vegan

Plant-Powered Sleep: Vegan, Vegetarian Diets Unlock Extra ZZZs

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Want to sleep better and longer? Ditch the meat. At least that’s what some experts are saying. 

Vegans and vegetarians sleep around 30 more minutes per night than average, and up to 90% of them report good or excellent sleep quality, according to a recent survey published by the Sleep Foundation. 

“Poor sleep leads to poor food choices,” according to Abhinav Singh, MD, medical director of the Indiana Sleep Center and medical advisor for the Sleep Foundation. “That is why they are called comfort foods — because nobody who’s tired and sleep-deprived is going to reach for a salad.”

Speaking of salad, people who follow a raw vegan diet fared the best. The paleo or “caveman diet” — which centers around meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables — came in second place, followed by kosher and a standard vegan diet, respectively. All these groups had better sleep than those who follow no specific diet. 

Benefits of Vegan Diets

Benefits of Vegan Diets

Going vegan doesn’t mean you’re limited to only munching on veggies. Create a nutrient-packed meal plan with these foods.

But linking a specific diet with better sleep can be a “slippery slope,” according to Cara Harbstreet, a registered dietitian and owner of Street Smart Nutrition. For one, self-reported dietary habits often come with inaccuracies. Survey respondents also had the option of choosing more than one diet. 

“There are also different interpretations of dietary patterns, such as what ‘keto’ means to one person may mean something else to another person,” said Debbie Fetter, PhD, assistant professor of teaching in the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. “There are many forms of vegetarianism as well. This may mean respondents could classify their dietary patterns differently, which affects the results.”

Instead of focusing on a specific diet, aim for 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night, Fetter said, noting that more than a quarter of American adults don’t meet this goal. Also, start incorporating more plants into your diet, she suggested. A whopping 90% of American adults do not get the recommended 2 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables per day.

“Sleep deprivation can have a negative impact on cognitive function, which may lead to impaired decision-making and influence health. For example, if someone is low on sleep, they may choose more energy-dense comfort foods instead of a nutrient-dense option, or they could feel too tired to engage in physical activity,” Fetter said.

Certain nighttime snacks can also help with sleep. 

“Tart cherries, yogurt, fatty fish like salmon, and kiwis (all included in the survey questions in some manner) are foods we know could support better sleep when eaten regularly,” Harbstreet said. 

The survey found that yogurt eaters had the highest sleep quality (61%). Fruit and berry munchers were a close second (58%). Those who snack on cookies, cake, and brownies surprisingly came in third (53%). But only indulge in the latter on occasion, according to Singh, the author of Sleep to Heal.

“Processed foods and sugary treats should be infrequent, especially before bed, [because] eating processed foods at 10 p.m. can spike your blood sugar, which activates your kidneys,” he said. “Then your sleep quality is poor because [of] micro awakenings and even bathroom breaks at night, which can then start to fuel some insomnia habits.”

And a word of caution: it can be tricky to label certain foods as sleep-promoting or not, especially when we do not have critical information about the people who selected those foods. 

5 Foods That May Help You Sleep Better

5 Foods That May Help You Sleep Better

Want to get in some quality ZZZs? Stock your pantry with these melatonin-boosting foods to snack on before bedtime.

“For instance, based on this survey, people who consumed cereal reported having the worst sleep quality — but we don’t know about these people’s lifestyles, sleep conditions, dietary or physical activity habits, socioeconomic status, stress level, and more that can all have an impact on their sleep. It may not be because of the cereal,” Fetter said. 

Insomnia was the most common sleep disturbance among respondents in the survey. If you are having trouble falling asleep, here are a few things you can try: Skip spicy meals before bedtime, as it can lead to heartburn. Have a scheduled bedtime and wake-up time and stop drinking caffeine 6 to 8 hours before bed. Creating a wind-down routine — such as reading a book, journaling, or coloring in an adult coloring book — can also promote good sleep hygiene, according to Fetter. You could also try  a “sleepy girl mocktail,” a viral trend that is a nonalcoholic concoction of sparkling water, tart cherry juice, and a magnesium supplement.

