http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/carnosine
onlyifchased wrote: Daiya cheeze is gross to me, but I make a mean cashew-based nacho cheeze and I like Follow Your Heart cream cheeze okay.
Daiya has improved in consistency. Either that, or you just get used to it. Maybe try eating it off and on, and it could grow on you?
It was gross to me originally too.

Have you tried Chao slices by field roast?
http://fieldroast.com/product/chao-slices/

That's the most legit non-palm non-casein vegan cheese on the market right now IMO. It doesn't melt well, but the taste and texture are good. Great for just eating.

Also, have you tried Miyoko's? The Sharp Farmhouse is pretty good:
http://miyokoskitchen.com/products-miyoko/
It's a little heavy on the miso, but one of the best commercially available right now.

You can do even better for a nacho cheese with some coconut cream. Less healthy, of course, but as it often goes, the less healthy something is the more delicious.
As long as it's melty and runny the loss of stretch isn't a factor. The only difficult trick is achieving the sharpness of cheese. It's not impossible.

Nutritional yeast helps with overall cheesy body, but it's lacking a few notes of real sharpness.
I've lactofermented, and that helps too: better than vinegar or lemon juice, since it has a lot more depth. (it's easier than it sounds)
Fermented tofu 豆腐乳 (used in Chao cheese, I think) may help too; it has a lot of the right notes. You can find that at Asian markets or international stores, it's sold in little glass jars. A little goes a long way.

I don't know how willing you are to experiment in the kitchen, but nutritional yeast and Daiya are the tip of the iceberg.
onlyifchased wrote: I make my own soy yogurt about half the time that I eat yogurt. All this stuff was instrumental in drastically reducing my animal product use... but it just doesn't taste the same.
How do you make it?
Have you tried many commercial brands?
onlyifchased wrote: However, if I try to stick to these replacements and be 100% vegan, I end up binging on a giant plate of cow-cheese nachos or something like that, which makes me feel super guilty (both for binging and for eating an animal product) and leads me to intense calorie restriction.
How much do you actually eat when you binge? And how often?
onlyifchased wrote:It amazes me that I can be fully aware of this issue and still repeat the pattern, but this has been the cycle for two years now. I have sought professional help for my issue, but multiple mental health professionals have assured me that the established firstline treatment for an eating disorder is ceasing all food group and calorie restriction. And... that works. That makes me better. Regardless of what vegan youtubers say about having cured their own eating disorders with veganism, I am not them.
I don't understand it, but I can see how it might be hard to reason with an eating disorder.
Can you substitute another junk food, or is it only that thing?
Why is calorie restriction the result of the binge?
onlyifchased wrote: Soy is fine too.
Are you sure you have performance losses using soy protein? And what are those losses? Is lifting your primary source of income?
onlyifchased wrote: I completely agree with the notion that "it tastes good" isn't a sufficient reason to harm sentient beings.
I'm wondering if "I can lift 0.1% more" is one. ;)
I understand you don't think whey is a big issue (it may not be, and I'm happy to examine what the effects of the whey market may be), but assuming it causes some non-negligible harm, what's the threshold at which it isn't a sufficient reason?
onlyifchased wrote: I make my own seitan on a weekly basis, and eat beans almost every day. Sometimes I buy field roasts for cookouts, etc. I'm 100% happy with meat replacements and have no desire to ever eat meat again. Maybe a rope-grown oyster or two at most. :)
That's great. I hope I can help you find a viable replacement for dairy and egg.

onlyifchased wrote: Given that my stomach seems to respond poorly to any food I'm not recently acclimated to, I see no reason to assume that I have a particular issue with dairy. Notably, I had the same type of stomach issues when I first started eating beans regularly.
The issue with beans is due to resistant starches; microbes need to adjust to them. It can be resolved in the case of intermittent consumption with beano or equivalent.
onlyifchased wrote:As I said my doctor thinks the most likely issue with dairy is lactose intolerance, and whey protein isolate doesn't have any lactose...
If it really is lactose, then a commercial lactase should allow you to eat dairy intermittently or rarely without problems (without eating it regularly to sustain some kind of tolerance [or arguably a perpetual state of mild sickness so you don't notice the problems when you eat it]).
http://www.walmart.com/ip/20680389

Vegan at home problem solved. ;)

If it's an allergy to something in dairy or a problem with casein, then it's probably affecting your overall health on the regular by consuming dairy. In the former case, whey may be an issue too, while in the latter it probably would not.

Maybe you should try not consuming lactose containing dairy for a while, and then experiment with lactase.

As to those links:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10867064

I can't access the full text right now to criticize it, but I see what it's saying based on the abstract. I'll assume that's correct.

Could you not just consume ever so slightly more soy protein to compensate if there's a difference in amino acid balance or digestibility?
The difference is not large. Would it be hard to eat a few extra grams, given your modest intake?

And I don't think that would even be necessary to eat more volume, since soy protein isolate seems to contain more actual protein than whey protein powder.

