How Vegans Really Feel
How Vegans Really Feel
About Ultra-Processed Foods
There is a just-released study in which vegan and vegetarian participants answered questions about their experiences with and attitudes toward Ultra-processed foods, and the results were, I’d say, less than ideal.
However, the study supports my feeling that newer vegans are more likely to use more of the fake food substitutes that those who’ve been vegan longer. (Haneberg, et al.) There’s a learning curve. The transition can be tricky. That’s what the fake meats and things are for. That’s the purpose they serve.
Overall, even while most of the participants perceived UPF meat and dairy substitutes as unhealthy, they also saw them as convenient and delicious and most used them regularly. (Haneberg, et al.)
This is right in line with another recent French study that indicated vegans and vegetarians get more of their calories from UPFs than meat-eaters do. (Gehrig, et al.)
It seems a safe takeaway that as more and more fake foods become more and more widely available, more of us will eat them. And as more of us eat them, more will be become available.
It’s already possible for a fully vegan diet to be as unhealthy as an omnivore diet. And soon it won’t just be possible, it might be common.
It seems as if we humans are just determined to kill ourselves as thoroughly as possible.
In Defense of Food
I watched a documentary I had somehow missed, by Michael Pollan called In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. His philosophy is whole food, mostly plant-based. He might be more to the taste of some readers here, and he might be helpful for those making the transition. I recommend it for everyone, however. It’s chock full of excellent information. I bought it, because I’m studying nutrition, but you can rent it for under three bucks on Apple or watch it on PBS Living if you have that.
In the US, more than 60% of our calories come from ultra-processed foods. These are foods are high in saturated fats and sodium, but more importantly, they're made of substances that have been stripped from foods. I don’t think we can really call them foods at all.
Also in the US, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity are increasing in tandem with the rise in these sorts of foods. These are the very diseases we can prevent by going off animal proteins!
Swapping meat and dairy for fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds improves health exponentially!
Swapping meat and dairy for fake meat and fake dairy, not so much.
GREAT for the planet! GREAT for the animals! Better for your health, too, just not as much better.
Michael Pollan’s philosophy is this: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” And by food, he means real food. He has a book called Food Rules that give a lot of tips for healthier eating. Some of my favorites: “Shop around the outside aisle of the grocery store,” and “Eat when you’re hungry, not when you’re bored,” and “Always eat at a table,” and the best tip of all, “Cook!”
TIPS that actually help
Have some cooked rice or other starch on hand.
At the beginning of this week, I cooked a pot of rice just the way I love it best, just for me. I have a rice cooked with a clay pot that I just love. I use veggie broth instead of water and season it with either sage and garlic or curry powder and smoked pepper, depending on my mood. It works perfectly with 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of liquid. If I try to do a double batch or even a batch and a half, it comes out mushy.
Anyway, I cooked that rice and put it in the fridge. And then every time I stopped working and wandered into the kitchen hungry, I would grab that rice and throw something else into it and enjoy it. Tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, beans, peas, corn, whatever I could think of, any veggie I had in a can or frozen could become my lunch with my perfectly seasoned rice as a base.
You could pre-cook and stash do this other starchy, filling foods besides rice, too, like quinoa, whole grain macaroni, a baked potato or sweet potato, or a packet of soba noodles.
Most days, my lunch is leftovers from dinner. Making extra large dinners so that you will have leftovers is another of my most helpful tips. I make huge batches of goulash, chili, soups, and stews. And I make them often. Leftovers are our friends.
I have the same thing for breakfast every morning (except weekends). Oatmeal with berries, a spoonful of flaxseed, a tiny bit of maple syrup, some cinnamon, and a banana. This is extremely helpful, takes all the guesswork out. I don’t have to think about it. Saturdays I make my French toast, and Sundays, hubs makes a tofu scramble. Then back to the oatmeal.
By having the same breakfast, and always ensuring I either have leftovers or a stash of well-seasoned rice or other starch in the fridge, I pretty much have breakfast and lunch covered. No more challenges there.
Today I had neither leftovers, nor rice. So I made myself a delicious sandwich on Dave’s Killer Bread with mustard, some fresh greens and a whole sliced tomato straight from my garden, a slice of dill pickle, and a layer of canned mushrooms, which I drained and heated first. It was fantastic. Better than Subway.
This covers breakfasts and lunches pretty easily.
Dinners, then, are the challenge
And that’s when it’s tempting to rely on Beyond Burgers and curly fries. And this is also when the whole “cook” thing comes into play. We have cook, or maybe adopt a raw vegan diet, I suppose. But cooking isn’t hard.
Tonight I’m going to roast some veggies in the oven, and just before they’re done, I’ll drizzle them with balsamic and maple syrup, cover them in tin foil to push the flavors in. The work involved in that entire process is about ten minutes. I’m going to bake some lovely russets, which takes me two minutes of prep time. Then I’m going to make a panful of “True Grit Gravy” from the Engine 2 Cookbook. It’s super easy, the main part of it is oil-free frying up some mushrooms, onions, and garlic, then adding seasonings, broth, and cornstarch for thickening. Maybe another twenty minutes. So that’s a half hour dinner.
I am a multitasker of the first water. So I never just make dinner. I either dance my way through it, closing the exercise rings on my watch, or I listen to an audiobook or a course lecture. I also clean up while I cook, rinsing and loading items into the dishwasher as soon as I’ve finished using them. So I never end up with a big mess afterward.
I make cooking fun. It’s one of the few periods of my day where I’m not staring at a computer screen, so I treat it as a welcome break, and I respect it as an art form. I am constantly trying new things, experimenting.
Tip: Take a small amount of the food out, and give it a shake of whatever seasoning you were thinking of adding, then taste to be sure the flavors meld.
Dinners are a challenge. We used to take turns cooking, but he’s working a lot more away from home than before, gets home on the late side. I’ve kind of stepped into making dinners on weeknights and he cooks on weekends. Tacos, burritos, homemade pizzas are his specialties.
But once in a while, one of us hits a wall, and opens the freezer, and there they are: Chick’n nuggets and Tater Tots. And we fall.
And you know what? That’s okay. We get back up, and eat our oatmeal, and have a dinner that includes lentils, kale and sweet potatoes, and we feel like Super-veg-heads again!
Hope you enjoyed today’s post. The two studies I mentioned are below!
Sources
Gehring J, Touvier M, Baudry J, Julia C, Buscail C, Srour B, et al. Consumption of ultra-processed foods by Pesco-vegetarians, vegetarians, and vegans: associations with duration and age at diet initiation. J Nutr. 2021;151(1):120–31.
https://rdcu.be/dTUFEHaneberg, J., Molin, M., Gjeitung Byfuglien, M. et al. Vegetarians’ and vegans’ experiences with and attitudes towards ultra-processed foods (UPF): a qualitative study.BMC Nutr 10, 121 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40795-024-00925-y