“How well it works is still up for debate,” Harbstreet said, noting that some people swear by it, others found no difference, and others reported the carbonation or sugar content seemed to negatively impact sleep.

How vegan and ketogenic diets can rapidly impact the immune system

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A study found that the human body has different immune-system responses to keto and vegan diets.

  • A new study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the United States has found significant immune-system responses to ketogenic and vegan diets.
  • Participants followed both diets for two weeks each. The keto diet was found to prompt responses associated with pathogen-specific immunity developed through regular exposure and vaccines.
  • The vegan diet elicited responses rooted in innate immunity, the body’s first line of defense against pathogens.

A new studyTrusted Source from researchers at the National Institutes of Health has found significant immune-system responses to ketogenic and vegan diets.

By performing “a multiomics approach including multidimensional flow cytometry, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and metagenomic datasets,” the researchers were able to assess how 20 participants’ bodies responded to two weeks each of the ketogenic and vegan dietary regimes.

The ketogenic diet prompted responses associated with adaptive immunityTrusted Source — pathogen-specific immunity that is developed through regular exposure and vaccines — while the vegan diet elicited responses rooted in innate immunityTrusted Source, which is the body’s first line of defense against pathogens.

There were also significant changes in the microbiomes of the participants, specifically the abundance of the gut bacteria associated with each diet. The ketogenic diets seemed to lead to a reduction in amino acid metabolism within their microbiomes, perhaps as a result of the larger amount of amino acids in that diet.

Keto vs. vegan: How different are the macronutrients?

Each participant was allowed to eat as much as they wanted during the two weeks they were adhering to each diet.

When people were on the vegan diet, which contained about 10% fat and 75% carbohydrates, they consumed fewer calories than their counterparts on the keto diet, which was made of about 76% fat and 10% carbohydrates.

Given the random application of the order of the diets and the diversity of the participants in age, race, gender, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI), the study’s authors point to how these diets can be consistently applied to the body’s pathways with somewhat predictable results.

“Further exploration of functional trade-offs associated with each diet would be an important line of research,” they write in the study.

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, a registered dietician at the Cleveland Clinic Department of Department of Wellness & Preventive Medicine in Ohio and a senior fellow at the Meadows Behavioral Healthcare in Wickenburg, Arizona, told Medical News Today that while these varied diets do show effects on overall health, there is a number of other factors that are at play.

“Both dietary patterns varied in their content of fat, fiber, carbohydrate, and protein composition and each approach had variations of change to immune function,” said Kirkpatrick, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Genetics, and specifically, nutrigenomics may help in determining the correct overall dietary pattern for an individual in addition to factors such as personal, religious, and cultural preferences. There is no one-size-fits-all all approach to diet and even though these two diets may appear to some to have extremes on both ends, there appear to be certain factors of each that are impacting immune function. This was also a small study so larger studies may be warranted to further assess results.”

Keto diet’s effects on the immune system

The ketogenic diet, known as keto, focuses on foods that provide a lot of healthy fats, adequate amounts of protein, and few carbohydrates.

By depleting the body’s sugar reserves and getting more calories from fat than from carbs, the diet works by forcing the body to break down fat for energy. This results in the production of molecules called ketones that the body uses for fuel and can stimulate weight loss.

After undergoing the ketogenic diet, participants in the NIH study were found to have an up-regulation of pathways linked to adaptive immunity, including T cell activation and enrichment of B cells and plasma cells. One of those pathways, oxidative phosphorylation, which is associated with T cell activation and memory formation, was improved after the ketogenic diet compared with the aftereffects of a vegan or baseline diet.

