Brenda Davis at the 2024 Compassionate Living Festival

So I am going to talk about being healthy on a vegan diet so I I want to just Begin by telling you just very briefly about my journey as a vegan a and so I’ve been a registered dietician for over 40 years and I’ve been vegan for over 35 years and I can tell you when I began the adequacy of vegan diets was a very Ling question I learned two things in University about vegetarian and vegan diets I learned number one that vegetarian diets are risky especially for pregnant women and children and vegan diets are dangerous for everyone it was actually a part of my the chapter on fat diets in my textbook and when I made the decision to become vegan I decided that I would spend the rest of my career trying to change that narrative and I have not been alone in doing that but I can tell you is it was a fairly small handful of people that were trying to do that and I am Overjoyed to say that the narrative has changed and uh I would just like to to read you the this is from the 2016 pH statement of the Academy of nutrition and dietetics appropriately planned vegetarian diets including toad to vegetarian or vegan diets are helpful nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases while the plan vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle including pregnancy lactation infancy childhood adolescence and for athletes we have come along manies this is what we know we know that well planned diets can meet nutritional requirements whether they’re vegan or omnivorous but vegan diets score highest in diet quality measures like the healthy eating index they contain the least total and saturated fat the least amount of sugar fried foods sodium and Ultra processed or Lupia foods and the most fiber phytochemicals vegetables fruits like it was whole greens nuts and seeds but we also must admit that some vegan diets are more healthful than others ensuring adequacy is about choosing high quality flood it’s about ensuring a sufficient quantity of food and about selecting a wide variety of food and adding in fortified Foods or nutritional supplements if they’re required so being healthy on a vegan diet is really about four dietary goals number one to ensure the most healthful sources of macronutrients number two sufficient micronutrients number three we want to maximize our intake of protective dietary components and number four to minimize our intake of pathogenic or harmful dietary components so goal number one ensure the most healthful sources of macronutrients so as you’re probably well aware macronutrients are the big nutrients the nutrients we need in large amounts to provide us with energy and to support growth development metabolism and all of our body systems and there are three of them protein carbohydrate and fat and macronutrients Drive many of today’s most pressing nutrition controversies our three biggest dietary trends plant-based paleo and keto are essentially defined by macronutrients plantbased is a carbohydrate protocol Halo is protein dominant and keto is fueled by fat but what many people don’t realize is that the proportion of each macronutrients matters far less than the sources of those macronutrients when macronutrients come from Whole plant Foods they’re rich in protective dietary components like fiber and antioxidants and phytochemicals and they are consistently protective to health when macronutrients come from ultr processed foods or UPF Foods or animal products they’re more commonly associated with adverse Health impacts so I’d like to go through each of the macronutrients and we’ll begin with protein so the big question that everybody gets asked when they become plant-based or vegan is where do you get your protein so can we actually get enough protein and essential amino acids from plants and the answer is absolutely all plants every single one of them provide all 20 amino acids including all nine essential amino acids even the large gous mammals on the planet manag to get enough protein and essential amino acids from Plants to build big muscles and people can too this is Mr Universe Barney D polius he’s 100% vegan so how much protein do people actually need well in terms of grams of protein per kilogram per day we need and and a kilogram is 2.2 lb uh we need about 1.5 to 1.2 as we during our first year of Life about one during childhood about 085 during our teenage years and about 08 as adults we need more during pregnancy and lactation and if we look at the grams of day that what we would need that most people need and this the the grams per day are based on the reference body weight and red of course that would have to be adjusted based on our own body weight but what’s really important to know is that this is based on healthy body weight not actual body weight so if you weigh 250 lbs and your healthy weight is 190 you base your protein requirements on 190 not 250 so what do we need well about 10 gram during during infancy about 13 to 34 during childhood of course more as we get older and then about 46 to 56 during our adult years and more during pregnancy and lactation so one question that sometimes get gets asked is do vegans need more protein than omnivores and there is no separate RDA for vegans but plant foods do contain fiber and other dietary components like trips and Inhibitors and tannin and so on uh Fates and and that can inhibit the absorption of protein or protein digestibility and so for those eating high fiber Whole Food plant-based diets some experts say mayy we should add 10% to compensate for the losses what we lose in our stools because of the fiber and and other antinutrients in plant Foods now this is not thought to be necessary for people that eat lower F regularly eat low lower fiber plant foods like tofu and and soy milk and Sean and maybe veggie meats and not and Seed Butters and so forth protein digestibility and this I think it’s important to understand this too protein digestibility in foods that are either lower in fiber or have been Blended tend to be