TO mark November's World Vegan Month, Kath Baron from The Kitchen in Great Moor Street invited The Bolton News and Rachel West, who has been vegan for three years, to talk about the health benefits of the diet and showcase some of the cafe's healthy and exciting meals

WHETHER you swear by steak or chose to go green, there is little doubt about the health benefits of a vegan diet.

Differing from a vegetarian diet, which cuts out meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish, crustacea and animal by-products vegans also bypass dairy products, eggs, and any other animal product.

Animal rights issues aside for the purpose of this article the diet's health benefits are vast. Thanks to a fairly recent surge in specialist brands that cater for vegans, there are now plenty of alternative ingredients and replacement foods to make sure that the meals are nutritious and tasty.

A mix of vegetables, beans, pulses and soya-based products like tofu can make a rich, delicious meal that would benefit anyone who ate it including meat eaters who want an occasional change.

Kath Baron, aged 49, has been a vegan since she was 17 years old. She said: "When I first became vegan it was difficult at first because there wasn't much available, but it meant that I had to learn to cook for myself and read the label on everything.

"I don't think it's true that vegans miss out on nutrients. I just find foods I can eat and make them taste good. When I first turned vegan I discovered all these new foods from different countries, it was exciting. Just because you are taking meat out of your diet it doesn't mean that you miss out.

"As a country we really do eat too much meat. Animal protein is different to vegetable protein your body has to go through certain processes to digest the meat.

"Being vegan, I am aware of cooking, how to cook, the ingredients in foods and the effects that food has on your body. We all should eat more veg, whether you are a vegan or not that is one of the main sources of nutrition that can promote health in your body."

The Vegan Society website states that well-planned, plant-based diets are rich in protein, iron, calcium and other essential vitamins and minerals, which tend to be low in saturated fat, high in fibre and packed with antioxidants.

Read the original here:
Why being a vegan is good for you

What can we learn from the vegan diet? Photo: The Vegan Cookbook

What if there were an eating plan that helped you lose weight while still allowing a generous amount of food including gasp carbs?

This month the results of a small study of diet and weight loss from the University of South Carolina failed to generate big headlines, yet after comparing the weight loss achieved by five groups of people on five different diets it found that those who lost the most weight were the ones on a vegan diet meaning no animal foods at all but quite a lot of carbohydrates.

After six months, the vegan group had lost more than twice the weight of the non-vegetarians, an average of 7.4 kilograms compared with just over three kilogramsin the meat eaters, the semi-vegetarians (who occasionally ate meat) and the pesco-vegetarians (who ate fish). The vegetarians (who also ate eggs and dairy) came a close second, averaging 6.3 kilograms.

It's not the first study to show weight loss success on a diet based entirely on plants. Six years ago I interviewed Dr Neal Barnard, Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at George Washington School of Medicine, about his research looking at using a plant food-only diet to control type 2 diabetes. He found that besides controlling blood glucose more effectively than the standard American Diabetes Association diet, the diet also helped reduce weight and cholesterol.

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That's not to say that everyone who needs to lose weight should scratch meat and dairy from their shopping list but at a time when low carb is often sold as the only true path to weight loss, it's a reminder that there is more than one way to shift excess weight, says Dr Kate Marsh, an Accredited Practising Dietitian and author of The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook.

"One advantage of a vegan diet for weight loss is that it can be very filling this is partly because it's very high in fibre but also because foods like legumes and whole grains have a lower GI (Glycaemic Index) so they help you feel full. Diets that are high in fibre and low GI have been shown to help with weight loss," she says. "With a vegan diet you can also eat a large volume of food without necessarily consuming a lot of kilojoules. And one of the hardest things about sticking to a weight loss plan is being hungry."

The focus on low-carb diets for weight loss also ignores the evidence that quality carbohydrates such as legumes and whole grains staple foods on a vegan diet can be a weight loss ally, not the enemy, Dr Marsh says.

"It's true that if you follow a low carbohydrate diet you are likely to lose weight as you cut out a lot of processed carbohydrates that can contribute to weight gain and disease risk. But not all carbs are the same and it's the quality of the carbohydrates that counts. I don't think there's any research that suggests that cutting out whole grains and legumes will make you healthier in fact the opposite is true."

Continued here:
Eat carbs, lose weight lessons from a vegan diet

WEST NORRITON >> Gangster vegan?

Like jumbo shrimp, the two words are contradictory and seemingly incompatible.

After all, vegans are peace-loving, sandal-wearing hippie types, and gangsters are hoodlums who are prone to violence, so the two breeds have no business ever hooking up in any sensible world.

Welcome to Vince DePauls world.

The Norristown native admitted he set out to bedevil the traditional vegan stereotype by naming his specialty raw food market in Jeffersonville Gangster Vegan Organics. But playing around with incongruities is only a small part of DePauls story.

When I was living in California I was going to vegan restaurants, where the conceptualization of a vegan is a soft, feminine, barefoot, tree-hugging hippie. And here I was all tattooed up, listening to rap music and going to these restaurants and they said, Oh, you dont look vegan. What does a vegan look like? Gangster and vegan are two strong words. When you say vegan to a gangster hes like, Get out of here. And when you say gangster to a vegan, they will tell you that gangsters are bad. So its a tricky play on words and it has people questioning what it is. My role is to make it fun and hip.

Whether a customer pops into his shop for one of the famous wellness shots made of such health-enhancing ingredients as ginger, cayenne and apple cider vinegar, an alkalizing juice of cucumber, kale and cilantro or a broccoli burger to go, the amiable DePaul is more than willing to share the story of his own incredible transformation through a vegan lifestyle.

DePaul remembers his success as a wholesaling T-shirt entrepreneur living on the West Coast for a dozen years as ultimately creating his downfall.

I was hanging out with rappers, drug dealers and entertainers, partying all the time, and then my business went bankrupt and I hit rock bottom, he said. I was morally, emotionally and physically bankrupt. Then God came into my life and at that moment I stopped smoking cigarettes, eating [junk food] and was introduced to my first glass of fresh juice at 29 years old. Up to that point I thought of juice as Tropicana and Minute Maid thats what I would drink every day.

Juicing was only the beginning of his metamorphosis, DePaul recalled. Continued...

Originally posted here:
Gangster Vegan Organics in Jeffersonville aims to change lives with raw, organic food