h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I really enjoyed reading your guide entry and nosing through the links!

Hi -I'm a vegan and I am a bit worried about my health at the moment. A colleague at work has reverted to being an omnivore after being vegan for ten years and says she feels so much better, I'm wondering if I am doing something unnatural and/or unhealthy.

Thanks for the article!

Thankyou for the article, it is very helpful. I have been vegetarian for many years but have recently been told that I have to give up dairy products for medical reasons, I didn't think it would be too much of a problem, did some research, however I have found it quite hard. I have found the social side the hardest which surprises me as is the same proccess as going vegetarian, which wasn't all that socially acceptable 10 years ago. I will try the detox method, hopefully clear all that nasty processed stuff out of my system and lead a very happy vegan life. Thankyou again, I feel inspired!

I've been vegetarian for ethical resons for a loooong time, too, and i would love to go vegan for environmental reasons, and i've tried giving up dairy products (mostly successful) but haven't been able to deal with no cheese.......mmm.......cheese!........or without milk in my coffee. I'v tried soy creamers, but since i want to do the non-dairy thing for environmental, not ethical reasons (ethics were dropped by only eating organic milk stuff without hormones, and almost always free-range), it seems to me to defeat the purpose, since it takes so much more processing. I've actually started to think about eating meat again, but only small amounts of free-range, organic, vegetarian-fed, non-farmed , stuff. To me, with no ethical problems with eating meat, just the way the animals are treated and how toxic the raising is, it makes sense to support the small family farms that do it right, because our culture isn't going to give up it's meat. Any thoughts? Great article, by the way!

Sisterphonetica, if I were you and worried about my health, I would take my self off to my GP and tell him my concerns and request a full blood test. If there is something lacking in your diet, then you may be able to correct it.

I've visited my GP in the past when I felt unusually tired and although my haemoglobin and calcium levels, etc were fine and my cholesterol at "text book levels" my GP found that I had an auto-immune thyroid deficiency so now have to take thyroxin daily but as a result I feel much better. Well that is apart from suffering the effects of middle age and being peri-menopausal!

I been a vegan for ethical reasons since 1982 and I haven't found the diet difficult at all, even when we lived in NZ for a short time where my access to vegan convenience foods was severely limited.

My husband and twelve-year old son who has autism (it difficult to explain ethics to him) are both omnivores and will eat anything that's been dipped in first.

However my fifteen year old daughter by my first husband has been raised as a vegan and is above average height and weight for her age. In case you think that I'm a wicked mother, I have given my daughter the choice whether or not she wishes to remain vegan and she did at one time experiment with an omnivorous diet but didn't like it and so returned to her vegan diet. Mind you, that could have been something to do with my inexplicable inability to cook meat!

Logically, vegan *is* unnatural; archeological evidence shows humans have been omnivorous for millenia. This isn't the same thing as 'bad', though-we all gots brains and aren't afraid to use them. Humans do lots of unnatural things (like monogamy, and wearing clothes when it's cold!), and benefit greatly from them.

I don't think that's what's being asked, though.

The best way to find out if you're sick is to go to a doctor. Please do consider this.

You might try to add things that are vegan but which you'd normally not eat to your diet. It has happened to be my experience, that most of the vegans I meet tend to have strange illnesses, presume their particularly calculated habitual diet must be perfect and don't change it, and then go to uncertified (or IMO as a child of chiropractors I find: downright retarded) alternative healers, and never get better.

Thing is, I have fairly major health problems as it is. I have connective tissue disease (an autoimmune illness) and there is no treatment for it. I have regular blood tests which show results consistent with this. After pondering your advice I've decided to speak to one of the dieticians at work and try and get her to figure out if my diet is lacking in anything. I also need to lose lots of weight - so maybe she can help me with that too!

(Oh and I see a chiropractor too!)

Yours, munching on raw organic almonds...

SP

Nuts are *my* kind of people.

Goddesses and Gods bless.

Let us-all know what your dietician has suggested and whether it works, we may need to know it someday!

It actually didn't ocur to me to check if people were discussing my article - I suppose I assumed it wouldn't generate much interest. Anyway, thank you for the kind comments; they're very much appreciated

If you're experiencing unusual fatigue or a sort of long-term "blah", definitely go and get checked out medically. Of course, it depends on your local practice, but if they're inclined to brush off your concerns you can always press for a full blood work-up. I came down with glandular fever followed by ME (described in those days as "post-viral syndrome") in 1985, and our local practice (known throughout the area as "THAT lot") decided that I didn't have it because they didn't believe in it; they stuck to this line for 10 years, at which point I moved away. In my case, going vegan and eating organic made a MASSIVE difference in my energy levels (went sky high) and my immune system (it remembered how to work). I recently got hit with a second bout of glandular fever, which is deeply depressing, but friends who've had it assure me that my progress is actually far more rapid than theirs was.

As to eating organically-reared animals and fish, I believe it's a step in the right direction - away from industrial livestock methods of farming. My concern there would be tracking transportation, slaughter, the conditions within the abbatoir, and how localised the process is. Also, fishfarms are very polluting, and as fishstocks collapse, the fishing of "wild" fish is of concern. In the end, I believe that everyone should come to their own conclusion as to what their personal line in the sand is, and then do the research to go with it. If you find a source that satisfies your principles, back them to the hilt! I believe it's not good enough only to complain about it when people/organisations mess up - we need to praise and support those that do well.

Anyway, that's my tuppeny-ha'porth for now