This is the data I'm getting from cronometer (let me know if this is not accurate):

100g of each
Whey Protein, Gold Standard: 394.7 calories, 9.9 carbs 3.3 fat 78.9 protein
Soy Protein Isolate: 335.0 calories, 0 carbs 3.4 fat 88.3 protein

Soy protein isolate contains over 10% more protein.
Even if the protein component in Whey is technically slightly more digestible, or technically has a slightly better amino acid ratio, does the whole product really beat soy? I doubt it.
You may be using a different form of whey protein, but that's what I've found.
Gram for gram of powder, soy looks better.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18090657

That's talking about the effect of "specific amino acids, such as leucine" in creating anabolic signals.
It's probably more effective to supplement directly if that's the amino acid you're after:
http://us.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/l-leucine/11092399.html
(Leucine is made by microorganisms, and I'd bet it's far cheaper by gram compared to whey as a source)

So, let's assume you just switch your hypothetical 100g scoop out for soy:

100g of each
Whey: 394.7 calories, 9.9 carbs 3.3 fat 78.9 protein [clickylink]Leucine: 8.3[/clickylink]
Soy: 335 calories, 0 carbs 3.4 fat 88.3 protein Leucine: 6.8

That's under 2g of leucine missing.

The link I provided above offers 226.796 g leucine for $9.09
Something like 100 days of Leucine (to more than make up the difference) for about ten cents a day.

So, you'd be out about ten cents a day plus whatever the price difference is between Whey and Soy protein.
Except... now that I'm looking at the prices, whey protein powder seems to be $15 a pound and soy protein isolate seems to be almost half of that at about $8 a pound. That's what I'm finding with a quick Google search: are these numbers roughly accurate in your experience? Whey concentrate is cheaper, but still not as cheap as soy, and I think that's something different with more lactose and other substances (it seems to have a lower percentage of protein, numbers are all over the place though).

100g scoop
Whey: $3.30
Soy: $1.76 + 10 cents for Leucine = $1.86

In this hypothetical scenario, you're saving $1.44 a day.

You could pocket that, or scarf down about as much leucine as you could possibly want.
There doesn't seem to be any good reason not to do that, even if whey had zero animal cruelty footprint (which I don't think is true given its high price tag; the dairy industry is profiting off its sale and that wouldn't be hard to calculate).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21912246

That appears to be a meta-analysis, not an actual primary study (meta analyses are subject to publication biases among other issues).
It also doesn't seem to be comparative from what I can tell. And their claims are not even strong in the conclusion.
They basically say: "Hey, lots of people have been studying this stuff called whey. Maybe it's good for some hypothetical reasons? We don't know."

Would you like me to look into these in more detail, or do you have any other studies you can link to?
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PsYcHo
Master of the Forum
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Joined: Tue Jan 26, 2016 10:24 pm
Diet: Pescetarian

Re: Hi everyone!

Post by PsYcHo »

Hello!

I see you and Brimstone are having a discussion, so I won't butt in, (TL;DR :) ), just wanted to say Hi, and welcome to the forum!
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
onlyifchased
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Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 1:49 pm
Diet: Vegetarian

Re: Hi everyone!

Post by onlyifchased »

Hi and thanks to those others who have said hi to me!

I have to say, so far this forum has really delivered on its title.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Beta-alanine, as explained here: http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/carnosine
Cool! I've avoided that one because I've heard people describe the side effect as "making your eyeballs itch." Yikes. Maybe I'll suck it up and try it though.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Daiya has improved in consistency. Either that, or you just get used to it. Maybe try eating it off and on, and it could grow on you?
It was gross to me originally too.

Have you tried Chao slices by field roast?
http://fieldroast.com/product/chao-slices/

That's the most legit non-palm non-casein vegan cheese on the market right now IMO. It doesn't melt well, but the taste and texture are good. Great for just eating.

Also, have you tried Miyoko's? The Sharp Farmhouse is pretty good:
http://miyokoskitchen.com/products-miyoko/
It's a little heavy on the miso, but one of the best commercially available right now.

You can do even better for a nacho cheese with some coconut cream. Less healthy, of course, but as it often goes, the less healthy something is the more delicious.
As long as it's melty and runny the loss of stretch isn't a factor. The only difficult trick is achieving the sharpness of cheese. It's not impossible.

Nutritional yeast helps with overall cheesy body, but it's lacking a few notes of real sharpness.
I've lactofermented, and that helps too: better than vinegar or lemon juice, since it has a lot more depth. (it's easier than it sounds)
Fermented tofu 豆腐乳 (used in Chao cheese, I think) may help too; it has a lot of the right notes. You can find that at Asian markets or international stores, it's sold in little glass jars. A little goes a long way.

I don't know how willing you are to experiment in the kitchen, but nutritional yeast and Daiya are the tip of the iceberg.
Cool. Thanks for the pointers. I sometimes like experimenting with this stuff. When I get a craving I might try out some of these ideas. :) I once brought a vegan lasagne with Chao slices to a potluck, at which I was the only vegetarian-type person there, and didn't take home any leftovers!
brimstoneSalad wrote:
onlyifchased wrote: I make my own soy yogurt about half the time that I eat yogurt. All this stuff was instrumental in drastically reducing my animal product use... but it just doesn't taste the same.
How do you make it?
Have you tried many commercial brands?
When I made it, I buy a 4-6oz tub of some non-dairy yogurt, mix it with 2 quarts Westsoy plain soy milk, and leave it for 10-12 hours in my Instant Pot on the yogurt setting. I love how tart it gets.

I like Trader Joe's coconut yogurt a lot, but it's a bit pricey and full of sugar, and soy is the only non-dairy that has substantial protein, so I typically prefer that.
brimstoneSalad wrote: How much do you actually eat when you binge? And how often?
Since I stopped trying to be vegan I have not binged once. While I was doing vegan at home (better part of 2 years?) I guess it varied? When I was cutting weight I could be pretty good about not binging because it's basically was contrary to all the goals I had at that time, so it wouldn't be that hard to talk myself out of it. Plus I knew that I would only be cutting for 8-12 weeks. If I was maintaining or bulking (most of the time) I would do it as often as every week, then sort of "get a grip" and go back to maybe once per month. Sometimes I would be like "ok I am going to actually try to transition to fully vegan" which would last a few weeks and be followed by a series of binges.

