low carb vegan??

[magslee]

Is it possible to do a low carb vegan diet?

Anne

[annie7]

According to the latest issue of VT, it's not easy or practical. but I say, if you need to go low carb it just takes some creative planning ahead and sticking closer to more nutrient rich veggies than rice and beans. Beans are a great protien source, but they should be balanced out with alot of dark green leafy veggies. Just my opinion.

[Casey]

My first thought is, why would you want to go low-carb?

I guess it depends on what you mean by low-carb. If you mean cutting back on refined flour and sugars, and highly processed snack food (read "junk food"), then it's not only possible but also advisable. If you're thinking about going further than that, then consider that whole grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes are all mostly carbohydrates and form the basis of a very healthy vegan diet. Carbohydrates are a very important energy source and provide an abundance of health benefits in the form of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber and phytochemicals. From everything I've read, the healthiest diet consists of at least 55% of calories from carbohydrates, 15 - 30% from fat, and 10 - 15% from protein. Studies have shown that risk of disease rises when fat and protein intakes become excessive. There may be individuals with particular medical reasons for sticking to a "moderate carb" diet, but I don't believe "low-carb" diets are healthy for anyone, and certainly not vegans.

There are a whole host of low-carb foods being manufactured to cash in on this low-carb craze, but most of those foods are not necessarily any lower in calories and they're usually sweetened with artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols, and they can be just as junky as the regular foods they're replacing. They can also be a lot more expensive and, from what I've heard, they don't taste very good. Contrary to what these low-carb diets claim, carbs don't make you fat and people losing weight on these diets are doing so because they're restricting calories, not because they're going "low-carb".

Eat a balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, soy products, "good" fats like olive, canola and flaxseed oils, take a good multivitamin with B12, and there's no reason you shouldn't be perfectly healthy without worrying about this "low-carb" fad.

Sorry for the long speech but, as I mentioned in another posting, this low-carb thing is driving me crazy! :D

[mum2sarah]

Well, in the latest issue of "Herbivore" magazine, there were actually a few vegans who tried a vegan version of Atkins, basically just to prove it could be done. They ate tons of meat analogs and they said that they did lose weight but they felt like crap. I can only imagine the same could be true of regular Atkins followers, since their bodies are in a starvation state of ketosis brought on by too much protein consumption. The big fallacy of low-carb diets is that they illogically equate weight loss with healthiness. Just because you lost weight doesn't mean you're healthier; in fact it could mean quite the opposite...