actually very similar to animal products so we see a protein digestibility of about 90 8% from Satan 95% from soy protein isolate uh 95 from peanut butter 93 from toeu 92 from po wheat bread it’s a little higher from white bread that is very similar to the protein digestibility from animal foods that range from about 94 to 97% but as you can see the very uh whole grains and legumes have about a 10% lower digestibility some legum it can be even a little bit more than that but protein D digestibility can be increased by breaking down fiber by grinding blending or other food processing techniques so you’ll absorb more protein from hummus than from Whole chip peeas right or from a smoothie than the the components that you’re putting into the Smoothie uh you can increase uh protein digestibility by removing or reducing fiber as you know in making Pastor or other grain products by reducing or eliminating trips and Inhibitors by cooking so of course we cook grains we cook legumes and that well sometimes we Sprout them but even sproting will will reduce um uh or increase digestibility and then reducing Fates by soaking sprouting fermenting or leavening now athletes need more protein most Sports and Health authorities will say 1.2 to2 instead of8 but that’s not that difficult for them to achieve because they’re eating so many calories okay so with high caloric intakes it it’s very easy to get enough protein and a lot of people think that you’ve got to have meat to get that kind of protein you need for building muscles well to be honest with you we’ve got quite a few studies that have shown that plant-based athletes can meet protein needs in by just getting a variety of plant foods and eating sufficient calories and the studies show that plant and animal protein sources are equally effective in promoting muscle mass and strength and this guy here his name is um Nim Delgado and he has been vegetarian from birth vegan since 2015 he’s never eaten meat in his life and he looks like he’s doing okay he’s pretty oppressed at um and but older adults is are another story so there’s no separate RDA for seniors in North North America but they are there are in many countries like Australia Germany all the Nordic countries uh have separate rdas for poor seniors and the consensus is building that seniors actually need 1 to 1.2 gram of protein per kilogram body weight and and the thinking is is that this extra protein will help to reduce sarcopenia and Frailty preserve mobility and function improve recovery from illness and delay bone loss and so there’s quite a big emphasis on on seniors getting more protein and and the you know the the the challenge for seniors is they eat fewer calories and so they’re needing more with fewer calories which means they need to eat more protein dense diets they need to focus a little more on legumes and other protein rich foods than younger people might and I can tell you in my clinical experience I’ve seen quite a number of Whole Food plant-based especially women who are consuming about 35 to 45 grams of protein per day and that almost always fall short of that 1 to 1.2 G recommendation and most of the women that I see are not concerned about protein because in the plant-based Community the Mantra is if you get enough calories from our variety of foods you get enough protein and to be honest that’s almost always true except with older women you see them not getting enough calories and so when they don’t get enough calories sometimes they also don’t get enough uh protein and what happens is we see things things like skin fragility hair loss brittle nails muscle weakness fatigue inability to fight infection poor wound healing long recovery times uh mood changes and increased rate of bone loss as well and then I want to share with you this testimony I have from a client who had low protein intakes and she she wrote this this little testimony so that I could use it with her permission and here’s what she said I was frustrated by many symptoms after following a whole food plant-based diet for some time I wondered if I was getting enough protein but the plant-based doctors I was following told me protein was not the issue Brenda Davis assessed my diet and suggested increasing my protein intake from about 35 to 40 gram a day to about 60 to 70 grams a day I feel better and look better my skin has vastly improved on increased protein no Band-Aids no bleeding more opaque and much less bruising my abdomen is receding these are issues I’ve dealt with since my mid 7s and now at 83 years of age they’re clearing up I think it’s really important that older adults know that even on a heal on healthy Whole Food plant-based diets protein can fall short and increasing protein intake can be very helpful and I want to show you how easy it is to take a person from 41 gram of protein to 72 and you can see here she’s having a cup of oatmeal a cup of almond milk a banana and flax seeds for breakfast a salad with a non-fat dressing whole grain bread humus with some tomatoes on top and an orange for lunch and a sweet potato with a black bean and corn filling um and a h and and about a half a cup of black beans in that a half of an avocado cup of broccoli and some chia pudding uh with blueberry sauce for dessert so you can see up here the red text are things uh that I substituted in her diet and the purple texts are additions and you can see there’s only two additions I made the substitutions are simple I substituted almond milk for uh for soy milk uh in both breakfast and in the chia pudding I substituted the nonfat dressing for a tahini hemp seed dressing I added only one tablespoon of hemp seeds at breakfast and a third of a cup of tofu cubes for her lunch and by doing that I added about a 10 grams of protein from the soy milk 15 from the tofu and about six from the mostly from the hemp seeds in the dressing and and Al the cereal and that took her from 41 to 72 gram of protein simple simple uh uh job so where do we get protein in uh in in uh plant Foods well we get about 15 to 