VeganMofo Day 22: Vegan nutrition experts

This is Day 22 of Vegan Mofo, a month of vegan food blog posts, and this post is an introduction to vegan health and nutrition blogs. Since I am not a food blogger, most of my posts for Vegan Mofo will not be recipes, rather experiences I have with vegan food and sharing people, places and things that have brought me and continue to bring me amazing vegan food.

My number one go-to resource for vegan nutrition is Jack Norris' blog, Jack Norris RD: http://jacknorrisrd.com/ I have loved this blog for a while now, and also love his book "Vegan for Life" that he co-wrote with the woman whose blog is next in this list. One of the many things that I like about Jack is that he sticks to facts and sticks to proven studies. There is no bs and no vegan feel-good crap. His blog is an incredible resource for me as a vegan who wants to be as healthy as possible, and I trust it implicitly.

The Vegan RD is Ginny Messina: http://www.theveganrd.com/ I met Ginny at Vida Vegan Con this past May and also attended her session about vegan nutrition. I was blown away as I sat there and learned about studies and her twenty plus years in nutrition. She co-wrote "Vegan for Life"  with Jack Norris and I trust everything that I read on her blog. Like Jack, Ginny looks at studies and evidence and isn't into fluff.

By the way, I also think that every vegan and anyone who wants to be healthier own a copy of "Vegan for Life".

Meet Matt Frazier, the No Meat Athlete: http://www.nomeatathlete.com/ Matt is another go to guy for me, especially as I trained for a half marathon and as I overall try to get healthier. His site has all sorts of information about fitness, nutrition and even has recipes. If you are considering running a marathon or a half marathon, check out his road maps for these two runs. Very helpful.

I became vegan because I didn't want anything to do with cruelty to animals and wanted to do the least harm possible while on this earth. As approach I 50, it is really important to me to be as healthy as I can, and the three websites above are a big help with that. I hope they are beneficial to you on your journey.

Thanks for reading!
vegandude@msn.com

Vida Vegan Con sessions Part I

I have written a couple of posts about my trip to Vida Vegan Con 2013 and wanted to share about a couple of more things. This post is Part I of II around some of the amazing sessions I attended. As a new blogger, I mainly spent time in sessions around blogging, writing, technical information and vegan nutrition. One of the amazing things about Vida Vegan Con 2013 was the huge variety of sessions.

Here are some notes from a couple of the sessions I attended.Please remember that these are just notes based on what I was listening to. My goal here is to give you a little look into attending a session. For more information on the folks giving the session, I included their website.

If the sentence is in quotes it's something I heard at the session from a fellow attendee.

First was Blog writing as writing by Gena Hamshaw. Gena's blog is choosingraw.com . She also currently has notes on her session at her blog.

Ideas from Gena about blog writing:

Common blunders of writing. First thing that an editor looks for is narrative scaffolding. Is there some type of architecture holding this together. A start, middle and end.

We have an obligation to make everything polished and professional.

Consult style guide.

Raise the bar.

Think about what you really want to say and what is in your heart.

About page: here is who I am. Mission statement.

Self edit. Edit yourself.Refining ideas on own. Better to sit on a post for a couple of days, edit it, then press publish.

Make post about the issue not you. Your point of view but not all about you.

Consistency matters more than frequency.

The next session I went to was Vegan Nutrition by Ginny Messina. Her website is http://www.theveganrd.com/ Here are some ideas she presented.

Know your facts.

Consider whole body of data, assign different weights to different studies.

What people think we eat: tofu, grass and granola

Demonizing food is fear based nutrition: never, ever eat this food

Science based nutrition : emphasizes foods we should have in our diet. Don't be afraid to have treats.

Supplements: calcium and B12. Collards highest in calcium.

Ethics beyond the plate: others issues beyond food: social justice, gender politics, etc

Making the most compassionate choices as possible.

Putting compassion into practice: Raising money for different causes. Being a good example. Making veganism look accessible and fun. Forgiving ourselves, forgiving others, compassionate to others.

Privilege! I can be vegan but not everyone can. We need to make veganism accessible to everyone.

Why do folks who care about social justice not care about animals? Be patient with people.

"I don't feel a lot of community with many who call themselves vegan."

"My biggest problem is people presenting a problem with no solution."

More to come. Thanks for reading!