Wow. I had no idea. I have been vegan for 5 years. I work and I am currently in studing law. I enjoy hiking and writing. My husband (also a vegan of 5 years) runs marathons. I had no idea I was supposed to be feeling like crap. When should I start expecting the weakness and malaise to be setting in?

Stumbled across this; I don't usually leave comments.

Veganism, especially raw types, are psychologically no different than any religious cult. Think Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate, and so many others. Facts are either ignored or twisted to fit their view.

Another simple fallacy is generalization. Mary R above says she and her husband are healthy vegans. But they probably cook at least some of their food (it takes little to reverse the tides of malnutrition), or perhaps they supplement, or perhaps (gasp!) they cheat. Lots of evidence that many healthy vegetarians/vegans cheat. (No, Mary, I don't have it at my fingertips.)

The third possibility is that a given healthy vegan is an outlier. Body By Science, Chapter One, should be required reading every week for a year in school. It explains how we look at outliers in any endeavor and think, "I can do that, too!" But you can't.

Research has shown, (sorry, again, Mary!) that some raw foodies crater only months into the diet, others can take a decade or more. It's that old YMMV in real life.

There is zero science supporting veganism or especially, the raw form. All the sciences point towards being animal eaters with sides of plant matter.

Deal with it, vegans.

I think people need to understand there are different kinds of vegans. You get people who geniunely have eating disorders and use veganism as an excuse, or people who are misinformed about veganism, or people who eat really really well and more than enough food and a healthy balanced diet - just not animal products.
I classify myself as a vegan for humanitarian reasons. I love meat and I miss it. But I wont support the way animals are farmed. It hardcore.
Please watch this link:
http://www.meatvideo.com/
That said. I will gladly eat a massive juicy steak if I know where it has come from. If it is from a small farmer who has free range facilities hell yeah.
And I go out of my way to source what I can from the little guy. But for the rest I just wont eat genetically modified tortured animals or their by products

While the premise is (admittedly) hyperbolic, I like how it makes you think. Like how any diet that causes you to burn fat stores is by default a 'high fat' diet.

I particularly liked the comment "Plenty of animals died to feed us corn, soybeans, strawberries, bananas, and bulgur…we just don't have to look at them, because they died off-camera of starvation when we took their land to plant our crops." I like to ask folks that start to talk about land use for plant based vs animal based diets if they have ever spent any time on a farm. If you've ever been in a pasture used for raising cattle, you know how green and alive it is versus the barren desolation that is left after corn or wheat is raised on land. I think we can agree that factory farms of any sort are horrible things!

I'm new to this blog and was also impressed that the author has left up dissenting comments, including links to the (gasp) dreaded vegan propaganda, and not just deleted them. Try posting anything pro paleo on a veggie site and see how long it lasts.

I have a couple of veggie friends who have started to falter in their religion as they have seen the progress I've made since going paleo. One was inspired by the 140 pounds I lost and has lost about 40 pounds on a low fat, low calorie vegetarian diet, but has stalled out and another who is normal weight and was peer pressured into going vegetarian by other friends (I do live in San Francisco) but admits to me he's not doing as well in the gym and feeling tired.

I think it is important that folks that have become vegetarian because they honestly believe they are doing something positive for the environment, a noble goal, could be doing a lot MORE if they were avoiding factory food of all kinds rather than avoiding animal products. I'd invite them to go out and see what a cow pasture looks like then a corn field after a harvest. I'd challenge them that the cow pasture is more sustainable, creates rather than destroys top soil and supports an ecosystem rather than destroying one.

Regarding going beyond the IF pattern:

I suspect that the deep autophagy resulting from a 7 to 10 day fast is good -- maybe one or three times in a lifetime.

Two reasons:

1) Given that autophagy isn't random, occasional deep autophagy seems likely to destroy noxious cross-linked proteins and aggregates, and likewise cells that are misbehaving (for example, because they're several steps along the path to malignancy).

2) It's more than paleo-plausible that we're well adapted to occasional prolonged fasts, and perhaps even reliant on them, just as we're reliant on more routine stressors, such as intense, tissue-damaging exercise.

Full disclosure: I haven't yet persuaded myself to fast for more than 48 hours or so.

Ah, interesting that you were vegetarian once. I tend to find the ex-veg*ns are those who feel the need to protest the most. This may be a form of defence, but you're not under attack. Vegetarians and vegans are simply people who choose not partake in the needless exploitation and abuse of sentient life that is animal agriculture (98% of which is factory farming in the US, and a switch to less intensive methods would necessitate a vast reduction in the consumption of these products).

If you feel attacked by the choices others make, try looking more deeply at the ethics your own choices, rather than trying to scrape together so-called evidence against those who are simply choosing to eat in a way that is compassionate, equitable and good for the planet.

I'm a well-informed, switched-on vegan who takes care to supplement B12 and get DHA from sustainable sea algae. Of course there are fringe practices / fad diets that are harmful, but these cannot be used as a valid argument against veganism. Similarly I would not claim that all omnivores are gambling with their health simply because a subset who follow the Atkins diet are putting themselves at high risk of heart disease. Please try and avoid straw-man arguments.

Best wishes from a peaceful plantarian

http://www.environmentfilms.org/EF/Making_the_Connection.html.