30 gam of protein in a cup of legumes uh about a half a cup of tofu or 3 oz of Veggie meat that’s about the same as what You’ get from 3 oz of meat poultry or fish You’ get about uh somewhere 6 to 13 from a/4 cup of nuts or seeds or a cup of cooked grains and that’s about the same as what you get from two large eggs a cup of milk or an ounce of cheese so getting enough protein is really about including at least one protein Rich choice at each meal and it can be beans lentils split peas tofu Tempe Mami uh Sayan vegim me seeds nuts all of those work you want to include some lower protein choices in the mix to maximize protein digestibility so tofu soy milk peanut butter Satan those all work and the oven thing that makes such a difference and I find this especially as we get older or for young children is to choose a milk that has a little more protein like a soyer or a pea milk as opposed to an almond milk so can plant-based meat Alternatives be part of a healthy vegan diet and my answer is yes uh they can be part of a healthy diet they provide concentrated highly digestible protein and can be especially useful for those with higher protein requirements like athletes there was a recent review from uh Matt Negra he’s from Canada that showed that they that that these veggie Meats actually have a better uh um sort of a more heart healthy nutrition uh profile than meat however of course they’re often very highly processed there’s a lot of variability in their quality and their content of saturated fat and and salt so you want to compare labels you want to just be selective and choose those that are more Whole Food based more often like quinoa black bean burgers I make my own out of you know just using beets and lentils and and all sorts of healthy foods and and they’re delicious so you can do that uh ideally and remember the most healthful protein choices are the least processed choices like beans lentils tofu nuts and seeds these should be our Staples moving on to carbohydrates so what are the healthiest carbohydrate sources no question whole plant Foods when it comes to uh carbohydrates popular opinions suggests carbohydrates are bad news and people should minimize their intake this is to me a very big mistake the healthiest foods on the planet get most of their calories from carbohydrates all plant foods with the exception of nuts and seeds are about 60 to 90% of calories from carbohydrates the healthfulness of carbohydrate is determined by the quality of that carbohydrate highquality carbohydrates are carbohydrates that are intrinsic to whole plant Foods they’re loaded with protective compounds such as fiber and prebiotics and phytochemicals and and and antioxidants and of course you know all plant Foods all whole plant Foods fall into that category lowquality carbohydrates by contrast are carbohydrates that have essentially been stripped of their protective components by food processing techniques and and good examples are all of these Ultra processed foods that make up the majority of our diets like sugar sweetened Beverages and white flour products and white rice and you know all of these kinds of foods refined carbohydrates increase our risk of overeating and obesity metabolic Associated fatty liver disease insulin resistance and diabetes high triglycerides and heart disease and unfortunately most most of the carbohydrates consumed especially in North America are refined probably close to 90% of them are refined and refined sugar is bad news there was actually an umbrella review in 2023 of 8600 studies 73 metaanalyses that showed added sugars have a significant harmful association with 18 endocrine and metabolic disorders 10 cardiovascular outcomes seven cancer outcomes and 10 other outcomes and what did the authors recommend that people reduce free sugars or added sugars to less than 25 grams or six teaspoons a day and you might say six teaspoons that’s a lot of sugar just wait limit consumption of sugar sweetened beverages to not more than one per week I would say get rid of them completely but still if you look at how much sugar is in food one serving of a sweet food like a 12 oz can of soda a a large flavored coffee one cup of Fruit yogurt whether it’s dairy or soy a a large cinnamon bun provides about twice as much sugar as that maximum about 12 teaspoons a day in many cases the flavored coffee can have up to 18 teaspoons of sugar it is shocking even things we don’t think of as being major sugar sources like energy bars and barbecue sauce and instant oatmeal can get you pretty close to the six teaspoons and daily average adult intakes are 17 teaspoons a day it’s about 21 for teenagers so it’s just just unbelievable and if you want to see how much sugar is in a food if you’re looking at the grams of added sugar four gam of added sugar equals 1 teaspoon of sugar so it’s a a nice way to see how many teaspoons are there and half not quite half but almost half of all the sugar that Americans eat come in the form of liquid sugar or Sweet beverages an another 31% are from sweet uh from uh sweets and snacks like baked goods and so forth so just removing those two things you’d be cutting out a lot of sugar and it’s a similar story for refined starches so if you look at um turning wheat into white flour you’re essentially removing the bran and the germ just eating the endosperm and in that process you lose 80 to 90% of the fiber 70 to 80% of the vitamins and minerals and 95% of the protective phytochemicals and then of course no one eats a bowl of white flour what do they do before they eat the white flour well they add fat and sugar and salt and food additives and then they eat the white flour and there in lies the problem not only have we removed almost everything of value to Human human health but we’ve added a bunch of components that we know are associated with increased risk of disease so it’s like a double whammy but of course whole grains are healthy foods there was a 2016 metaanalysis of 45 studies that reported A reduced risk of mortality for every three