Analysis of participants’ proteomesTrusted Source — the entire set of proteins one organism produces — also indicated that the ketogenic diet may have a bigger impact on protein secretion than a vegan diet, with impacted proteins predicted to originate from several tissues, including the blood, brain, and bone marrow. Both diets affected proteins predicted to originate from the liver and secondary lymphoid organs.

How does the vegan diet affect the immune system?

The vegan diet eliminates all animal products, including meat, eggs, and dairy.

It has been associated with weight loss, improved heart health, and a reduction in the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and type 2 diabetes. It is heavy on fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds.

The study’s authors reported that the vegan diet resulted in a significant up-regulation of the production of red blood cells (erythropoiesis) and heme metabolism. Heme regulates transcription and protein synthesis during erythropoiesis. And the vegan diet resulted in more dietary iron (also important to erythropoiesis) being ingested in the vegan diet than in the ketogenic diet.

Matthew Carter, a doctoral student at the Sonnenberg Lab in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University in California (which recently published the resultsTrusted Source of a human dietary intervention trial comparing a high-fiber diet to a high-fermented foods diet), told Medical News Today that the vegan diet raised some questions about how it affected the immune system vs the ketogenic protocols.

“The authors do speculate that part of these differences might be caused by differences in caloric intake (vegans consumed fewer calories),” Carter said. “So it’s a little hard to see if there was something in particular in the vegan diet that caused these changes, or if something about eating less caused these changes. There are some interesting studies on fasting that have also shown changes to the innate and adaptive immune systems.”

Kirkpatrick noted that while the study’s findings support how powerful a role diet plays in immune function and microbiome health, the rigors of these particular diets can be difficult.

“Many of my patients have benefited from both vegan dietary patterns as well as keto dietary patterns,” Kirkpatrick said. “However, I have also seen challenges with both in terms of long-term sustainability. For example, few of my patients can remain strict keto over 6 months, and many transition to a low to moderate carb approach.”

Diet and Immunity: Vegan vs. Keto’s Impact on the Body

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Summary: A new study reveals distinct immune system responses to vegan and ketogenic diets. Over a two-week period, 20 participants alternated between these diets, allowing researchers to observe changes in innate and adaptive immunity, metabolic pathways, and gut microbiome.

The vegan diet primarily affected innate immunity and red blood cell pathways, while the keto diet influenced adaptive immunity and a wider range of proteins. These findings highlight the rapid and diverse immune responses to dietary changes, opening avenues for diet-based disease prevention and treatment strategies.

Key Facts:

  1. The vegan diet triggered innate immune responses and affected pathways related to red blood cells, while the keto diet influenced adaptive immunity and a broader range of protein levels.
  2. Both diets significantly altered participants’ microbiomes and metabolic processes.
  3. The study’s controlled environment and diverse participant group demonstrate that dietary changes can consistently affect complex bodily systems.

Source: NIH

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health observed rapid and distinct immune system changes in a small study of people who switched to a vegan or a ketogenic (also called keto) diet. Scientists closely monitored various biological responses of people sequentially eating vegan and keto diets for two weeks, in random order.

They found that the vegan diet prompted responses linked to innate immunity—the body’s non-specific first line of defense against pathogens—while the keto diet prompted responses associated with adaptive immunity—pathogen-specific immunity built through exposures in daily life and vaccination.

The work is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

This shows a salad.
More study is needed to examine how these nutritional interventions affect specific components of the immune system.

Metabolic changes and shifts in the participants’ microbiomes—communities of bacteria living in the gut—were also observed. More research is needed to determine if these changes are beneficial or detrimental and what effect they could have on nutritional interventions for diseases such as cancer or inflammatory conditions.

Scientific understanding of how different diets impact the human immune system and microbiome is limited. Therapeutic nutritional interventions—which involve changing the diet to improve health—are not well understood, and few studies have directly compared the effects of more than one diet.

The keto diet is a low-carbohydrate diet that is generally high in fat. The vegan diet eliminates animal products and tends to be high in fiber and low in fat.