As far as how much... I might order an appetizer plate of nachos or cheese fries like you might get at an American style sports bar as my meal, or I'll get a 16oz milkshake with a side of fries as a meal, or one place near my house does a six-egg veggie omelette (which I actually have never quite finished). So like... a lot of food for a sitting, really, but nothing you'd be surprised to see a big tall dude eating. Except I'm an average size female :lol:

Anyway it's not that the amount of food really is the issue. Obviously I don't think that milkshakes or lots of cheese or whatever is healthy, but my blood panels are always good and I burn enough calories that this stuff doesn't make me gain unwanted weight. It's more the mindset, like the feeling of being "out of control," that I know what I'm doing is wrong and goes against my ethics but I can't stop myself.
brimstoneSalad wrote: I don't understand it, but I can see how it might be hard to reason with an eating disorder.
Can you substitute another junk food, or is it only that thing?
Why is calorie restriction the result of the binge?
I don't know. As I write this out, I actually realize this really just doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm a pretty disciplined person. I have a graduate degree, I never miss workouts, I budget carefully and consistently, I generally succeed when I set my mind to things. It seems stupid that trying to be vegan would be the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. Yet, here I am.

It's not about eating junk food really. It's about specific cravings I think. Like I have a few vegan treats that I eat regularly and love, I don't overindulge with them because i just don't want to. In fact since going vegetarian I have been able to eat the foods I had been driven to binge on in moderation with no guilt. It's like the restriction bottles up all this desire and guilt... Calorie restriction comes after the binge because I feel guilty and like I need to make up for it.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Are you sure you have performance losses using soy protein? And what are those losses? Is lifting your primary source of income?
No, I'm not sure of that, it's very difficult (I'd even say borderline impossible) to figure that out for myself personally. Too many other factors to hold constant.

No, I am not remotely talented enough to make money at weightlifting, but it is my ambition to work as a coach when I am older. :)
brimstoneSalad wrote:
onlyifchased wrote: I completely agree with the notion that "it tastes good" isn't a sufficient reason to harm sentient beings.
I'm wondering if "I can lift 0.1% more" is one. ;)
I understand you don't think whey is a big issue (it may not be, and I'm happy to examine what the effects of the whey market may be), but assuming it causes some non-negligible harm, what's the threshold at which it isn't a sufficient reason?
Ha, it's not really a sufficient reason either. That's fair. And I appreciate your analysis of how to make a soy protein shake substitute that would be just as good performance-wise. Your cost calculation is a little off because by buying bulk/sales I can get whey protein for about $5/lb, but if it was just cost at issue I'd be willing to pay more. From a logical perspective, I'm sufficiently convinced soy would do just as well, though I will probably also look into anything I can find about the health/safety of consuming soy protein isolates, because I have no idea if there is any research on that.

I guess the main reason I went back to whey protein is that I decided to actual heed therapists' advice to do completely unrestricted eating. I even told myself I would eat meat if I wanted it (I didn't). And I thought, what protein powder would a person who had no dietary restrictions buy? So I bought whey, because my diet book said to buy whey.

I am going to be honest with you, I am quite seriously afraid to start restricting myself again. I am afraid I will revert to full on anorexia, undo all the psychological progress I've made, and hurt my body again. Anorexia kills people. :(
brimstoneSalad wrote: If it really is lactose, then a commercial lactase should allow you to eat dairy intermittently or rarely without problems (without eating it regularly to sustain some kind of tolerance [or arguably a perpetual state of mild sickness so you don't notice the problems when you eat it]).
http://www.walmart.com/ip/20680389

Vegan at home problem solved. ;)

If it's an allergy to something in dairy or a problem with casein, then it's probably affecting your overall health on the regular by consuming dairy. In the former case, whey may be an issue too, while in the latter it probably would not.

Maybe you should try not consuming lactose containing dairy for a while, and then experiment with lactase.
I have done this actually. Lactase did help to some degree, especially for small amounts of dairy, but did not resolve all of my symptoms. I suspect the issue is both lactose intolerance (as my doctor suspects) and just not tolerating unusual foods well (why egg bothers me too).
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Hi everyone!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

onlyifchased wrote: Cool! I've avoided that one because I've heard people describe the side effect as "making your eyeballs itch." Yikes. Maybe I'll suck it up and try it though.
Weird. Carnosine or Beta-alanine?
onlyifchased wrote: I once brought a vegan lasagne with Chao slices to a potluck, at which I was the only vegetarian-type person there, and didn't take home any leftovers!
Nice! There are lot of recipes and ideas online. You might like lacto fermentation if you've experimented with yogurt.
onlyifchased wrote: When I made it, I buy a 4-6oz tub of some non-dairy yogurt, mix it with 2 quarts Westsoy plain soy milk, and leave it for 10-12 hours in my Instant Pot on the yogurt setting. I love how tart it gets.
Yeah... you're almost there, but you kind of need thickeners, since there's no casein. Straight up soymilk isn't a great way to make vegan yogurt.

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/recipe/yogurt-recipes/vegan-yogurt/

Typically pectin is used. You can find a lot of recipes online by searching for "vegan yogurt recipe".