servings of whole grains for all cause mortality 177% risk reduction for cardiovascular disease mortality 22 diabetes 51 cancer 15 and respiratory disease 22% but all whole grains are not created equal so a granola bar does not equal a bow of oatmeal and a box of camou flakes does not equal a Camu berry salad okay there is a hierarchy of whole grains and I I actually created this hierarchy because I saw so many people saying I just eat whole grains but they were not considering the degree of processing of those whole grains so the hierarchy is to help people understand that degree of processing matters so intact grains like barley and oat GRS and quinoa and you know that’s the top of the hierarchy if you sprout them it’s even better cooking them absolutely fine then we cut the grains then we roll them then we shred them then we grind them then we flake them then we puff them and as we go down the hierarchy we’re increasing the surface area of the Grain and we’re we’re increasing the rate at which those carbohydrates will be absorbed into the bloodstream we’re also exposing those grains to to heat and pressure and all of those things which damage nutrients so we’re losing nutrients we’re increasing the impact on blood sugar and so we want to as much as possible stay closer to the top of the hierarchy most of the time not all of the time you can have a slice of bread so carbohydrate Common Sense get your carbohydrates from high fiber whole plant Foods minimize all refined carbohydrates whether they’re starches or sugars and just avoid sugar sweeten beverages completely U moving on to Fat so what are the best and worst sources well plant foods are the primary sources of healthy fats the mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids including essential fatty acids Ultra processed Foods deep fried foods fast foods and animal products are the primary sources of harmful fats saturated fats trans fats and oxidized fats so fats that are damaged by heat so what about Whole Foods versus fats and oils well high fat whole plant foods are preferred as the best source of fat because they come with a myriad of protective dietary components like the fiber and the antioxidants by contrast fats and oils are more concentrated in calories they have fewer nutrients and they have no fiber so we want to if if you use them we want to use them in as small amount as as possible uh we need to optimize omega-3 so plant foods contain alphal linolenic acid and it’s less biologically active than the longchain omega-3 zpa and DHA so I kosa pentanoic acid and kosa hexanoic acid which people get usually from fish in their diet right right and so we have to rely on or many vegans rely on conversion of ala to these longchain active Omega-3s and conversion is um not very efficient to say the least and so to optimize omega-3 fatty acid status I would suggest doubling the the acceptable intake for ala which means doubling that 1.1 grams for women and and and 1.6 for men so you’d be looking at about 2 to three grams of ala a day but you can also take a direct source of EPA and DHA and that’s one of the things that I do I I think it’s it’s a reasonable uh choice so sources of ala well you can see walnuts and out about 2.6 G of flax oil one teaspoon 2.4 you get about one and a half or a little more um grams of ala from a a tablespoon of Chia seeds or flax seeds and then seeds are a reasonable Source green leafy vegetables about half the fat is omega-3 the only problem is they hardly have any fat so you have to eat a truckload of them to get enough I think you’d have to eat about 20 cups to get your two grams so so do we really need pre-formed DPA and DHA we don’t really know for sure we do know however that that the the EP and DHA in the blood tissue and breast milk of vegans is about 487 % lower than it is in omnivores and that these long chain Omega 3s are important for Eye Health brain health the the permeability flexibility uh of cell membranes so so it just to me it makes sense to consider taking uh an omega-3 longchain uh omega-3 supplement the good news is that fish get their longchain Omega-3s from little plants that grow in the ocean and so can we we just culture it it’s free of environment Al contaminants it’s a clean safe source so and I think it it you know is really wise for pregnant and lactating women and those that don’t convert very well like people with hypertension or diabetes older uh individuals generally about 2 to 300 milligrams per day is considered sufficient so goal number two is to ensure sufficient micronutrients and here we’re talking about vitamins and minerals and uh these are nutrients needed in tiny amounts either milligrams or micrograms per day they’re necessary for our body function there are 13 vitamins and 15 minerals um that we know of that are essential to health there may be more and when you think about common um vitamin and mineral shfs some of the nutrients the Shel are more common in Western diets like folate vitamin C E K magnesium and potassium and some are more common in plant-based diets like B12 vitamin D calcium iron zinc uh iodine for sure sure so we’re going to look at that quickly at at these nutrients so let’s begin with calcium and how much do we need well the RDA and some people will argue whether or not we really need that much is is about 7 to, 1300 milligrams for kids a th000 for for adults and it’s it that’s for women up to 50 and Men up to 70 then for women over 50 or men over 70 it’s 1200 Mig so how can we get enough calcium with dairy products well we need to learn you know when you’re in school you you learn that there’s one food with with calcium and that’s dairy products right you that there’s so much emphasis on eating dairy for calcium but in fact there are lots of other foods that do provide calcium like low oxalate greens nuts and seeds like chia seeds almonds tahini uh legumes like black and white beans tofu molasses figs oranges even have a fair bit of calcium so the other thing we can do is to select uh calcium