The study was conducted by researchers from the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the Metabolic Clinical Research Unit in the NIH Clinical Center. The 20 participants were diverse with respect to ethnicity, race, gender, body mass index (BMI), and age.

Each person ate as much as desired of one diet (vegan or keto) for two weeks, followed by as much as desired of the other diet for two weeks. People on the vegan diet, which contained about 10% fat and 75% carbohydrates, chose to consume fewer calories than those on the keto diet, which contained about 76% fat and 10% carbohydrates.

Throughout the study period, blood, urine, and stool were collected for analysis. The effects of the diets were examined using a “multi-omics” approach that analyzed multiple data sets to assess the body’s biochemical, cellular, metabolic, and immune responses, as well as changes to the microbiome. Participants remained on site for the entire month-long study, allowing for careful control of the dietary interventions.

Switching exclusively to the study diets caused notable changes in all participants. The vegan diet significantly impacted pathways linked to the innate immune system, including antiviral responses.

On the other hand, the keto diet led to significant increases in biochemical and cellular processes linked to adaptive immunity, such as pathways associated with T and B cells.

The keto diet affected levels of more proteins in the blood plasma than the vegan diet, as well as proteins from a wider range of tissues, such as the blood, brain and bone marrow. The vegan diet promoted more red blood cell-linked pathways, including those involved in heme metabolism, which could be due to the higher iron content of this diet.

Additionally, both diets produced changes in the microbiomes of the participants, causing shifts in the abundance of gut bacterial species that previously had been linked to the diets.

The keto diet was associated with changes in amino acid metabolism—an increase in human metabolic pathways for the production and degradation of amino acids and a reduction in microbial pathways for these processes—which might reflect the higher amounts of protein consumed by people on this diet.

The distinct metabolic and immune system changes caused by the two diets were observed despite the diversity of the participants, which shows that dietary changes consistently affect widespread and interconnected pathways in the body. More study is needed to examine how these nutritional interventions affect specific components of the immune system.

According to the authors, the results of this study demonstrate that the immune system responds surprisingly rapidly to nutritional interventions. The authors suggest that it may be possible to tailor diets to prevent disease or complement disease treatments, such as by slowing processes associated with cancer or neurodegenerative disorders.

Abstract

Differential peripheral immune signatures elicited by vegan versus ketogenic diets in humans

Nutrition has broad impacts on all physiological processes. However, how nutrition affects human immunity remains largely unknown. Here we explored the impact of a dietary intervention on both immunity and the microbiota by performing a post hoc analysis of a clinical trial in which each of the 20 participants sequentially consumed vegan or ketogenic diets for 2 weeks.

Using a multiomics approach including multidimensional flow cytometry, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and metagenomic datasets, we assessed the impact of each diet, and dietary switch, on host immunity and the microbiota.

Our data revealed that overall, a ketogenic diet was associated with a significant upregulation of pathways and enrichment in cells associated with the adaptive immune system. In contrast, a vegan diet had a significant impact on the innate immune system, including upregulation of pathways associated with antiviral immunity.

Both diets significantly and differentially impacted the microbiome and host-associated amino acid metabolism, with a strong downregulation of most microbial pathways following ketogenic diet compared with baseline and vegan diet.

Despite the diversity of participants, we also observed a tightly connected network between datasets driven by compounds associated with amino acids, lipids and the immune system.

Collectively, this work demonstrates that in diverse participants 2 weeks of controlled dietary intervention is sufficient to significantly and divergently impact host immunity, which could have implications for precision nutritional interventions.

Beginning a Vegan or Ketogenic Diet Quickly Changes the Immune System

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immune system

New findings from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers showed that people who switched to a vegan or ketogenic diet showed rapid and distinct changes in their immune system.

