Any Vegetarians?

[justme]

I am curious to see if there are any vegetarians here.. I was veg for almost 4 years and i am back to eating meat for almost a year now.. I am trying to cut down on my meat consumption and I was wondering if any of the vegetarian/fake meats are gluten free? so far I've discovered the BOCA chicken patties that I love so much as well as all BOCA products contain gluten..

[gfmelissa]

Hey-

I was a vegetarian for 12 years, a vegan for 2 of them, and after my celiac diagnosis, I lasted maybe two years tops as a veg. Although to keep my meat intake in check, I only buy organic and free range items. (This works because I don't make much money!). As far as non meat items, I enjoy the lightlife tempeh in wildrice or soy (the other kinds have gluten). I also love sunshine veggie burgers, tofu pups and sunergia (sp?) tofu already seasoned. (i think only one kind isn't gluten free).

Mel

[jesscarmel]

Hello

I have been a vegetarian since i was about 8 years old. i cant imagine ever eating fish or meat again.

Jess

[celiacgirls]

My 8 year old daughter is a vegetarian and casein intolerant. The only meat alternatives I have found are the tofu pups and the sunshine burgers. I think there is a black bean gardenburger that is also gluten-free.

I wish I could convince her to eat meat.

[lorka150]

i am a vegetarian, and do not eat dairy or eggs, also.

i've never ate pre-made 'fake' meats and so forth, so i am not sure what to tell you there, but i wanted to say that it's really easy to make your own.

[spunky]

It can seem like a lonely world if you are vegetarian or vegan and find out you have gluten problems. Most vegetarians seem to have denial issues in even allowing that gluten could cause so much harm, and in the possibility that most vegetarian dietary habits in the U.S. could be setting some people up for a nightmare.

I've been vegan for 10 years (except for the last two weeks). Even though I can look back now and suspect I may have had some very mild hints of gluten intolerance before that time, it was the week I went vegetarian, 15 years ago that symptoms began to hit me, abruptly. They weren't severe or constant, but annoying. Other vegetarians and vegans all insisted that it was a normal thing, because your intestinal flora are changing when you first come off of meat. Finally I decided it must be the diary, becuase after 5 years, I was just getting worse. So I dropped the dairy and eggs along with it and went vegan. Well, it seemed things just went downhill from there for me. I eventually read about gluten and thought it might fit my sypmtoms and tried gluten free during the year 2001, but I didn't see any improvement, so I went back to vegan with glutinous grains. I did notice that I became worse again after several months back.

I kept reading and wondering why such a supposedly healthy diet could be allowing me to be spiralling downward, and finally ran into this and other celiac message boards and began to see how important it is to prevent any cross contamination to really get gluten free, and also how long you have to wait before you really see improvement. That changed it all for me, just knowing about those things. By last January I assumed it was possible I was dying of some dreaded thing, I felt SO bad, and my symptoms by that point were constant, daily, frightening, and even a little disabling to a certain degree. My entire house went gluten free in February, REALLY gluten free, and I really just started seeing some good improvement last month. I'd experienced a mixture of good and bad days two or three months back, which gave me some hope, but I think without having read about others' experiences with this, it wouldn't have been enough for me to actually see that I was gradually improving.

That's probalbby a lot more than you wanted to hear! But I have found that Tofu Pups brand "hot dogs" are gluten free, and Wild Oats used to make a gluten free, vegan burger, but they'v stopped making them now. I'm not crazy about eating these fake meats too much anyway, because there are so many people who develop soy problems, and it would seem to me that if you ingest large concentrations of soy on a regular basis, you might be asking for trouble. I do eat tofu, but not usually more than once or twice within a month. I used to make soymilk every week, but have stopped doing that too. I use coconut milk for baking now. I was worried this would make me gain weight, but has not done so to this point. I make my own burgers by mashing beans or steamed veggies with a potato masher, and add some spices and then enough soy flour to form patties to fry as burgers.

Recently, my husband and I started enjoying some salmon, cod, and shrimp together with rice noodles and veggies and homemade coconut or peanut sauces. This has been so much easier! It feels kind of weird to begin fish again after having gone without it for 15 years, but I'm seeing real improvements in my health right now, so I'm just going with what seems to be working for me.

DUH! I meant to say I add RICE flour to my homemade burgers, not soy flour! I guess either would work okay, though.

[rinne]

Spunky, I found your post very informative.

I was a vegetarian throughout most of my twenties although about once a year I would absolutely have to have a steak with red wine. I would find myself thinking about it over and over and so I assumed my body was telling me that I needed to eat it. I lived in a vegetarian community and would sneak off by myself to eat it. LOL

I know now that I did need it, I was low on Vitamin B 12 and now years later in combination with the Celiac I need to get injections for B vitamins because they are so very low.

I think now it is important to listen to and trust our bodies cravings, a craving for chocolate may be a magnesium defiency. This doesn't always mean eating what we crave but understanding why we crave it and addressing our nutritional needs. I still don't eat much meat and what I do is organic but I am going to try to increase my intake because I would rather eat meat than get injections or take pills. Come to think of it I have been craving chocolate lately.

