Did you try simply stopping with the soy protein and gluten consumption?

In any case, I hardly see how going back to an animal-including diet changes anything on that front. Soy is not vegan-only, and neither is gluten. You can easily live on a vegan diet without those things, and you can easily live on a non-vegan diet including those things. Seems more like a weak excuse if you ask me.

To be clear, you think it's "easy" to live on a diet without any animal products, and also without soy or gluten, and that I'm "weak" for not doing so, despite other health issues I had on the diet?

This is another aspect of veganism that really turns me off, the pervasive self-righteousness within the community at large.

Please tell me what restaurants I could visit with those dietary restrictions? And what quick lunches / fast food I can buy on that diet, on say a 30 minute lunch break, for instance...?

> To be clear, you think it's "easy" to live on a diet without any animal products, and also without soy or gluten, and that I'm "weak" for not doing so, despite other health issues I had on the diet? This is another aspect of veganism that completely turns me off, the pervasive self-righteousness within the community at large. Please tell me what restaurants I could visit with those dietary restrictions? And what quick lunches / fast food I can buy on that diet, on say a 30 minute lunch break, for instance...?

People don't really realize what they eat, especially when it comes to gluten and soy. I developed a wheat allergy after college (which my doctor said was caused by stress and working in a pizzaria full of wheat) which caused me to have to switch to a gluten free diet. That means your prepared meal options are massively reduced, more of your time is spend cooking (which imo is a good thing, I'm conscious about what I eat now), and if you do eat out, take on a "gluten-free tax".

People who go on these holier-than-though fad diets don't understand what people who actually have dietary needs go through. There is no wiggle room for us. If we don't follow our diets there are real and serious medical consequences. We don't just "feel down on ourselves" for not following the diet and the strictness with which we must follow our diets cause real inconveniences.

The parent seems to be suggesting that a vegan diet didn't work for them for health reasons. But countered objections to this by saying that it's difficult. (Which it is. Stupidly difficult to eat meat, gluten and soy free in my experience) But convenience is a different argument from health. Which is it? If the issue is convenience, I concede. If it's health there may be room to explore other options.

Though I admit there is nothing inherently healthy about eating vegan (oreos are vegan and I've gained weight while still being vegan while learning how to bake) I'd argue that choosing a diet on the availability of fast food choices is an indicator of an unhealthy decision.

> The parent seems to be suggesting that a vegan diet didn't work for them for health reasons. But countered objections to this by saying that it's difficult. (Which it is. Stupidly difficult to eat meat, gluten and soy free in my experience) But convenience is a different argument from health. Which is it? If the issue is convenience, I concede. If it's health there may be room to explore other options.

Why can't it be both? A diet can be both medically necessary and inconveniencing. See my own example or a diabetic diet.

Actually, v*gns -- most of whom will become violently ill if someone sneaks a little ground beef into their food -- have a good understanding of "what people who actually have dietary needs go through".

Well then that means that it's not a "holier-than-thou fad diet" for that person, right?

Most Indian vegetarian food has no soy and can be paired with rice instead of bread. It doesn't sound like that's a sort of food that's common in your area.

> To be clear, you think it's "easy" to live on a diet without any animal products, and also without soy or gluten, and that I'm "weak" for not doing so, despite other health issues I had on the diet?

Yes I do. I'm a vegan and have been for 3 years. In Denmark at least, it's easy to avoid gluten when you buy bread. If it isn't in your country, bake your own. Soy? Also easy. There are thousands of other plants.

> Please tell me what restaurants I could visit with those dietary restrictions?

Any vegan(-friendly) restaurant.

> And what quick lunches / fast food I can buy on that diet, on say a 30 minute lunch break, for instance...?

I eat pizzas, burgers, sandwiches, salats, pasta salats, cold pasta dishes, rice and curry (heated up) and so on for lunch. Anything really. If you can't buy it as take-away, cook your own.

That just means that it's easy for you. In the US, for example, wheat flour is found in pretty much everything. It's used as a breading, thickener, binding agent etc. It's even a filler in meat.

Glad I don't live in the US then :)

I've seen an increase in gluten-free products in the last years though, and also heard that it's been happening in the US and UK among other places too. Even in candy. Is that not true?

It is. Luckily the gluten free diet has become more of a fad here for people with money, so there are more options. However, there are no where near as many options to achieve gluten/gluten-free parity.