The small study, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, closely monitored the biological responses of people who sequentially ate vegan and ketogenic diets in random order. Those on the vegan diet showed responses that are linked to innate immunity, while the people on the ketogenic diet showed changes in their adaptive immunity, the pathogen-specific immunity that is built via exposures to our daily life and vaccines.

In addition, “both diets significantly and differentially impacted the microbiome and host-associated amino acid metabolism, with a strong downregulation of most microbial pathways following ketogenic diet compared with baseline and vegan diet,” the researchers wrote.

The distinct changes noted in the study related to both diets were observed consistently across the diversity of the participants demonstrating that the dietary changes consistently affect widespread and interconnected pathways in the body.

The investigators noted that nutrition affects all the processes that regulate the human immune system, and that a better understanding of the link between nutrition and host immunity provides an untapped opportunity to develop personalized, diet-based approaches to treating a range of human diseases including inflammatory disorders and cancer. Further, prior research has well established the association between a low-fat vegetarian or vegan diet with decreased inflammation, a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, and a reduction in overall mortality.

However, the NIH investigators noted that given what is already known about the impact of diet on wellness and the development of disease, there is a significant lack of data on how nutritional interventions impact the human immune system. Further, studies in this area have only explored responses to only one diet at a time. This lack of data hampers the development of meaningful, proven nutritional interventions.

“Based on the highly variable responses of individuals to nutritional interventions and the high number of diets consumed, addressing how individuals respond to different diets remains an important line of research,” the NIH investigators stated in their published research.

The new study was conducted by a team in the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the Metabolic Clinical Research Unit in the NIH Clinical Center. The small, 20-person study represented diverse ethnicity, race, gender, body mass index (BMI), and age. During the four-week study period, the participants ate as much as they wanted of one diet—either vegan or ketogenic—for the first two weeks, followed by as much as they wanted in the following two of the other diet.

People on the vegan diet which comprised roughly 10% fat and 75% carbohydrates chose to consume fewer calories than when they were on the ketogenic diet (76% fat, 10% carbohydrates).

Blood, urine, and stool samples were collected for analysis, which used a multi-omics approach to show the body’s biochemical, metabolic, cellular, and immune responses to the diets. The team also analyzed participants’ microbiome. All 20 people remained on-site for the duration of the study to allow for careful control of the participants’ diets.

Specifically, the vegan diet’s effects to the innate immune system included antiviral responses. The ketogenic diet affected biochemical and cellular processes associated with T cells and B cells, which play roles in adaptive immunity. The ketogenic diets affected the levels of a broader range of proteins in the blood plasma, as well as the proteins in range of other tissues including those in the brain and bone marrow. The ketogenic diet was also associated with changes in amino acid metabolism—an increase in human metabolic pathways for the production and degradation of amino acids and a reduction in microbial pathways for these processes—which might reflect the higher amounts of protein consumed by people on this diet.

The vegan diet promoted more pathways that are linked to red blood cells, such as the heme metabolism, which could be related to the higher iron content of the diet.

The investigators said the data obtained from the study demonstrates how rapidly the immune system responds to nutritional changes and while more research is needed to provide a more detailed understanding of how these dietary changes affect the interconnected pathways in the human body, the results, nonetheless, point to the potential of tailoring diets to either prevent disease development or to complement disease treatments, by slowing processes associated with cancer progression or neurodegenerative disorders.

Being Vegetarian May Depend On 3 Genes

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 Vegetarianism may come down to three genes, a new study explains. In the first study of its kind, scientists identified a group of genes that have a strong connection with eating a plant-based diet. A team from Northwestern Medicine believes that an individual’s genetic makeup could be influencing their ability to adhere to a strict vegetarian lifestyle.Plant-based meal, salad, vegetables

The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, paves the way for further investigations that could shape dietary recommendations and influence the production of meat substitutes.