A little tweaking, and you'll probably find one you like. Even if you just add pectin to your current process, you'll probably find that much more satisfying.

onlyifchased wrote: When I was cutting weight I could be pretty good about not binging because it's basically was contrary to all the goals I had at that time, so it wouldn't be that hard to talk myself out of it. Plus I knew that I would only be cutting for 8-12 weeks.
So, it sounds like you do have rational control over it, and it's a matter of battling cravings and fighting that little voice inside with counter arguments.

Cravings usually only last a few minutes. If you get into a habit of distracting yourself when you're having a craving, it will usually disappear without you noticing it.
The same tips that apply to smoking cessation apply to quitting animal products too.

Have you tried any of these processes?

It sounds like your therapist didn't serve you very well with recommendations. Yes, just not restricting may be the easiest and "safest" way, and since the therapist probably wasn't vegan and saw no value in it I can understand the recommendation: it did the job of reversing the anorexia, but when you have a moral interest in not eating something, that's not the same as an eating disorder, and it would be nice if they would at least respect that and give some tips rather than just saying not to do it as if you can't.

Veganism is not an eating disorder, it's a moral standard.
Having moral standards is important for human fulfillment/actualization: would they put human beings on the table too, if you had a craving? Probably not. Would they tell you to kill and eat your pet if you had a craving? Probably not.
They see value in these things. Not seeing any value in veganism is their moral failing. Not respecting your values and trying to help you realize them is a professional failing.

onlyifchased wrote: If I was maintaining or bulking (most of the time) I would do it as often as every week [...]
As far as how much... I might order an appetizer plate of nachos or cheese fries like you might get at an American style sports bar as my meal, or I'll get a 16oz milkshake with a side of fries as a meal, or one place near my house does a six-egg veggie omelette (which I actually have never quite finished). So like... a lot of food for a sitting, really, but nothing you'd be surprised to see a big tall dude eating. Except I'm an average size female :lol:
It sounds like the cycle of being vegan for a while, then bingeing actually resulted in less overall animal product consumption.
Can you give me a sense of comparison with how much animal product you ate after giving up and maintaining as you have been?
onlyifchased wrote: Anyway it's not that the amount of food really is the issue.
I didn't mean it that way. I meant it in the sense that total consumption of animal products might be lower.
I'm not worried about you getting fat, and you shouldn't be either. Not caring about that is an important part of overcoming eating disorders.

Even a planned binge might be more pragmatic than daily consumption (or every other daily).
As you said, when you're cutting, knowing it's over in 12 weeks helps: what if you planned to have dairy every 12 weeks, and had nothing in between? My guess is you could figure it out to where total consumption would be a lot lower.

That's assuming the binges are unavoidable, which I don't necessarily think is true.
onlyifchased wrote: It's more the mindset, like the feeling of being "out of control," that I know what I'm doing is wrong and goes against my ethics but I can't stop myself.
This could be a self fulfilling prophecy, where the fear and expectation of failure leads to it.

Kind of reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2YSNm66sQQ
All the pressure and expectation of failure. Of course that's worse for the girl in that bit, since she had TV cameras on her and a celebrity mentalist telling her she doesn't have enough willpower to resist pushing the button, but the same idea.
Look into the golem effect.

People have told you, or you've told yourself you can't help it -- it's probably only true because you believe it, and have learned it through habit.
onlyifchased wrote:It seems stupid that trying to be vegan would be the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. Yet, here I am.
I think you've just gotten into a habit and expectation of failure, enhanced particularly based on your fears of falling back into an eating disorder.
I think if you work on other methods to overcome cravings, and introduce some vegan junk food (I can see the basis of not avoiding things due to nutrient obsessions) that may mitigate the problem.
onlyifchased wrote:In fact since going vegetarian I have been able to eat the foods I had been driven to binge on in moderation with no guilt.
Why? Why is it guiltless when you do it regularly by choice, instead of as infrequently as possible due to lapse of will?

The only guilt anybody should be feeling is for harming others. Try to separate legitimate feelings of moral guilt from irrational personal guilt over violating obsessive rules caused by an eating disorder.
onlyifchased wrote:It's like the restriction bottles up all this desire and guilt... Calorie restriction comes after the binge because I feel guilty and like I need to make up for it.
Calorie restriction doesn't in any way make up for the harm done to the animals, though. You're resolving the guilt in a harmful way to yourself that has nothing to do with the harm the actions have done to animals.

What if, instead of resolving guilt through calorie restriction, you did it by donating to an animal charity, or doing some leafletting? Do something good to make up for the bad... rather than following injury with insult by punishing yourself in an unproductive way. The later is like a Christian saying a bunch of Hail Mary's for wronging somebody -- we're dealing with vicarious redemption and punishment here, when the order of the day should be restitution.
onlyifchased wrote:Ha, it's not really a sufficient reason either. That's fair. And I appreciate your analysis of how to make a soy protein shake substitute that would be just as good performance-wise. Your cost calculation is a little off because by buying bulk/sales I can get whey protein for about $5/lb
That's much cheaper than the prices I'm seeing, but it's expected that local bulk for anything would be -- including soy. Have you compared? What's the lowest price you can get soy protein for?

http://shop.honeyville.com/soy-protein-isolate.html

This says 44 lb for $186. Plus $5 flat rate ground shipping, that's $4.34/lb

Still seems to beat whey.
onlyifchased wrote:but if it was just cost at issue I'd be willing to pay more. From a logical perspective, I'm sufficiently convinced soy would do just as well, though I will probably also look into anything I can find about the health/safety of consuming soy protein isolates, because I have no idea if there is any research on that.
In the amounts you'd be consuming it in, I'm sure it's fine. I've never seen any credible evidence against soy or isolates.

