BUSTED: Top Vegan Nutrition Myths

Subject: BUSTED: Top Vegan Nutrition Myths Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:34 am

Gloria Steinem summed up one of the challenges of life very well when she said, "The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn."

This quote rings especially true when it comes to what we choose to eat. Our food choices are influenced by a range of factors that make it almost impossible to entertain change. Growing up, I was told that I needed to consume dairy for calcium, eat meat to get strong and fish to get smart. Imagining food without animal products on my plate seemed almost unimaginable.

However, I always felt a sense of nagging unease about my food choices -- what if everything I knew about food and nutrition was wrong? What if I truly had no valid justifications for choosing to consume animal products? What began as a path of unlearning -- about taste, tradition and nutrition -- ultimately culminated in me choosing a vegan lifestyle.

But unlearning in the age of information means having to sift through an avalanche of Internet articles discussing conflicting scientific reports and marketing propaganda (often indistinguishable from each other) that are largely fueled by billion dollar industries whose bottom lines depend on our uninformed food choices. Some anti-vegan rhetoric is delivered with so much conviction that, at times, I still have difficulty separating fact from fiction.

The problem, however, is that the longer you let myths go unchallenged, the greater is their ability to masquerade as truths. So, I decided to put my mind (and hopefully the minds of many others) at ease by reaching out to One Green Planet's expert community and getting their input on the top vegan nutrition myths.

This is what I uncovered in my discussions with some prominent voices in the plant-based nutrition space:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nil-zacharias/vegan-nutrition-myths_b_949288.html

BUSTED: Top Vegan Nutrition Myths

BUSTED: Top Vegan Nutrition Myths

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