There are 1,000 ways to “go vegan” and about 967 ways to do it wrong. By wrong I mean in an unhealthful way.
There are many vegan “foods” (I use the term “food” very loosely) in the grocery store and very few of which I would partake.
Why?
Because they are processed crap.
When I teach people how to revamp their Food Life, I start first with The 8 First Steps to a HAPPY™ Kitchen which helps rid their pantry, fridge and grocery buggy of the most offensive & dangerous food additives.
Secondly, with The 9th HAPPY™ Step I teach how to identify and eat real, whole food. Only then do I branch into vegan eating with The Healers Diet because it is important to first understand which ingredients to avoid (are you reading your labels??) and what comprises real food.
The vegan “foods” below do not even meet the criteria for The 8 First Steps or The 9th HAPPY™ Step. They are industrial, processed, fast, junk food and I recommend avoiding them.
This Vegan Gourmet cream cheese is a train wreck of curdled, thickened and flavored oils. It would be much healthier to make a natural, whole cashew cream.
This Vegan Gourmet sour cream is just as disastrous as the cream cheese with the added carcinogen carrageenan. Avoid it!
This is a disaster for anyone with digestive issues: gluten, GMO soy and carrageenan. If you read just this ingredient panel and had to guess what “food” it made, it’d be hard to guess “ham” slices! That’s an indicator that it’s not real food.
This really chafes my monkey: CASEIN in a veggie cheese? Casein is milk protein from cows and has been linked by T. Colin Campbell to the turning on of cancer cells. And lower on the list is milk and cream…and more carrageenan and preservatives. Yuck! I know the package doesn’t say “vegan” however it does say “veggie” and an unsavvy shopper who doesn’t read labels may easily pick this up thinking it’s animal-free.
Gluten, carrageenan, smoke flavor, wheat starch, and mystery flavors are featured in these tofu based hot dogs. Any “food” that needs vitamins added back in are devoid of actual nutrition. This is a processed digestive disaster!
I don’t even know where to start here. First, just LOOK at the VERY long ingredient list. This is your first clue that this is garbage, not food. The egg whites disqualify it from being vegan and this product is riddled with GMO wheat, sugar alcohol (the kind that makes you toot!), artificial flavor, and MSG (autolyzed yeast extract).
There are a bevy of people who jump on the vegan wagon with no real understanding of nutrition. They get sick, feel awful and give veganism a bad name. It is more important to first learn nutrition basics, master real food eating and then ease into a vegan lifestyle if you so choose. Remember, just because it is vegan doesn’t mean it is automatically good for you.
There are many merits to a vegan diet and it can be done safely, sensibly, smartly and successfully. However one must first know basics of nutrition. The “foods” pictured here are not nutritious. They are dangerous “food like stuff” that can wreck your health.
Additional Resources:
• The Myths & Metaphysics of Protein
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Nice Carla, I agree! This is important for those of us who are vegan with kids, as they are the ones eating the hot dogs and whatnot allot of the time. Also I would add that when I hear about how much research ppl think needs to be done in order to go vegan I raise my eyebrow a bit, because really, is there no research that needs being done on an omnivores diet? I think not. I really like tofu and ‘ veggie meat’ stuff….(this is from the restaurant usually). but am realizing that I need to back off of it allot.
Thank you Anni for taking the time to read & comment. Regardless how one eats (vegan, omnivore or other) one must do research and have a firm understanding about what constitutes real food vs. processed food. Shelf-stable, preserved food across the spectrum is best for food manufacturers but not so good for the human health. Unfortunately the grocery stores are 80% full of less that ideal food like stuffs.
Awesome info! Thanks! I already know a lot of this, but so good for clueless consumers. JUST EAT REAL FOOD! DUH!
The food manufactures and grocery stores have made discerning “real food” challenging for many people. Thanks for being here Danielle and taking the time to comment. I appreciate you!
Thank you for your great article.
“My main hope for myself is to be where I am.”
Woody Harrelson said , in an article i read here:
http://animal-welfare.org/famous-vegan-celebrities-woody-harrelson/
Celebrities can lead more people into veganism..
What do you think about that?
I think it’s great and it will take all of us adopting new ways of eating in order to preserve human life on Earth.
Greetings! I have a question, i read that casein exists in vegetables as legumes. Is it true?
This is what I found on Wikipedia: Legumin, or vegetable casein, is a protein substance analogous to the casein of milk, obtained from beans, peas, lentils, vetches and other leguminous seeds.
There are companies that want to take advantage of the vegan trend, offering bad products.
Vegans and wanna be vegans must be careful and read articles like this :
http://animal-welfare.org/vegan/
Wow, Carla. Kinda scary. you’ve driven me back to the Jack Daniel (with water, not soda). Is red wine still OK with steak? Oops. Sorry…..
Yes, cauliflower steak. 😉
Again Carla you have brought up a very worthy topic. There are an incredible amount of so called vegan foods that people are drawn to because they desire comfort foods like what they had before going vegan.
Commercial processes foods are turning up everywhere these days with bogus ingredients that are actually worse than what we consumed.
I try to avoid them and have come up with alternatives that are much safer without a long list of ingredients that you cannot pronounce.
But the average Joe can’t or doesn’t have the time or knowledge to make them on their own.
Sadly they end up purchasing bogus items and end up with health issues that could have been avoided.
Thanks for sharing your insight Michael. I have found that if a person is eating processed omnivorous foods then they will gravitate toward processed vegan foods when they transition. However if a person has already understood the nutritional value of whole omnivorous foods, when transitioning they will understand the importance of whole vegan foods. Some people don’t learn the value of whole foods until after they have become vegan.
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