That said, I suggest that you do NOT do research on it, because that sounds obsessive and may just enable old orthorexic habits.
onlyifchased wrote: I am going to be honest with you, I am quite seriously afraid to start restricting myself again. I am afraid I will revert to full on anorexia, undo all the psychological progress I've made, and hurt my body again. Anorexia kills people. :(
I think you need to work on drawing a hard distinction between moral restriction and orthorexic/anorexic restriction.

Like worrying about soy isolate maybe not being good? That's kind of an obsessive/orthorexic mentality talking. This is precisely the kind of thing you need to get out of the habit of worrying about. ;)

It's a distinction your therapist may have been reluctant to draw because he or she doesn't understand veganism, and doesn't see the value in it. Some anorexics, unfortunately, also use veganism as an excuse, and your therapist may have been sensitive to that.

Don't go health and calorie obsessed; those are the slippery slopes you want to avoid. You need to stop caring about the body image and health stuff. There's nothing about moral veganism that should lead to anorexia: there are plenty of vegan junk foods to not restrict, and plenty of fat vegans out there as a testament to that.

Maybe you should shop around for a therapist sensitive to veganism who is capable of making the distinction too.

Also, you're free to make a thread here with a diet and weight/etc. "blog", and we can help keep you accountable to yourself to not restrict vegan junk foods or fall into an old pattern of anorexic eating. Transparency and peer review is sometimes the best way for us to keep ourselves honest.
And you could even take pictures with a newspaper so we know you're not fudging the numbers: it's not hard to tell if somebody is getting dangerously underweight by a photo.

onlyifchased wrote: I have done this actually. Lactase did help to some degree, especially for small amounts of dairy, but did not resolve all of my symptoms. I suspect the issue is both lactose intolerance (as my doctor suspects) and just not tolerating unusual foods well (why egg bothers me too).
Probably helps enough for non-binge level dairy, such as the occasional small amounts in a vegetarian dish when you eat out (like parmesan in the tomato sauce)?
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Re: Hi everyone!

Post by onlyifchased »

brimstoneSalad wrote:
onlyifchased wrote: Cool! I've avoided that one because I've heard people describe the side effect as "making your eyeballs itch." Yikes. Maybe I'll suck it up and try it though.
Weird. Carnosine or Beta-alanine?
Beta alanine.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Yeah... you're almost there, but you kind of need thickeners, since there's no casein. Straight up soymilk isn't a great way to make vegan yogurt.

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/recipe/yogurt-recipes/vegan-yogurt/

Typically pectin is used. You can find a lot of recipes online by searching for "vegan yogurt recipe".

A little tweaking, and you'll probably find one you like. Even if you just add pectin to your current process, you'll probably find that much more satisfying.
I actually really like my soy yogurt. ;) I mostly eat cow milk yogurt to keep my dairy "tolerance". I may try adding pectin to my soy yogurt just to experiment, though I understand pectin typically only works in the presence of sugar, and I don't really care for sweet yogurt.
brimstoneSalad wrote: So, it sounds like you do have rational control over it, and it's a matter of battling cravings and fighting that little voice inside with counter arguments.

Cravings usually only last a few minutes. If you get into a habit of distracting yourself when you're having a craving, it will usually disappear without you noticing it.
The same tips that apply to smoking cessation apply to quitting animal products too.

Have you tried any of these processes?

It sounds like your therapist didn't serve you very well with recommendations. Yes, just not restricting may be the easiest and "safest" way, and since the therapist probably wasn't vegan and saw no value in it I can understand the recommendation: it did the job of reversing the anorexia, but when you have a moral interest in not eating something, that's not the same as an eating disorder, and it would be nice if they would at least respect that and give some tips rather than just saying not to do it as if you can't.

Veganism is not an eating disorder, it's a moral standard.
Having moral standards is important for human fulfillment/actualization: would they put human beings on the table too, if you had a craving? Probably not. Would they tell you to kill and eat your pet if you had a craving? Probably not.
They see value in these things. Not seeing any value in veganism is their moral failing. Not respecting your values and trying to help you realize them is a professional failing.
I get what you're saying. I live in a pretty vegan-friendly city (Seattle), there's some chance that I might be able to find a vegan-friendly therapist. Unfortunately, I just got laid off and I absolutely cannot afford one right now. :( Once I find a job, I may see if I can find one who would support me going vegan.
brimstoneSalad wrote: It sounds like the cycle of being vegan for a while, then bingeing actually resulted in less overall animal product consumption.
Can you give me a sense of comparison with how much animal product you ate after giving up and maintaining as you have been?

[...]

Even a planned binge might be more pragmatic than daily consumption (or every other daily).
As you said, when you're cutting, knowing it's over in 12 weeks helps: what if you planned to have dairy every 12 weeks, and had nothing in between? My guess is you could figure it out to where total consumption would be a lot lower.