fortified non-dairy milks and other foods with added calcium to boost our intake so calcium fortified milts provide about 300 milligram of calcium per cup and tofu made with calcium provides about 1 to 300 milligrams per half cup so one to two servings of the milk or the tofu will usually help us to meet our RDA for calcium so what about absorption I can remember the dairy industry taking up an ad in a magazine saying you know yeah it’s true um you can you know plant foods have calcium but it’s not bioavailable so you can’t get any from it and so there was a for a long time people thought well it’s just not bioavailable from Plants but in fact dairy products you get about 32 to 34% of the calcium in dairy products you get about the same from tofu with calcium or soy milk you actually get more about 40 to 70% from low oxalate greens like broccoli kale Tes greens chup greens mustard greens or from from uh fortified foods and then you get just over the 20% from leggings and sweet potatoes you get the least from low o or I’m sorry from high oxalate greens and rhubarb so foods with a lot of oxalates like spinach beet greens and swiss chard uh you’re not but you’re only maybe going to get 5% of the calcium that’s there it doesn’t mean you don’t get any you just you can’t rely on them as being major sources of calcium and you want to be aware of factors that impact calcium absorption life excessive oxalates or Fates too much sodium high acid load alcohol caffeine can also impact negatively impact calcium absorption and what positively impacts it is vitamin D younger people absorb more so children absorb a lot more calcium than older people do during pregnancy your ability to absorb calcium escalates and if you distribute your calcium throughout the day you absorb a lot more so if you have your whole thousand milligrams at breakfast you’ll absorb far less than if you have three milligram 300 milligrams per per meal for example uh vitamin D how much do we need well the RDA is 400 for infant 600 for 1 to 70 year olds and 800 for those over 70 and although vitamin D can be produced uh by exposure to warm sunshine hardly any of us Get Enough from warm sunshine in fact there was even a study in Hawaii that that showed even people exposed to quite a lot of sunshine weren’t making enough vitamin D uh so and vegans are at greater risk because there are fewer plant uh sources of vitamin D so the main sources in the guide are fish eggs liver and mushrooms and and fortified uh milks non-dairy or dairy milk and if you look at the amountain foods you can see a CA cow’s milk has about 100 uh IUS that’s about the same for a fortified non milk uh it’s it’s about 20 to 50 and a lot of for other fortified boots and you can see it’s you know 15 to about 600 in fish fish is about you know 70 to 600 but the most concentrated source of vitamin D is mushrooms exposed to UV light so you go into a grocery store how the heck do you know if your mushrooms have been exposed to UV light right well guess what you don’t have to because because you can increase the vitamin D in your store bought mushrooms by exposing them to warm sunlight and all they need is about 10 to 15 minutes gills up in the Sun so you just put them on a cookie tray gills up and a 3 and 1/2 ounce serving will give you over 100% of the RDA or about the amount found in eight eggs it’s shocking and the vitamin D will lasts about eight days in the refrigerator when you do that so this is a potentially fabulous source of vitamin D for vegans so what about supplements well you know you can certainly take supplements a th000 to 2,000 I use is recommended for a lot of adults some people need to go a little higher to get their levels up uh I live in Canada so we have about probably eight months where it’s like the vitamin D winter kind of thing where you don’t actually produce any Vitamin D from Sunshine because it’s not warm enough it has to be warm warm sunshine so vitamin D3 tends to raise serum levels a little more than do D2 but plant-based D3 is really uh readily available vitamin B12 how much do we need it’s about 2.4 micrograms although some experts and a lot of European countries actually suggest higher amounts it’s a little higher in pregnancy lact and lactation a little lower for children plant foods are not reliable sources of B12 unless they’re fortified even foods that people commonly think of as B12 sources like organic vegetables seaweed fermented foods mushrooms cannot be relied on as Soul sources of B12 and stores B12 stores can last two to three years or more in adults but breastfed babies born to B12 deficient mothers can develop symptoms of B12 deficiency within weeks of birth and irreversible brain damage within months of bir so that’s it’s just you know and and seniors are at higher risk 10 to 30% of people over 50 have a diminished ability to Cle B12 off the protein it’s bound to in animal products so even for omnivores who are 50 plus The Institute of medicine suggests they can only rely on supplements and fortified foods for their B12 just like vegans so B12 deficiency increases the risk of demena and Alzheimer’s disease we don’t want to mess with B12 every plant-based eater or older person should Ure reliable daily sources and monitor the beachwalk status so what are reliable sources well supplements we need 1,000 micrograms um probably twice a week for adults and possibly more for seniors 500 to 1,000 micrograms a day but I would say test your levels because some seniors end up having really high levels and they just don’t need that much uh B12 fortified foods are reliable and for people who are lacto oovo vegetarian or omnivorous then they can rely uh on animal products if they’re under 50 years of age iron we need about 18 milligrams for women because we men State unless we’re postmenopausal uh pregnancy and lactation 27 it goes down to nine for lactation men only need eight but check this out babies need eat 11 more than a man uh children it’s somewhere 10 to you know 15 uh milligrams of iron and generally vegans