“Are all humans capable of subsisting long term on a strict vegetarian diet? This is a question that has not been seriously studied,” says corresponding study author Dr. Nabeel Yaseen, professor emeritus of pathology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Interestingly, between 48 and 64 percent of those identifying as “vegetarians” admit to still consuming fish, poultry, or red meat. This discrepancy led Dr. Yaseen to ponder whether environmental or biological factors might supersede the intent to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle.

“It seems there are more people who would like to be vegetarian than actually are, and we think it’s because there is something hard-wired here that people may be missing,” Dr. Yaseen continues in a media release.

Longer genes could be the secret to the fountain of youth
Photo by Sangharsh Lohakare on Unsplash

To probe the potential genetic link, researchers analyzed UK Biobank genetic data of 5,324 strict vegetarians — those not consuming fish, poultry, or red meat — and compared it to 329,455 controls, all of whom were White. The study pinpointed three genes significantly tied to vegetarianism and another 31 with potential associations.

Several identified genes, including two top contenders (NPC1 and RMC1), play roles in lipid metabolism or brain function, according to the study.

“One area in which plant products differ from meat is complex lipids,” Yaseen says. “My speculation is there may be lipid component(s) present in meat that some people need. And maybe people whose genetics favor vegetarianism are able to synthesize these components endogenously.  However, at this time, this is mere speculation and much more work needs to be done to understand the physiology of vegetarianism.”

While religious and moral reasons often motivate vegetarianism, recent studies also vouch for its health benefits. Although the vegetarian population is growing, it remains a minority. For instance, only about 2.3 percent of U.K. adults identify as vegetarian.

According to Prof. Yaseen, an individual’s metabolic response to food, not just its flavor, can shape preferences. As an analogy, many don’t initially enjoy the taste of alcohol or coffee. Yet, as they come to appreciate the effects of alcohol or caffeine, they develop an acquired taste.

plant-based diet
(Photo by The Lazy Artist Gallery from Pexels)

“I think with meat, there’s something similar,” Yaseen adds. “Perhaps you have a certain component — I’m speculating a lipid component — that makes you need it and crave it.”

“While religious and moral considerations certainly play a major role in the motivation to adopt a vegetarian diet, our data suggest that the ability to adhere to such a diet is constrained by genetics,” the study author concludes.

“We hope that future studies will lead to a better understanding of the physiologic differences between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, thus enabling us to provide personalized dietary recommendations and to produce better meat substitutes.”

No significant differences in weight, lipids, BP with vegan, omnivore soul food diets

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Healthy vegan or low-fat omnivorous soul food diets yield no significant differences in weight loss or lipid and blood pressure levels among African American adults, according to a randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Network Open.

“Although several studies have found evidence suggesting that plant-based diets may be protective against CVD, most have been observational. The few interventions examining plant-based diets have found that they have the potential to reduce factors associated with risk of cardiovascular disease, such as trimethylamine-N-oxide, C-reactive protein and LDL cholesterol,” Gabrielle M. Turner-McGrievy, PhD, RD,professor in thedepartment of health promotion, education and behavior and the Prevention Research Center at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, and colleagues wrote. “African American vegetarians and vegans have significantly lower risks of hypertension, diabetes and elevated cholesterol than African American omnivores.”

healthy diet
No differences in weight loss, lipids or blood pressure were observed among African American adults eating a vegan diet compared with an omnivore soul food diet. Source: Adobe Stock

The Nutritious Eating with Soul study, a randomized, 2-year clinical trial of two cohorts from 2018-2020 and 2019-2020, included 159 African American adults with overweight or obesity (mean age, 48.4 years; 79% women) from a university teaching kitchen in Columbia, South Carolina, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and via online videoconference sessions following COVID-19. Participants received weekly nutrition classes for 6 months, biweekly classes for 6 months and monthly classes for 12 months.

All participants were randomly assigned to a dietary intervention emphasizing a vegan diet with no animal product consumption (n = 77) or a low-fat omnivorous diet (n = 82), with both diets emphasizing soul food cuisine.

The primary outcomes were change in body weight and lipid levels at 12 months.