That's assuming the binges are unavoidable, which I don't necessarily think is true.
Good question! Right now at home I buy a pint of heavy cream 1-2x per month (to make butter and buttermilk), 1 quart of yogurt every week and a half to two weeks, and 2-5 eggs per week. I have a protein shake daily. FWIW, I buy the cream, yogurt, and eggs from the best possible sources, all certified humane. The dairy farm I buy from does not separate the calves from the cows until they wean naturally, and their cows live 8-10 years (as opposed to 4-5) and derive all their nutrition from grazing. The egg-laying hens also live longer lives, they are not killed until they completely stop producing eggs, and are also free to "graze" daily. Of course these are more expensive, which incentivizes using vegan products nicely. :)

I guess one of the reasons I am reluctant to change this pattern is that I am not really emotionally convinced that these things specifically are doing much harm. I'm not really completely convinced these specific animals are better off not born than living the lives that they do. Yes, I think it's wrong to cause harm for taste, but I look at all the other harmful things that I do (own a cell phone, buy berries probably picked by exploited migrant workers, etc., not farm my own vegetables and rely on farming machines that kill squirrels and so on) and I don't see how this stands out as the thing I should be focusing so much effort on, when it is specifically so hard for me. Yes, I know one can always strive to live a more ethical life. How does one pick which thing to work on getting better at right now?
brimstoneSalad wrote:
onlyifchased wrote: It's more the mindset, like the feeling of being "out of control," that I know what I'm doing is wrong and goes against my ethics but I can't stop myself.
This could be a self fulfilling prophecy, where the fear and expectation of failure leads to it.

Kind of reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2YSNm66sQQ
All the pressure and expectation of failure. Of course that's worse for the girl in that bit, since she had TV cameras on her and a celebrity mentalist telling her she doesn't have enough willpower to resist pushing the button, but the same idea.
Look into the golem effect.

People have told you, or you've told yourself you can't help it -- it's probably only true because you believe it, and have learned it through habit.
onlyifchased wrote:It seems stupid that trying to be vegan would be the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. Yet, here I am.
I think you've just gotten into a habit and expectation of failure, enhanced particularly based on your fears of falling back into an eating disorder.
I think if you work on other methods to overcome cravings, and introduce some vegan junk food (I can see the basis of not avoiding things due to nutrient obsessions) that may mitigate the problem.
onlyifchased wrote:In fact since going vegetarian I have been able to eat the foods I had been driven to binge on in moderation with no guilt.
Why? Why is it guiltless when you do it regularly by choice, instead of as infrequently as possible due to lapse of will?

The only guilt anybody should be feeling is for harming others. Try to separate legitimate feelings of moral guilt from irrational personal guilt over violating obsessive rules caused by an eating disorder.
You have clinical depression? Just try to separate the legitimate feelings of sadness when something bad actually happens from the irrational lows of clinical depression.

Not (just) trying to snark, that's really how this sounds to me. I can totally understand how my actions would not make sense to someone without an eating disorder. I'm reasonable mentally healthy right now, and frankly my actions in the past when that was less true don't make much sense even to me right now.
brimstoneSalad wrote: That said, I suggest that you do NOT do research on it, because that sounds obsessive and may just enable old orthorexic habits.

I think you need to work on drawing a hard distinction between moral restriction and orthorexic/anorexic restriction.

Like worrying about soy isolate maybe not being good? That's kind of an obsessive/orthorexic mentality talking. This is precisely the kind of thing you need to get out of the habit of worrying about. ;)
Eh, I don't think I have orthorexia. I'm interesting in reading about nutrition and stuff, but I don't think I obsess over which foods are "good". I can't think of a single category of food that I totally refuse to eat other than meat, and I typically only bother to research stuff that I'm going to eat every single day... like I already eat TVP occasionally and don't worry about that. I think wanting to know if something is healthy before adding it to your daily diet is pretty normal, at least among people who see eating healthy as one of their priorities.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Also, you're free to make a thread here with a diet and weight/etc. "blog", and we can help keep you accountable to yourself to not restrict vegan junk foods or fall into an old pattern of anorexic eating. Transparency and peer review is sometimes the best way for us to keep ourselves honest.
And you could even take pictures with a newspaper so we know you're not fudging the numbers: it's not hard to tell if somebody is getting dangerously underweight by a photo.
Hmm. Do others do this here? I didn't really see but I might be looking in the wrong place. Either way, I am not worried about not being "caught" getting dangerously underweight. I've told my partner if I go below 135lbs or if my period stops for 3 months he's to pitch a fit until I get help or gain weight. We weigh in together at the gym so he would know if I started trying to hide my weight, or as my partner I suspect he would notice if I didn't seem to be getting a period. If I reverted to anorexia, he would intervene. I don't want to get anywhere close to that problem! I've worked hard to put on muscle and I do not want to lose it! I want to catch myself as soon as I notice disordered eating patterns showing up, and I want to give my triggers a wide berth.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Hi everyone!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

onlyifchased wrote: I get what you're saying. I live in a pretty vegan-friendly city (Seattle), there's some chance that I might be able to find a vegan-friendly therapist. Unfortunately, I just got laid off and I absolutely cannot afford one right now. :( Once I find a job, I may see if I can find one who would support me going vegan.
Cool!

