Stopping My Vegan Diet Hurt Recovery?

[wschmucks]

Hey Guys,

I have been Vegan for the past 10 months now and I really have enjoyed it although with the new gluten free diet it has been very hard. I keep thinking that I'm getting glutened accidentally and Soy is hard on digestion so I was thinking about starting to eat some fish a few times a week and maybe eggs too. I am not allergic to eggs.

Would adding these new foods that my body isnt used to any more cause problems with my recovery? I have been gluten free for only 5 weeks now with varied results, and I've been vegan for just under a year. Any thoughts?

[ShayFL]

I was vegan for a few years and when a Chinese doctor told me I needed to eat red meat, I was surprised that it was NO problem at all for my body to digest a steak. None. All you can do is try it and see if it agrees with you. You could take a gluten-free digestive enzyme with it if you feel you might need help.

[AndreaB]

After being vegan for 3 years I had no problem introducing meat/eggs back into my diet.

As Shay said, you could always get some enzymes to help if you need to. Some I was on are the papaya ones....forget the name but I can look it up if interested.

[wschmucks]

Thanks guys, that's helpful to know. Would it be GOOD for recovery to start eating some meat/ fish? If it really would help then I will probably abandon my vegan ways, at least for a while. I will do anything to help with my recovery, just not sure what will really help.

[Janessa]

you have not been gluten free and vegan very long, depending on your reasons to be vegan you may want to stick it out a little longer before you decide.

vegiac.com is for vegetarian and vegan celiacs

google gluten free goddess to find a great blog full of delicious recipes

There are also lots of great vegan gluten free cookbooks (that I can't remember the names right now) check amazon

[wschmucks]

Thanks for the website info.

I am Vegan for health reason-- thats why i want to know if it will be healthier for me to not be vegan right now, while I am recovering. I can never see myself permenently being a meat eater, but I wanted to know if it might help my body get what it needs right now. It also gives me a pure product-- meaning it can be broiled plain and i dont have to stress out trying to figure out if it made me sick.

Thanks for your help.

[ShayFL]

There are people and research on both sides of the camp. I went vegan for health reasons as well....but found myself sicker and sicker. I became anemic. I need a small amount of meat in my diet everyday. I feel better.

Healthy is whatever foods make YOU healthy.

[AndreaB]

Again I agree with Shay.

Some people do well vegan, others don't.

My family actually developed more health problems. Basically, you need some animal protein to help move toxins out of the body. If we had stayed on with at least eggs we may not have gotten as bad.

[ShayFL]

I made a really good friend years ago when I was vegan. She was vegan as well and believed with all her heart and soul that vegan was the healthiest way to eat. And she seemed to do o.k. vegan for a little over a year, then she got pregnant. I can still remember stopping by to drop some homemade almond milk off. I went to put it in the refridgerator and there was a huge hunk of HAM in her ice box!!! When I asked her about it, she said....I am craving meat and I cant get enough.

Vegan doesnt work for everyone, so listen to your body. It knows best.

[givenupgluten]

I think being vegan is a very personal choice and not one that everyone is able to make and commit to long term. That being said, I am vegan and have been for about 10-11 months. It's been the most rewarding choice I've ever made, and I feel better (less mood swings, better physical shape, and mentally more 'clear') than I ever had. When I found out about the gluten intolerance, I was terrified of trying to read MORE labels than I already do and restrict my diet even moreso.

I found though, that many of the vegan cookbooks I already had included gluten-free options as well. Once I gained a little knowledge about being gluten-free, I was able to convert most of the other recipes as well. My two favorite cookbooks for these two lifestyles are Veganomicon and Gluten Free Vegan. The first, has some gluten free options..and I've been able to convert my fav's to gluten free, even if they arent' listed as so in the book. While living this 'lifestyle' can be challenging, I also welcome that challenge and find that I eat foods I would NEVER have even known about a yr ago.

I think you have to do what's best for you, but know that it IS possible to do both..if you choose to. There is actually a pretty decent population of vegan celiacs - and like the other poster said 'vegiac.com' is a great forum to utilize. I find that if a restaurant has gluten free options, they also have vegetarian options..and vice versa. If you have a supportive family/friends..it makes the transition even easier! I would recommend seeing a nutritionist/RD before making any changes...someone who specializes in vegetarian diets (doesnt mean THEY are actually vegetarians) and celiacs. This helps tremendously as well!

[spunky]

This is something I've been trying to figure out forever... or it seems like it, actually, it's only been just under 3 years I've been trying to understand this.

