The woke way
Instead of going all out, says focusing on well-produced food — and one steak a month — is the answer
At the top of many people’s list of “things to make me a better person” for 2020 will have certainly been the intention to eat less meat. Whether it’s vegetarian or full vegan, it’s the thing to do for your health, for the planet, for animal welfare and for the sake of always having something reasonably woke to talk about.
Especially if you are an Uber driver. My driver proudly told me within minutes of me hopping in his car that he had been vegan for a month.
“It’s a great way to lose weight,” he said, looking meaningfully in the rearview mirror at my size 16 frame.
He had watched a documentary on Netflix and that was it. Life changed.
After 10 minutes of the vegan discourse, I asked him how he was feeling on his diet, which seemed to consist mainly of the vegan offerings now available at Subway and Domino’s.
“How levels?”
“Not great,” he admitted. It was now my turn to take are your energy a look at him from the back seat. He was pale and he was in his 70s.
“You might want to get a blood test,” I said as I hopped out of his Mercedes. “Your B12 is probably low.”
Therein lies the rub. Getting the nutrition right on a limited diet, no matter what it is, can be beyond most normal people. Unless you know your stuff it’s really easy to get depleted of the essential vitamins and minerals which keep you healthy. Yes, you can be vegan and healthy but you also have to have done a bit more research than watching an hour-long documentary on Netflix. I know some very fit and healthy vegans but they also have bookshelves heaving with books on the topic and have spent years working out how to do it right.
Professor of genetic epidemiology Tim Spector, author of The Diet Myth: the real science behind what we eat, put himself on a vegan diet but found his blood tests revealed low B12 and folate.
After months of trying to rectify this by eating eggs, taking supplements and eventually having B12 injections in his bum, he realised