‘Vegans have a higher rate of Stroke’ Say WHAT???
The paleos feel vindicated. Some vegans that just read headlines are shaking their heads in frustration and the rest of you are saying, “What the heck?”
There have been a couple of headlines over the last couple of weeks about the supposed ‘non-advantages’ of eating plant-based.
Let’s look at things a little closer: A study came out a couple of weeks ago that claimed vegans & vegetarians we’re no better off than meat-eaters in terms of likelihood of having a stroke.
First, the terms vegan, vegetarian and meat-eater say NOTHING about the quality of one’s diet. You can go to Whole Foods and find a plethora of garbage that is processed & loaded with fat, processed carbs, and sugar.
You could have 3 vegan donuts for breakfast, 2 vegan hot dogs for lunch, and some other processed junk for dinner, getting 70% of your calories from fat and still be considered vegan! So, the first misleading flaw; the terminology and the underlying assumption that all vegan diets confer the same risks & benefits.
Then there’s the whole question about how the data was collected, extrapolated on & interpreted.
They relied on the use of questionnaires, asking people to recall how many times in the past year they had consumed 130 different food items.
Can YOU accurate tell me how many times in the past year you’ve eaten, say an apple? What about an orange? A serving of green beans? Mashed potatoes? A serving of spinach, a steak? Studies that have looked at the recall methodology have concluded that this kind of data is actually worse than no data because it’s so misleading. (Several recall studies show that Americans don’t take in enough calories to maintain their weight, for example!)
Further, they then took the results (number of times people ate ‘X’) and multiplied it by standard serving size to calculate nutritional content. That means if you eat an 8 oz. bag of chips while you’re watching TV and I ate ½ ounce, is the same!
In conclusion, the study was so flawed as to be worse than useless based on the press it’s now getting.
Also, another study published a couple of days ago. I’ll have more on that soon.
So what does the data really show? Study after study shows that people who eat a well-structured plant-based diet have much lower incidences of all chronic diseases. (Note that well-structured plant-based doesn’t necessarily mean vegan but it also doesn’t mean eating animal food daily.) I’ll detail more about the ‘well-structured’ part and you can learn more about who these folks are & how they live in my upcoming “JumpStart Your Weight-Loss & Hormone Balance” FREE online program October 7-11. You need not be online at a specific time. The 5-day video series will arrive in your in-box daily once you register.
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