Thanks for the topic 'justme'. Sorry you are missing some of your favourites but I think in the long run you may be better off without so much soy. The more I learn about it the more I question the safety of the quantities of it we consume and I ate lots of it in my twenties.

Sorry for the thread drift, I guess I kind of miss being a vegetarian. LOL

[spunky]

I really believe that if a person chose to be vegan it would be healthy enough if they also avoided dumping loads of gluten in their diets at the same time. This way maybe their intestines would stay healthy enough to absorb whatever vitamins and minerals they needed. Although it seems that gluten doesn't harm everybody, most vegans I know of eat huge amounts of it, even if they aren't eating the fake meats. They still form the bulk of their diets with whole grains, and usually that means breads, pastas, and even sprouted wheat and all of that.

For a long time, I was baking whole wheat bread from sourdough that I kept going in my kitchen. I'd read that the gluten in sourdough was digested by the microbes and it wouldn't hurt anyone. This was when I wnodered if gluten was a problem for me, but I'd already tried giving up gluten several years back and just felt confused. So I was eating tons of homemade nutty sticky sourdough rolls, sourdough pancakes, and sourdough breads as a vegan. I also read that sprouting wheat used up the gluten for energy for the srpouts and wouldn't really get into the person's body. So I kept wheat kernels sprouting away in the kitchen and ran them through a grinder to make cookies and flatbreads and to put into salads.

After about 6 months of all that sourdough and sprouted wheat, I was as busy in the bathroom as I'd been in the kitchen, and realized that my stomach was torn up to pieces. That was when my symptoms went from bad to terrible, and I began to have intestinal bleeding along with everything else. I don't for a minute believe that sourdough is any safer than any other bread, or that sprouted wheat doesn't have gluten.

Anyway, I believe that if a person wants to be vegan or vegetarian, they should be warned that they should be very cautious about including a big sudden burst of glutinous grains into their diets, because it could start up a whole mountain of troubles for them and result in the day when they no longer have healthy enough intestines to allow them to stay vegetarain/vegan. That's just my personal opinion. Maybe gluten would've eventually blown up in my face anyway, but I can't help but wonder if someone could have told me to avoid so much gluten overload when I first went vegetarian and later vegan if I could have avoided all of this.

[RiceGuy]

I haven't eaten any meat, dairy, eggs or fish in a while now. Though I don't actually consider myself a vegan or vegetarian, that is the sort of diet which seems to suit me best. I just feel better this way. I would point out though that the quality of the meats I was seeing before completely avoiding them was really getting poor, and that was a major factor in deciding not to eat it. As I learned more about BSE, heavy metals in fish, all the injections they give cows, etc, etc, I just had enough of it.

I don't worry about my protein intake, as I eat protein-rich stuff like nuts/seeds/beans/legumes and so forth. Americans seem to have a habit of avoiding beans - maybe because they associate them with gas. However, I've never had that problem. As I understand it, when you don't eat such things regularly enough, there will be less of certain digestive enzymes available, because the body isn't going to retain them when they aren't being used. Consequently when a typical meat-eater has the occasional bowl of chili, they experience gas. I recall it has to do with either fermentation of the undigested food, or proliferation of bacteria which end up thriving on what's hanging around in the gut waiting to be properly digested.

However, vitamin B12 deficiency may be an issue. It's interesting to note though, that no plant or animal including humans has ever been shown to produce B12. So then how does beef contain B12? Simply put, only microorganisms like bacteria, yeasts, molds, and algae are known to produce B12! Therefore, cows are getting B12 from the stuff they consume - and cows are herbivores! It is also worth noting that our bodies can store B12 for decades, so it's not at all like the way we require vitamin C for example. Certainly, the controversy rages on about B12 requirements, and I'm continuing to do research on it. But as of now I'm wondering why we wouldn't get our B12 just like animals do - as long as our foods aren't processed to the point that the nutrient value is so depleted. I don't plan of going into a pasture and start grazing though! Here is a good Open Original Shared Link.

I haven't tried any prepackaged meat substitutes, so I can't really comment on which are best. I do know many contain MSG, since it has a way of tricking the brain into perceiving a more convincing fat content. Unfortunately, this substance is known to cause diabetes, obesity, migraines, and various other problems. I've posted links to articles on MSG in other threads, which I'm sure a search can turn up.

As was noted by spunky, it should be easy enough to make your own veggie burgers, and thus control the ingredients.

[gfmelissa]

I think whats most important is that we are returning to a place of being balanced in our bodies, ie no nutrient deficincies. However, we all get to that place is what is right for us. No, I don't love the idea of eating meat, but after an ongoing bout with severe anemia and b vitamin deficiency and having no improvement, you reach a decision point! After adding organic meat and dairy to my diet and cutting out soy completely I made a quick turn around, and finally put on some seriously needed weight!!! I have been a fan of soy since day one, but now I gotta say, it does seem to do something to you and I think especially for women. i think for some women its fantastic and others a nightmare depending on your hormone balance.

For some people, they may be able to get along just fine as a vegetarian and vegan with celiac, and that is to be commended, but for some people the extra restriction can be overwhelming, and I think thats ok.