Seems my problems were triggered by the vegan diet... or possibly, when I think back, some subtle symptoms when I was a vegetarian (eggs, cheese, and some fish) for a few years before turning full-blown vegan. After becoming vegan, my gut started into daily turmoil... soon after that I switched to the McDougall diet, which is basically whole foods, vegan, and no oil. My symptoms seemed to get even worse, very quickly... but McDougall and his followers say this is adjustment to all the fiber, detox, etc., etc., and my life was busy so I just dismissed it out of my mind. After over 10 years on the diet, I had to face the situation and get out of denial: THat, even though I was eating what I believed to be the healthiest diet on the planet, and believed to be morally superior to meat-eating, I had to face up to the fact that I was sicker than a dog, every single day, and in denial about that and working very hard to get through each and every work day (which I could only do because I am in a private office next to an infrequently used restroom... still had to carry extra underwear around, though) and working even harder to hide my chronic condition from my husband... I became terrified I was dying of something, in spite of having been on the "healthiest diet on the planet" for around a decade. By the time I realized what was happening to me, I thought it was probably too late for me to get any help, that it must be killing me by that time... I began searching desperately for answers and decided, after much research, to try cutting out gluten to see what would happen.

After a rough and rocky first six months, I realized I had celiac disease and finally told all of this to my husband... it was a relief to not be hiding so much anymore... thankfully, he accepted all that I told him and it made sense to him.

Anyway, my point... after going all those years without meat, I wondered if my recovery might go quicker with meat... I asked around on the McDougall message boards about this, but of course none of them believed meat was helpful... so, once again, on my own, I decided maybe I needed to try.

I have to say my gut was at an all-time level of sensitivity, and I found myself very reactive to eggs for months and months... most meats didn't bother me, but sometimes certain ones did. I didn't know if this was from being vegan so long or part of gluten recovery... I just followed my instincts, since there seems to be no one on this planet that really knows how each individual must eat to be healthy.

So, after on and off trials over many months... I now eat shrimp, other fish, beef, pork, eggs (still can't eat them more than two or three times a week without some mild intestinal symptoms), and even ice cream and butter and some types of cheese... I did't have the nerve to try dairy prodcuts for a long time. The ones i've tried seem to not bother me at all... I don't drink milk, so I've never bought liquid milk... I did try goat milk one time and it gave me terrible symptoms. So I still do the vegan milk substitutes, Almond milk or hemp milk. But I eat ice cream with real milk and have no problems from it.

Anyway... sorry this is getting long, but I know your struggle and it seems we are all different and nobody really has the answer. I wish I didn't need animal products, but after slowly, on and off, carefully introducing them into my diet during my near-3 years gluten free... I have to say, I am feeling much better than I can remember for years and years. I still don't know IF it's the addition of the animal products or just the passage of time gluten free... and I don't know WHO could even pretend to know. I don't like the idea of eating animals...but when I feel so much better... I just do whatever I need to do, and for now, that includes lots of meats, fish, some eggs and a few dairy products.

I guess that makes me a meat-eater... fwhether I wanna be or not... but it feels good to feel good... so I do.

Good luck figuring this out... it seems you are the ONLY person who can know what you need!

[BRUMI1968]

Typically sufferers of Celiac are very low on B12, which is only found in animals...eggs and fish would both have B12 (though not as much as red meat).

I was a vegan for several years; now eat eggs and some fish - it might help to take an enzyme that has HCI in it, or drink a bit of RAW Apple Cider Vinegar in water five minutes before eating. This will increase your stomach acid, which you'll need nice and acidic to digest the meat and to get the B12.

If you're getting shots of B12, the meat would be less important. There are other things there, though too, like tryptophan and specific amino acids - all of which are important facets of the potential human diet.

[raisin]

I am a happy ex-vegan celiac. Was in almost exactly the same boat as you.

Fish, I have had many.. many problems digesting, but, I don't know why. Eggs are great but eating very many or very often tends to make people feel awful.

Slightly less popular, vegan-friendly alternatives;

Turkey is a great white meat, if you get free-range antibiotic-free organic stuff, it's easy to find gluten-free, uncured, nitrite-free, and preservative-minimal. Ostrich is a very health meat, when organic, supposedly one of the best. For red meat, Kosher beef is a good place to start, but Buffalo is even better. They cannot be given hormones, they must be free-range and grass fed, etc. The meat is much more nutritious and lean than cow or pork.

I was vegan for health reasons, but found out that vegans have a significantly shorter life expectancy. Ironic. I feel funny eating meat, after being vegan for years.. but I am so much healthier now, and even get weak again when I try to eat vegan. Just taking B12 vitamins did not help the way eating meat does.