Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is the Vegan diet the most healthy diet for humans?

Some of ya'll know of my weight loss and health journey that has taken place over about the last 15 or so months. 15 months ago I weighed 330 lbs and 6'1' tall. 50 years old and on 3 blood pressure meds a day, plus 4 Opiate pain pills a day and 4 steroid shots every 3 months for knees and back. I was about done at just 50 years old.

Then I decided to change! No meds of any kind now,and I weigh a very healthy 170.

I decided to try to educate myself as to what kind of diet I needed to lose weight. At first I just quit all sugar,all bread and all pasta,and potatoes. I lost weight at a rate of aprox 10 lbs a month. I never cheated.

As time passed and I learned more and more about nutrition I cut out processed foods and meats. I still ate meats and dairy that I considered healthy.

In the last 3 months or so I've been going more and more vegan style diet. I feel better than ever. I have more energy eating more whole grains and carbs in the form of beans and legumes and whole grain rice. I've only had meat on 4 days now in the last 3 months. I'm not convinced that meat of itself is as harmful as the way the industry treats our meats. I do feel that we eat way more meat as a culture than what would be considered healthy looking at the diets and longevity of long term diets in different peoples through history. I'm primarily speaking about the blue zone studies.

I know you can find studies that say about everything and anything you want to claim,but it does seem that the vast majority of the actual science would point to a whole food plant based diet, with a very small amount of fresh fish to be the healthiest long term diet that we know humans have lived on.

Fast forward to today and I'm still searching for the best diet for humans. I eat whole food plant based now for the last 3 months with only a tuna,and sardines .and salmon on 4 days. I'm down about 8 more pounds during that time and weigh 170 now. My energy is way up and I've done over 100 miles in a week a couple time on the mountain bike,during the last 3 months.

I've gone from 330 documented pounds to weighing 170 now,and once I weighed at the mall and I was 365 a few years ago. I've done this in 15 months at age 50 just by deciding to only eat what is healthy. My idea of what is healthy has changed but not the goal to eat correctly.

I wear 30/32 jeans now. I wore 48/32 jeans a little more than a year ago. At 51, I can now far exceed what even my 17 year old body could do in every area except possibly recovery speed after an intense work out. I definitely have more endurance though as far as walking,running,cycling,than I did at 17.

I just want to keep telling you guys that you can change at any age. All I have ever been doing is to search for what the real truth is about diet and nutrition and I hope I might inspire some of you guys to do the same.

There is a huge batch of seriously flawed "research" on diet out there. Much of it has political agendas and is designed to convince people to stop eating meat. There is a lot of good science showing no issues with red meat. Just within the last few months another came out and the MSM went nuts tearing it apart. It was funny watching them all claiming to be diet experts.

There are lots of badly flawed studies like the China Project where they introduced a Western diet and suddenly started finding cancers in an area where they had not found cancer before... a) cancer does not present quickly and b) they had not found it before because no one was looking there.

Congratulations on your success!

Sir, you are a remarkable inspiration to those of us who need to change our lifestyles in regard to eating habits and choices. Thank you. If the vegan diet works for you, (long term) I will be very happy for you. I do not ever see myself removing meat from my diet.

Gen 9:3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

God knows best.

Gen 9:3

You lost me here...I would rather hang myself.

I know. I'm not convinced that an occasional goat or sheep or wild animal would be bad. I do think that that's a long way from what I use to eat though and I'm about scared of bought meat when I try to investigate how it is treated by the food industry.

Don't worry, went to a Texan's BBQ last night and made up for him...

I asked my doctor if I would live longer if I gave up alcohol, Cuban cigars and eating red meat.

He said "Yes, but why would you want to?"

Seriously, good on ya for doing this for yourself. I'm 60 yo this month, 5'11", 225 right now and I know I could lose 40 lbs. I also know I could exercise more. For about 8 years I was at the gym 3-4 times a week but just got out of the habit.