consume as much or more iron if you look at the research we actually generally consume more iron than omnivores but our absorption is lower but the risk of iron deficiency is not usually higher except possibly in menstrating women we do however have lower fertin stores and lower feron stores if they’re still within the normal range don’t affect poers and feels don’t don’t appear to be a disadvantage when the diet replenishes stores and they actually may it may turn out to be an advantage because higher Serum fertin is associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes so how can we ensure sufficient iron on a plant-based diet well we want to select iron-rich foods from each food group the leum stars are lentils and beans the and of course lentils being at the very top they’re very high in iron nuts and seeds seeds are better than nuts but some nuts are also good sources uh sorry and and then grains usually the pseudo grains are a little higher but weed and fortified grains are also sources and then veggies and fruits like peas and string beans and leafy greens and you know prune juice things like that we want to moderate our intake of iron absorption Inhibitors so you do not want to be sprinkling bran on your food when you sprinkle bran on your food you reduce the iron absorption probably 50 to 90% um polyphenolics if you drink a cup of tea with your meal you can decrease iron absorption by up to 90% uh zinc single nutr zinc supplements will compromise iron absorption as well calcium and dairy products so we want a boost intake of iron absorption enhancers like foods rich in vitamin C and organic acids spices like pepper turmeric and ginger alium vegetables like garlic and onions beta uh foods rich in beta carotene like carrots and sweet potatoes uh zinc uh recommended intakes are about 8 to 12 for adults about 3 to five for children recommended intakes can be uh 50% higher in those eating high fiber High phate vegan diets but we do have homeostatic mechanisms that appear to help people adjust and be better able to absorb uh uh zinc over time for children we really do need to pay attention to zinc because it impacts their ability to grow and so uh we want to make sure that we’re giving them a Vari diet that includes good sources of zinc and some of the best sources you can see in red they have at least two milligrams of zinc per serving aduki beans and tofu and then pumpkin seeds and chia seeds cashews are pretty good too at 1.9 but one of the most surprising sources of zinc is oatmeal 2.4 milligrams for a cup so that’s pretty impressive and then you know some some grains as well and just to compare it a 3 oz serving of beet has about 3.5 and a cup of cow’s milk around the one milligram of zinc so how to boost zinc will include zinc rich foods at each meal so we’re talking about legumes Not seeds limit the use of really high phate foods like meat bre and use food preparation techniques that reduce Bates like soaking sprouting leavening fermenting all that and ensure sufficient calories and for children if there’s a question uh a good quality multivitamin mineral supplement with zinc can be uh helpful uh iodine uh this a lot of people don’t know severe iodine deficiency results in cogn cognitive impairment and is the number one cause of preventable brain damage in the world resulting in cretinism uh but mild deficiency in pregnant women Robs a baby from about about 10 to 15 IQ points and that’s just mild deficiency and that can adversely affect learning ability so how much iodine do we need 150 micrograms a day for adults a little more during pregnancy and lactation quite a lot during infancy 110 to 130 and it’s around the 100 during childhood up to 13 years of age so the 150 is 14 years plus but what I want you to notice is check this out the upper limit is 200 micrograms for a one to three year old that is not a lot more than the recommended daily allowance uh 300 for 4 to 8y olds and it’s 1,00 for for for 14 plus uh but that’s that’s you’ll see why that’s important in a minute there are fewer plant sources of iodine so vegans are at increased risk um unless the regular seaweed consumers so ioda and soures amount supplying 150 micrograms a half a teaspoon of salt a 16 of a teaspoon of Cal powder two Nory sheets a half a teaspoon of Gul granules six slices of bread uh one and 1/2 cups of cow’s milk because we use iodine to clean the teeths of the cows that’s why it contains iodine uh six large eggs or 6 ounces of fish so you can see for plant-based eaters it’s the the it’s it’s iodine salt and and the seaweed that provides the most so to boost iodine intake um use a supplement um you know uh include appropriate amounts of seaweed and if you’re using salt select iodized salt or II sea salt now the thing is to recognize is that if you get 150 micrograms from a 16th of a teaspoon of c a teaspoon puts you way over the upper limit especially for a small triog so if you’re using using seaweed you really need to know how much is safe where you don’t exceed the upper limit uh goal number three is to maximize protective dietary factors fiber pre and probiotics phytochemicals plant enzymes and antioxidants uh fiber is something that we know promotes regularity but it also is critical to our microbiome it increases satiety reduces Cravings reduces risk of colar rectal cancer reduces cholesterol levels stabiliz es blood sugar reduces risk of GI disorder enhances immune functions lessens hormonal imbalances and if you look at the recommended intakes 14 grams per thousand calories that’s about 38 grams per men 25 for women I think optimal intakes are more than that probably at least 40 to 60 a day but actual intakes 15 to 17 grams for for people eating the standard American diet and about 40 to 80 for vegans but Paleolithic intakes ranged from an estimated 70 to 150 Mill or grams per day and so you think I if our ancestors were eating that much fiber where does fiber come from plant they were eating some plant for sure so if you look at fibering Foods leggings