AUGUST 24 2019 LISTENER 19
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rises of faith are bad enough, but
few are as ignominious as those
that occur in selfie-land.
Spanish vegan vlogger Raw-
vana’s 3.3 million social-media
followers tuned in one day to catch the
28-year-old instagrammed furtively eating
fish in a restaurant. She later admitted a
return to the sins of the flesh had been
prompted by amenorrhoea – cessation of
menstruation – and fatigue.
Finnish vegan blogger Virpi Mikkonen,
39, went from despising eggs as “the
miscarriages of chickens” to reintroduc-
ing red meat to her diet, after concluding
that veganism had brought on early
menopause.
Dutch vegan social-media influencer
Kasumi Kriss resumed meat and eggs after
figuring that her four years on fruit and
vegetables alone was causing her skin
breakouts, negative thoughts and lack of
energy.
Although the more knowledgeable in
the vegan community pointed out that,
as they often say on social media, these
women weren’t doing veganism right,
their experiences underscore how impor-
tant it is to do your homework.
Like any diet, an all-plant one needs
to be nutrient-balanced. Veganism itself
doesn’t cause amenorrhoea, early meno-
pause, depression or skin problems, but
a poorly balanced vegan – or any other- diet can.
Most of the important nutrients found
in meat, fish, eggs and dairy can be
found in plant foods, but it takes careful
balancing, can be costly and can also lead
to undesirable consequences in other
countries’ land use.
Among the few single plants that have
the range of amino acids found in meat,
which is protein-dense, the two stars are
quinoa and moringa. Alas, many of the
native South Americans for whom the
nutty-flavoured quinoa seed has always
been a dietary staple can no longer afford
it because Westerners have so embraced
it as to drive the price up beyond their
pockets.
Moringa, fast bowling kale out as the
new “superfood” craze, is less problem-
atic. Drought-resistant and tough, it’s
grown in many countries. But it’s still a
speciality food and not widely available
or well understood.
Other popular vegan substitutions have
backstories that somewhat negate the
loftier reasons for veganism. It takes 74litres of water to produce a single glass
of highly nutritious almond “milk”, yet
more than 80% of all almonds are grown
in drought-prone California. Cashews
do much heavy-lifting in the vegan diet,
including being ground up as delicious
cashew “cream”, but the standard of
living of the Indian workers who produce
60% of the world supply is a continuing
cause for concern. European chefs are
increasingly eschewing the heroically
nutritious avocado because of its vora-
cious water appetite and displacement of
forests in North and South America where
most Northern Hemisphere imports are
grown. Even seemingly blameless anduntrendy rice has a bad report card for
its flood-based produce’s methane and
nitrous oxygen emissions.
In short, it’s not just New Zealand dairy
farmers in the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change’s sights as requiring
major transformation in what, where and
how they farm.
But if getting an adequate vegan diet
is ethically challenging, it need not be
nutritionally so.D
ietitians say the best approach to
getting “complete protein” – a full
set of the tissue-building amino
acids – is to combine specific plant foods
from among rice and other grains, seeds,
nuts and legumes. From these, and
eating the widest possible range of other
fruits and vegetables, vegans can get all
the major nutrients and stay perfectly
healthy.Eats shoots and leaves
Lauding plant-only diets as a magic bullet for health is an
oversimplification – a vegan diet requires careful planning.
It takes 74 litres of water
to produce a single glass
of highly nutritiousalmond “milk”, yet more
than 80% of all almonds
are grown in drought-prone California.
Creativity is required to be vegan: Jennifer
Bowden, top, and Caryn Zinn.