I guess that's one of the benefits of not living in "processed or manufactured everything" America. We have the benefit of not having to cook as much, you have the benefit of having more control over what you put into your food.

> I guess that's one of the benefits of not living in "processed or manufactured everything" America. We have the benefit of not having to cook as much, you have the benefit of having more control over what you put into your food.

I like to think that I choose to cook my own food because it's healthier than (most) take-away (except if it's incredibly fancy and expensive) and mass-produced food sold in supermarkets, and because I can't afford to go to expensive restaurants for every meal :D

> You can easily live on a vegan diet without those things

That's not true. The vast majority of convenient off-the-shelf meat substitutes use soy or seitan to replace meat protein.

Staying vegan while giving up soy and gluten means committing to a massive amount of meal-prep, and vegan food is already more labour-intensive in meal prep than the corresponding omnivore meals. It would mean basically giving up on all restaurant eating everywhere.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but you should not downplay that with "easily".

> That's not true. The vast majority of convenient off-the-shelf meat substitutes use soy or seitan to replace meat protein.

Indeed. I've seen a trend in new products using other stuff though. It's getting easier. But lets not forgot you can just buy proper whole food instead like fruit, beans, grains, vegetables, legumes and so on.

> Staying vegan while giving up soy and gluten means committing to a massive amount of meal-prep, and vegan food is already more labour-intensive in meal prep than the corresponding omnivore meals.

I think it depends on what culture you are from. In Denmark, it's normal to prepare food yourself. Sure, some buy ready-made food in stores, but I've never grown up seeing my parents do it, and I rarely do it myself.

> It would mean basically giving up on all restaurant eating everywhere.

All vegan-friendly restaurants I've been at have also had non-gluten bread and dishes not containing soy at all.

> I'm not saying it can't be done, but you should not downplay that with "easily".

I think that's subjective. If you're used to buy food that's already made, well, then, it probably isn't. If you are used to cooking yourself then it is.

Have you considered a zerocarb diet? It may help with the allergies, though if you follow zerocarb then it wouldn't matter as it excludes wheat and soy. I essentially eat nothing but meat, cheese, and eggs. If this sounds outrageous and impossible, come join us on /r/zerocarb and read the science and testimonials.

I did not make this choice lightly. For several weeks and months I got hung up on the "but you need vegetables and fiber" argument. I read and thoroughly did my research over a period of many months. My parents and I have tried many of the popular fad diets out there, including raw vegan where we would make "healthy" smoothies out of kale/spinach and some fruits (never mind that raw spinach is rather toxic with oxalates and other anti-nutrients, and the sugar content (especially fructose) from the fruits will lead us towards diabetes).

My parents are now so pre-diabetic that they cannot eat fruit anymore. A simple serving of pineapple will push my father's blood pressure over 200. Two servings and he will black out. Waking glucose level is about a 100 for both of my parents.

Then, we switched to paleo, and a few months later to zerocarb. It has now been several months eating nothing but meat, eggs, and cheese, and the results were night-and-day different to the raw vegan diet high in carbs and sugar. Now, we are keto adapted. Insulin sensitivity is slowly returning to normal. Waking glucose is improving for them (mine is normal). Lipid panels are improving. We all lost excess weight as well.

By following zerocarb, you automatically eat a FODMAP diet. You don't damage your intestines anymore from all that bulky high-fiber diets. You really don't need fiber--I have not eaten any fiber in months.

In the end, I experimented, my parents experimented, and we settled on zerocarb. There's an excellent book on this called the Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Read it with a bag of salt, but perhaps try a 60 day experiment.

Thanks, I had heard of /r/keto but not /r/zerocarb -- I'll give it a look! This diet is much closer to what I eat nowadays anyway.

>>I used to be vegan, for three plus years. I can't recommend the diet.

>>It was extremely unhealthy for me, personally.

Agreed. It was the worst decision of my life. I lost considerable muscle mass and power and it wasn't until I had blood work done that I found I was low in creatine, B12 and so forth, the usual things only found in animals. I was told by my vegan "friends" to just take supplements and that's when the alarm bells should have rung: an optimal diet for a strictly amateur athlete shouldn't need such things. I also had alarmingly low testosterone, which I later learned was because I ate so little cholesterol. But stupidly, I stuck with it for years.

Eventually I dumped it, started eating animals of all sorts like crazy, regained my muscle mass, power (a function of creatine) and healthy test levels and life became good again.