are the most concentrated at 10 to 20 grams per cup then avocados grains berries and then uh vegetables and fruits nuts and seeds so of course plants are the only sources of fiber there are different types of fiber with unique health benefits so you want to get a big range of foods to get all of the beneficial types of fiber the soluble the insoluble the fermented the you know um non-fermentable and so forth and and the no and low fiber foods are low fiber refined carbohydrates fast foods no fiber meat poultry fish AIDS dairy prct fat oil and sugar so what about the pre and probiotics well Prebiotic are just certain types of fiber that feed the bacteria and polyphenols as well and they are literally the food for beneficial uh gut bacteria and prebiotics help to build and maintain a healthy gut microbiome which really supports all body systems blood glucose control immune function brain health all of that eating a wide variety of whole plant Foods is the most effective way of optimizing intake and some of the best sources of pre biotics are whole grains bananas blueberries fruits you know um asparagus artichokes even Jerusalem artichokes onions garlics leaks and all sorts of vegetables and of course the fibrous uh seeds as well and probiotics are are actually so the difference between prebiotics and probiotics the prebiotics are food for bacteria the probiotics are bacteria so um they’re gut microbes that can help to fortify beneficial uh bacteria within the gut microbiome and of course you know people often use um dairy yogurt as a source of pre of probiotics but of course any yogurt that’s cultured uh is a source but so is Tempe miso uh fermented uh uh vegetables kimchi kombucha all of those things phytochemicals and antioxidants are from plants and so PR predominantly there are some antioxidants and animal products but mostly phytochemicals and antioxidants are from plants and they protect against disease and enhance dietary treatment by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation enhancing uh gut microbiota improving fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity and supporting immune function they also protect DNA against damage and to maximize our intake we want to eat a big variety of plants we want to go for color so the richest sources of phytochemicals and antioxidants are often the most colorful so you could choose purple instead of white onions black instead instead of brown rice dark instead of light greens for example you want to eat a whole rainbow of vegetables I go for at least three green two orange yellow two pink red one purple blue and one white beige every day and I try to make sure my salads have all of the colors in them you want to pile on the herbs and spices because gram for gram they’re more concentrated in antioxidants than most other Foods eat more raw foods and here raw foods contain enzymes that convert some phytochemical into their active forms like for example precious vegetables contain myosin and and myosin converts glucosinolates to isoi assinatura induces Phase 2 enzymes that help detoxify carcinogens in the body so very very powerful alanes and alien vegetables helps to convert Allen to its bioactive metabolite alisin and we want to start sproting because when you sprout a seed you’re literally telling the seed to get ready to support the life and growth of a new plant so all the stored forms of of nutrients are released the anti-nutrients are broken down and so that the plant can use the nutrients and grow so also the phytochemical Army in that seed just multiplies to protect that Nea plant and it multiplies by about 5 to 50 times so adding Sprouts is a fantastic IC way to increase all of those beneficial compounds drink antioxidant Rich teas like habiscus and green teas and all sorts of Ginger and turmeric and so forth and eat whole plant Foods minimize ultr processed foods and so what are Ultra processed foods well ultr processed foods are industrially processed foods that are made from cheap highly refined starches like white flour corn starch and other starches proteins like way from milk or soap Protein Isolate fats like hydrogenated oils PLM oil shortening or lard and to enhance their shelf life their appearance and taste dyes and other color flavors artificial sweeteners stabilizers bulking agents deing agents anti-caking agents ulses glazing agents and preservatives are added to make them taste and look like real food which they’re not so and there was just a study that came out in 2024 that showed UPF is direct directly linked to 32 harmful effects including mortality obesity type 2 diabetes heart disease hypertension cancer mental health disorders and sleep disorders and the shocking thing is more than 60% of the average American diet is made up of ultr processed foods and sometimes it’s as high as 80% so it’s quite shocking goal number four is to minimize pathogenic dietary components like a new 5gc tmao endotoxins environmental contaminants and products of high temperature cooking and Nui GC is a calic acid sugar molecule that is not produced by humans but is common in red meat human tissues only contain new5 GC if animal products are eaten new 5gc is a pro-inflammatory molecule that is associated with an increased risk of chronic disease tmao or trimethylamine and oxide is a compound present in some fish or it’s formed when we consume carnitine or choline which are most concentrated in animal products and dairy products and TMO and it’s converted that to TMA and then to tmao and it’s positively associated with inflammation endothelial dysfunction type 2 diabetes Central atopos osity hypertension and cardiovascular disease and endotoxins are a component of the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria that are released into the circulation when bacteria die and they’re associated with inflammation and chronic disease risk and they come from unfriendly bacteria or directly from foods and diets that are high in saturated fat in animal foods and refined carbohydrates induce