Also, glad to hear you have a good support network there.
onlyifchased wrote: Good question! Right now at home I buy a pint of heavy cream 1-2x per month (to make butter and buttermilk), 1 quart of yogurt every week and a half to two weeks, and 2-5 eggs per week. I have a protein shake daily.
That sounds like it might be slightly more animal product volume than the average binge you talked about.
onlyifchased wrote:Yes, I think it's wrong to cause harm for taste, but I look at all the other harmful things that I do (own a cell phone, buy berries probably picked by exploited migrant workers, etc., not farm my own vegetables and rely on farming machines that kill squirrels and so on) and I don't see how this stands out as the thing I should be focusing so much effort on, when it is specifically so hard for me. Yes, I know one can always strive to live a more ethical life. How does one pick which thing to work on getting better at right now?
"Exploited" workers are not bred into exploitation. They already exist, and it's a choice between a relatively less desirable job (compared to those we enjoy) and no job (or an even worse one). As long as there's a free market, they can choose for themselves the best option, so it's not really possible to do these people harm by offering them the choice to work for you. Obviously they're also not killed when they stop being useful.
Contrary to liberal propaganda, sweatshops are actually a good thing, since they bring money into poor economies (you can find interviews with the people in these areas: they are prized jobs that enable upward mobility and pay much better than anything else in town). Economy is actually better than charity since it draws industry in and results in a lot more money (larger volume) which is also properly managed and distributed rather than largely wasted.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/05/02/sweatshops-in-bangladesh-improve-the-lives-of-their-workers-and-boost-growth/

As to farms killing animals, that represents a very small footprint per calorie.
comparison..jpg
http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc

Even assuming no animals were killed for the eggs (which still isn't true in this case, since the chickens are killed when production "ends", and male chicks have still been killed), the harvest required for the bulk of their food energy results in more deaths than vegan foods due to the difference in thermodynamic efficiency.

It's hard to say where the dairy you're eating lies per calorie in terms of animal deaths since I don't know the details of the practice, and grazing hasn't been as meticulously examined since it's a less common practice. We do know it's damaging to the environment, though, and that pastures yield far fewer calories per acre than intensive grain farming (something even cowspiracy, with all of its errors, got right).

Here's another look at some of the studies done:
http://freefromharm.org/common-justifications-for-eating-animals/why-plant-crops-dont-kill-more-wildlife-than-pasture-raised-animals/

It includes discussion on grazing, which may be just as damaging to mice and other small animals, but produces far less food per death.
Livestock farmers actively kill wildlife
[...]But I’m talking about wild animals specifically killed at the behest of livestock farmers. Even if they never attacked livestock. With your tax money.
[...]But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what publicly available data from the ironically-named Wildlife Services unit says about wild animals killed in 2014. At the behest of the livestock farming lobby, the USDA killed around 322 wolves, 580 black bears, 800 bobcats, 61700 coyotes (also destroyed 425 homes), 5500 deer, 300 badgers, 2950 foxes, 8600 gophers (with 1162 homes destroyed) and 16,000 prairie dogs (with 73,560 homes destroyed).. In addition to these massacres, they also systematically killed 22,500 beavers, 325,000 blackbirds, 4000 cardinals, 730 feral cats, 2090 coots, 16,560 cormorants, 542,231 cowbirds, 20,600 crows and ravens, 112,200 doves and pigeons, 6400 francolins, 21,400 geese, 100,730 grackles, 800 hares, 2560 marmots (with 1600 homes destroyed), 5500 skunks (and 30 nests) and 5000 vultures. All in all, they killed 2,713,570 wild animals, destroyed 79,845 homes, and rendered over 27,632,200 animals without territories or home ranges. All this in just one year.
Importantly, this is probably more relevant to grazing animals than to factory farming where the animals are contained and protected.

Some of these animals may be killed for chicken and sheep (although most chickens are now factory farmed). There are almost 40,000,000 cows in the U.S., most beef cows at least spending some time on pasture before being finished for around a quarter of their lives, so if the whole number grazing were considered it would be about 10%.

Intuitively, it would make sense that yield for grass fed cows would be substantially lower, and that seems to be the common understanding:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/is-grass-fed-the-best-for-dairy-cows-zbcz1504.aspx

It sounds like not only would yield be lower, it's not even practical for cows bred for dairy, so you may have a mixed breed cow AND lower yield of milk.

That 10% number may have to be doubled. Plus they're losing milk on a calves soon to become veal once they're weaned (we have to be wary of double counting, but there is a major subsidy occurring here).

Add that to the likely larger number of small animals killed per calorie compared to harvesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if grass fed milk has a larger death footprint (in addition to the probably larger environmental footprint) than conventional milk.

We can't make the assumption that these older or more pastoral practices are better. My relatively educated guess is that it's worse in every major respect except for in terms of PR. Slightly nicer to the cows, but much worse for everybody else.

onlyifchased wrote:You have clinical depression? Just try to separate the legitimate feelings of sadness when something bad actually happens from the irrational lows of clinical depression.
Poor analogy. Sadness as response to stimuli is relatively non-rational. You can't draw a line between reasonable and unreasonable sadness in response to something real, because it's all quite subjective.
There is some point where this is partially true, though: Causes of sadness may be mistaken or exaggerated by incorrect interpretation (like the belief that people think negatively of you, which can be empirically disconfirmed), which is something that when corrected can help resolve depression -- it's far more difficult to do, though, due to the paranoia that drives it and the practical difficulty of disconfirming these beliefs through objective methods.
Ethics is not so; we can do empirical and logical analysis of the impact of our actions based on widely available information.
onlyifchased wrote:Not (just) trying to snark, that's really how this sounds to me. I can totally understand how my actions would not make sense to someone without an eating disorder.
No, I understand how you feel. I have experience with something similar although I won't talk about it here.
Yes, they feel similar, and superficially it's hard to pick them apart. It can help a lot to talk them through with a third party who can help identify fallacious reasoning, but you can get into a habit of examining them yourself and changing your thought patterns. I'm not saying it's easy to hold yourself accountable.
onlyifchased wrote:Eh, I don't think I have orthorexia. [...]
I think wanting to know if something is healthy before adding it to your daily diet is pretty normal, at least among people who see eating healthy as one of their priorities.
It's normal to regard it as at least not dangerous if a lot of people do it and the government doesn't forbid it or recommend against it. Even people interested in health only do sparse research. People figure out saturated fat is bad, and that plant protein is better, vegetables are good, etc.