Overall, 76% of participants had data for the primary outcome at the conclusion of the study. Researchers observed no differences between the vegan diet group and the omnivore diet group for weight (–2.39 vs. –2.03 kg), total cholesterol (–1.05 vs. 1.66 mg/dL) or LDL cholesterol (–2.56 vs. –0.79 mg/dL).

At 12 months, the first cohort — wherein weight was assessed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic — experienced greater weight loss compared with the second cohort, whose weight was assessed during the pandemic (–3.45 vs. –1.24 kg; P = .01).

“Future research should examine additional strategies to enhance adherence to [plant-based diets], such as testing the intervention in a non-university, community-based setting or providing ready-to-eat meals,” the researchers wrote.

Want to try veganism? Here’s how to get started.

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https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/want-to-try-veganism-heres-how-to-get-started-202205172745?utm_content=buffer18b4c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=hhp

‘Humane milk is a myth’: veganism advert cleared by standards body. 

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ASA rejected claims from dairy industry that advert was ‘misleading’ readers into thinking farms were not complying with animal welfare standards.

Go Vegan World advert

An advertisement stating that “humane milk is a myth” has been cleared by the regulator following complaints from members of the dairy industry that it was inaccurate and misleading.

The national newspaper advert in February for campaign group Go Vegan World featured a photo of a cow behind a piece of barbed wire and the headline “Humane milk is a myth. Don’t buy it”.

“Their daughters, fresh from their mothers’ wombs but separated from them, trembled and cried piteously, drinking milk from rubber teats on the wall instead of their mothers’ nurturing bodies. All because humans take their milk.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said seven complainants, some of whom had experience of working in the dairy industry and who believed that the advert did not accurately describe the way that dairy cattle were generally treated in the UK, challenged whether the claims were misleading and could be substantiated.

Go Vegan World said the advert did not state or imply that calves were separated from their mothers before the 12 to 24 hours recommended by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

But in any case they believed the exact timing of the separation was irrelevant to the ad, which commented on the injustice of separating cow and calf, claiming later separation actually caused more distress.

They believed most people would consider separation at 25 hours as unjust as separation at 24 hours.

Clearing the advert, the ASA said it understood the complainants were concerned the advert implied a significant number of dairy farms did not comply with animal welfare standards in place in the UK and milk production was therefore “inhumane” in that sense.

But it concluded: “We understood that Defra recommended that calves should be kept with their mothers for at least 12 and preferably 24 hours after birth.

“Although the language used to express the claims was emotional and hard-hitting, we understood it was the case that calves were generally separated from their mothers very soon after birth, and we therefore concluded that the ad was unlikely to materially mislead readers.”

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Going Vegan Isn’t the Most Sustainable Option for Humanity

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If you’ve decided to go vegan because you think it’s better for the planet, that might be true—but only to an extent.

A group of researchers has published a study in the journal Elementa in which they describe various biophysical simulation models that compare 10 eating patterns: the vegan diet, two vegetarian diets (one that includes dairy, the other dairy and eggs), four omnivorous diets (with varying degrees of vegetarian influence), one low in fats and sugars, and one similar to modern American dietary patterns.

What they found was that the carrying capacity—the size of the population that can be supported indefinitely by the resources of an ecosystem—of the vegan diet is actually less substantial than two of the vegetarian diets and two out of the four omnivorous diets they studied.

vegan-lunch_1024x576

Here’s Chase Purdy, putting it more simply for Quartz:

When applied to an entire global population, the vegan diet wastes available land that could otherwise feed more people. That’s because we use different kinds of land to produce different types of food, and not all diets exploit these land types equally.

  • Grazing land is often unsuitable for growing crops, but great for feeding food animals such as cattle.
  • Perennial cropland supports crops that are alive year-round and are harvested multiple times before dying, including a lot of the grain and hay used to feed livestock.
  • Cultivated cropland is where you typically find vegetables, fruits and nuts.