endotoxemia and fibo uh plant plant-based diets actually reduce their absorption uh so environmental contaminants these things induce oxidative stress fuel inflammation disrupt hormones damage vital organs damage DNA and the most common ones are pesticides and conventional produce heavy metals like mercury and fish and seafood Arsenic and rice chicken fish and seaweed and persistent organic pollutants like pcbs and ddts and dioxin that move up the food chain so they’re in mainly in animal products and the solutions here are to choose organic foods more often eat lower on the food chain vary your grains inorganic arsic can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and organic rice is just as high in Arsenic as conventional rice and brown rice is probably one and a half times higher in Arsenic than white rice so you you know choose other grains uh more often and if you do use rice you can cook it in a large amount of water like four to six to 10 times more water than rice for 5 minutes get rid of the water and then cook it as usual I mean you could cook it the whole time in a large amount of water but you lose more nutrients doing that that’s the way to preserve the nutrients products of high temperature cooking like heterocyclic amines polycyclic aromatic hydrocar carbons acrylamide and advanced glycation end products are also problematic and the most concentrated sources for heterocyclic amines it’s only animal products you you you need creatine or creatinine to make these things and that’s only in animal products and so grilled meats are the most concentrated Source uh polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are formed in anything that’s blackened it doesn’t matter if it’s tofu it be anything that’s blackened will toast uh will will be a source of of these compounds acrylamide is most conc concentrated in potato products because potato products are high in asparagine and asparagine is necessary for the production of acramite and then Advance glycation end products are most concentrated in broiled or or cooked processed meat but they’re they’re found in in anything that’s brown they’re products of the mayard reaction so in the health impacts high temperature cooking produces products of oxidation that increase the risk of cancer and other adverse Health outcomes and there was a study that was just published in 2023 that reported high temperature cooking can damage the DNA of food possibly damaging the DNA of consumers that eat that food and it impairs immunity and of course animal products are much higher in DNA than plant Foods Solutions here avoid charred or blackened food especially meat poultry of fish avoid fried foods and use cook uh moist cooking methods more often so what to eat well we want to be eating a diet of predominantly whole plant Foods this is not a diet of deprivation this is a diet of absolutely gorgeous delicious foods we want ideally at least nine servings of vegetables and fruits a day uh three of legumes a three or more of whole grains but they’re more optional you can use star treue vegetables too nuts and seeds I would say at least a serving a date to provide you with enough uh healthy fats and sprinkle it on with all with generous amounts of herbs and spices add in high quality supplements when they’re indicated you need to ensure reliable sources of B12 vitamin D iodine and Omega-3s and of course impr pregnancy I’m multivitamin one of the things you can do to help you design a diet that works is to use h a a food guide like this one that we have in plant powered protein and becoming vegan or this one that we have in the book nourish you know a healthy vegan lifestyle can benefit human health but perhaps the most compelling reasons to choose this sort of lifestyle is the benefits that are provided Beyond human health uh you know I don’t think there’s any step that any individual human being can take towards the preservation of this planet that is more effective than choosing a plant-based Di diet and if you look at um this this study was done I think it was 2023 yeah and and they looked at at the carbon footprint of various diets keto diet and this is uh kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalence per thousand calories uh you can see keto at the top then paleo then omnivore then pescatarian then vegetarian and at the very bottom vegan and compared to vegan diets the carbon footprint is 4.2 times greater for keto 3.8 times greater for Paleo and 3.2 times greater for an omnivorous diet compared to a vegan diet and it’s easy to understand why when you look at the carbon carbon footprint of of food uh animal products have a much higher carbon footprint than plant foods do and you can see that you know rice is a little bit higher than most of the other of food is more similar to to eggs and of course choosing a plant-based diet or a vegan diet is more ethically justifiable we Slaughter over 70 billion animals for food every year in the world and over 90% of those animals are raised in capos or confined animal feeding operations and to me it makes absolutely no sense to cause pain suffering and death and other living beings when it’s not only unnecessary but it increases the risk of death and disease and people in it threatens the very life support systems of this planet by getting our nutrition from Plants we all win and we have a choice when we consider the consequences of our food choices not just for ourselves but beyond ourselves a plant-based diet becomes both an ecological and ethical imperative and the bottom line is you can change the world but you must begin with yourself see the Bas in others educate with compassion share delicious food and above all be [Music] kind and uh many thanks I’d just like to to end with saying um thank you to the Northwest veg for their um their exceptional work for hosting this event for inviting us and for their work in supporting everyone that’s committed to making compassionate sustainable food choices so there’s some of my books and thank you uh very much.