You can do what you want, of course, but I'm just saying I don't think it's a good idea for somebody with an eating disorder to flirt with health-based orthorexia, because that (unlike ethics) IS a slippery slope, and it sounds a bit obsessive to worry about soy protein that you're having a little scoop of each day. I mean, if you were going for something like soylent, that would be another matter. This is a tiny percentage of your diet.

onlyifchased wrote:Hmm. Do others do this here? I didn't really see but I might be looking in the wrong place.
A few others have made kind of diet journals and update threads. It's nice to see. They're usually in the vegan support forum, but I don't think one has been bumped recently.
onlyifchased wrote:I want to catch myself as soon as I notice disordered eating patterns showing up, and I want to give my triggers a wide berth.
This is why I want to warn you about the slippery slope of health obsession. You can find reasons not to eat just about anything if you search hard enough.
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Re: Hi everyone!

Post by onlyifchased »

brimstoneSalad wrote: comparison..jpg
http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc

Even assuming no animals were killed for the eggs (which still isn't true in this case, since the chickens are killed when production "ends", and male chicks have still been killed), the harvest required for the bulk of their food energy results in more deaths than vegan foods due to the difference in thermodynamic efficiency.
That chart actually makes me think that a more sensible set of priorities would be reducing/eliminating eggs, then dairy, then by-products of those industries.
brimstoneSalad wrote: It's hard to say where the dairy you're eating lies per calorie in terms of animal deaths since I don't know the details of the practice, and grazing hasn't been as meticulously examined since it's a less common practice. We do know it's damaging to the environment, though, and that pastures yield far fewer calories per acre than intensive grain farming (something even cowspiracy, with all of its errors, got right).

[...]

We can't make the assumption that these older or more pastoral practices are better. My relatively educated guess is that it's worse in every major respect except for in terms of PR. Slightly nicer to the cows, but much worse for everybody else.
I didn't know all that about grazing. I will look through this information and re-evaluate my sources of dairy products.
brimstoneSalad wrote: No, I understand how you feel. I have experience with something similar although I won't talk about it here.
Yes, they feel similar, and superficially it's hard to pick them apart. It can help a lot to talk them through with a third party who can help identify fallacious reasoning, but you can get into a habit of examining them yourself and changing your thought patterns. I'm not saying it's easy to hold yourself accountable.

[...]

You can do what you want, of course, but I'm just saying I don't think it's a good idea for somebody with an eating disorder to flirt with health-based orthorexia, because that (unlike ethics) IS a slippery slope, and it sounds a bit obsessive to worry about soy protein that you're having a little scoop of each day. I mean, if you were going for something like soylent, that would be another matter. This is a tiny percentage of your diet.

[...]

This is why I want to warn you about the slippery slope of health obsession. You can find reasons not to eat just about anything if you search hard enough.
Fair enough to all of this.
brimstoneSalad wrote: A few others have made kind of diet journals and update threads. It's nice to see. They're usually in the vegan support forum, but I don't think one has been bumped recently.
I think I will probably make a thread with my initial goal to be eliminating eggs from my diet. Looking at the per calorie deaths, that seems like the most impactful single choice I could make, and when I examine my thoughts, I had never really evaluated egg consumption separately from dairy. I don't think I crave them nearly as often/as much.
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Re: Hi everyone!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

onlyifchased wrote: That chart actually makes me think that a more sensible set of priorities would be reducing/eliminating eggs, then dairy, then by-products of those industries.
That sounds reasonable.
onlyifchased wrote: I didn't know all that about grazing. I will look through this information and re-evaluate my sources of dairy products.
Conventional dairy is probably about the same, due to efficiency differences. Since it's cheaper, you could keep track and donate the difference to Mercy for Animals, or something. If you wanted.
onlyifchased wrote: I think I will probably make a thread with my initial goal to be eliminating eggs from my diet. Looking at the per calorie deaths, that seems like the most impactful single choice I could make, and when I examine my thoughts, I had never really evaluated egg consumption separately from dairy. I don't think I crave them nearly as often/as much.
That's great. :)
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Re: Hi everyone!

Post by chuckjohn »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2016 8:42 pm
onlyifchased wrote: That chart actually makes me think that a more sensible set of priorities would be reducing/eliminating eggs, then dairy, then by-products of those industries.
That sounds reasonable for an instant pot update
onlyifchased wrote: I didn't know all that about grazing. I will look through this information and re-evaluate my sources of dairy products.
Conventional dairy is probably about the same, due to efficiency differences. Since it's cheaper, you could keep track and donate the difference to Mercy for Animals, or something. If you wanted.
onlyifchased wrote: I think I will probably make a thread with my initial goal to be eliminating eggs from my diet. Looking at the per calorie deaths, that seems like the most impactful single choice I could make, and when I examine my thoughts, I had never really evaluated egg consumption separately from dairy. I don't think I crave them nearly as often/as much.
That's great. :)
I am trying to reduce my egg consumption in the breakfast. It's hard especially when they are used in some many baked and cooked items from the bakery. What's your strategy to eliminate them from the diet?
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