The five diets that contained the most meat used all available crop and animal grazing land. The five diets using the least amount of meat—or none at all—varied in land use. But the vegan diet stood out because it was the only diet that used no perennial cropland at all, and, as a result, would waste the chance to produce a lot of food.

One downside of non-perennial crops is that when springtime rolls around, the frozen soil’s stored nutrients usually drain into rivers and streams before farmers have a chance to plant the next season’s crops. Here’s Brooke Borel, reporting for NOVA Next in 2014:

Perennial crops, on the other hand, could survive for many seasons, axing the annual cycle and lessening farming’s wear-and-tear on the environment. Some varieties could also have longer, lusher root systems that would sink deeper into the ground, helping maintain soil health and curbing erosion. They could even help the plants survive a drought.

Such a system would allow for longer growing seasons, too, taking advantage of the late autumn and early spring months when fields usually lay bare. Assuming that perennial crops produced the same amount as their annual counterparts—a big assumption—this would provide additional food each year from the same plot of land. A shift from annuals to perennials, or a mixture of both, could benefit both the environment and food security.

If modern agriculture in the U.S. were adjusted to the vegan diet, according to the study in Elementa, we’d be able to feed 735 million people—and that’s from a purely land-use perspective. Compare that to the dairy-friendly vegetarian diet, which could feed 807 million people. Even partially omnivorous diets rank above veganism in terms of sustainability; incorporating about 20 to 40% meat in your diet is actually better for the long-term course of humanity than being completely meat-free.

Of course, some environmental ethicists would argue that this is an overly utilitarian, anthropocentric view of how a person should live. What the study doesn’t take into account is the moral question of whether or not we should be raising livestock for our benefit at all. So while the jury’s out on whether veganism is a good way to sustain the future of humanity, it’s certainly a viable life choice for people who are vegan for other reasons, including dietary or ethical concerns.

Why Your Lover Will Be Glad You’re Vegan

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Most of the dating world knows that vegans have big hearts, but not everyone knows that vegans also have these bedroom benefits:

Your equipment works better.

Tomatoes and Knife on Cutting Board

Ditch the Viagra and extended-hour condoms and go vegan instead. Doctors agree: The best way to prevent artery blockages, improve heart health, and lower blood pressure is to eat a diet high in fiber, including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. These foods help clear your arteriesand get your blood flowing to, well, the important parts.

You’re more fertile.

Want good-quality sperm? Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic say it’s simple: Eat your fruits and veggies, especially tomatoes, which are loaded with sperm-friendly lycopene.

For those looking to reproduce (whether now or down the road), you can feel confident knowing that eating vegan plays an important role in fertility. Several studies indicate that frequent intake of lipophilic foods—i.e., meat and dairy products—can negatively affect sperm quality, whereas fruits and vegetables may maintain or even improve it.

Lemon Herb Asparagus

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only have researchers found thatprocessed-meat intake is related to lower-quality sperm, they’ve also found that infertile men have significantly higher concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyl and other contaminants in their seminal plasma: The highest averages of those concentrations were found in urban fish-eaters.

Plus, eating meat increases the amount of synthetic hormones that you consume. These hormones may contribute to a reduced sperm count and a higher risk of testicular tumors.

You taste better.

Meat and dairy products are distasteful in more ways than one, women insist. Former porn star Annie Sprinkle says vegetarians taste best. Eating fruit and drinking fruit juice a few hours before sex is thought to improve the taste, while cigarettes, alcohol, meat, dairy products, and deep-fried foods make semen less palatable.

And you’ll last longer.

Cyclist

A Danish study tested the stamina of meat-eaters against vegetarians and found that men “peddling on a stationary bicycle until muscle failure lasted an average of 114 minutes on a mixed meat and vegetable diet, 57 minutes on a high-meat diet, and a whopping 167 minutes on a strict vegetarian diet.”