I don't have the same health issues you had, so I don't have the same motivation as you. No high BP, no diabetes, no other issues except some chronic, minor low back pain that stems from a broken ankle 30 years ago (ankle bone connected to the shin bone, the shin bone connected to the...).

OTOH, I have a life insurance exam this week. I'm guessing I'll pass OK, but can probably do much better.

It would seem that weight alone is not the best indicator of overall health?

Certainly an aspect.....an important one at that.


Look at overall health of different populations for your answer.

My first wife was macrobiotic when I met her. She was in the process of giving it up as we met. One of the things that endeared me to her was my quip: "Nothing a good steak and a lay won't cure."

For the next couple of years. She remained friends with her rabid vegahoovian buddies. I was okay with eating a the brown rice and legumes kind of stuff. It didn't bother me. Lotsa green stuff gave me the runs, and I never gave up my love of steak, fried chicken and all the good stuff.

The reason why I'm posting this is that I had an inside view of the Macrobiotic community for a year or more. A middle-aged woman confided in me that all the guys were basically limp and none of the couples were having any children. Now you have to remember that Macrobiotic diets is a highly restrictive diet. It prohibits things like tomato-- yeah, no pizza! It's usually taken up by people who've had cancer or Crones or some other really bad health scare, so you're possibly not the healthiest to start with. Bottom line: if you want to have fun in bed and have children, don't do the veggies. If you want to stay studly, eat a steak now and again.

There are medical conditions that preclude a meat diet. Gout, for example, is caused by uric acid in the blood and red meat increases the acid. So does beer but lets not get too carried away with this.

What do you think they do to red meat that would be bad for you? Not talking sausage or heavily cured meats, just plain old meat...

I doubt there is "most healthy diet" for humans. Some people seem to do well on one diet while another person does poorly. We humans seem very prone to making the mistake of thinking that because something works well for us it must also then work equally well for everyone else.
Some high performance athlete's do well on a vegetarian or even vegan diet, while others see a significant drop in performance. I've also noticed that many times when people make a big dietary change they suddenly feel a better and more energetic, and assume this will be how they feel from then on as long as they stay on that diet. I was that way with Keto. I did it for a year or so before I started running into problems, and found I needed to add a little bit of carbs into my diet to feel better.

I think there is probably quite a lot left to learn in this area of optimal human nutrition. Seems to be a growing area of interest too so it'll be interesting to see where it goes.

I felt the same way not too long ago. I can actually tell now though how it makes me feel when I eat a big piece of meat. I am much lighter,faster,less sluggish without it. I'm not saying I won't eat meat ever,but I keep finding myself choosing not to,just based on knowing how I will feel afterward. I also know how I'll feel after a kale and spinach,broccoli ,cauliflower, red onion,black olive and black bean , salad and a fruit bowl for dessert. It's the weirdest thing but I keep choosing to feel good. First though I had to choose to learn what would make me feel good.

All things in moderation.
This is what i have been told since a young age.

Since last August i went from 190+ to 135.

I have been trying to gain not just weight but muscle ever since.

Been hanging at 160+- and have some strength but nothing like before.

I do have an interesting problem,i have read about folks having a 6 pack abs.

But in my case i only have a 2 pack,right and left.

Good luck to you in your process,hope you find a happy place.

Cool...I feel like I could rip the top of a sherman tank with my fingers after a good steak.

Guess I shall stick with what works for me.

We are omnivores, designed to eat both plants and animals. What ruins our health are over-consumption, lack of exercise, and stress. We do eat far too much meat (you know who you are) and most of us no longer do physical labor.

The data I am considering in deciding the healthiest diet is to study the diets of peoples in geographical locations throughout history and find the common factors among the longest lived with the least health issues. All that information points heavily to a heavily plant based whole food diet with a very small amount of animal protein as producing the longest lived healthiest populations.

Seal blubber is healthier than hell.

Tough to get though.