Philosophical Vegan Forum

I found this place through the Unnatural Vegan videos. While I am currently an LCHF omnivore, I would like to try to move more towards a vegetarian version of LCHF and am hoping to find knowledge/inspiration/resources to help me do that. I live with three dogs (not mine, I'm just their aunt) who are also omnivores - they will not be going vegetarian - they hate broccoli.

Welcome OnlyMyDogKnows:

I live with eight dogs. They are all happy vegans even though they don't like broccoli much.

Why do you want to do LCHF?

Jebus wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 9:55 am Welcome OnlyMyDogKnows:

I live with eight dogs. They are all happy vegans even though they don't like broccoli much.

Why do you want to do LCHF?

I started LCHF about 13 years ago for weight loss (Atkins, modified a bit because I had no kitchen and had to rely on others to cook for me). But the health benefits I got from it were an extra bonus: got off insulin, arthritis improved, lots more energy. Currently, I've also had my oral diabetic meds cut down by half. I still have other chronic health conditions that make it hard to go completely vegetarian though - being on blood thinners, there are a lot of vegetables I can't eat because they interfere with the drugs I'm on. As for grains and legumes, they spike my blood sugar so I have to stay away from them as well. So LCHF.

Eco atkins is a great choice which provides high nutrient density and can help a lot of people with weight management, and might help with a little with diabetes too (sounds like you had good success with lower carbohydrates so far, but weight loss also helps with diabetes so it's hard to control for just the macro ratio).

Interesting fact: in order to stay under 10% saturated fat (as per mainstream recommendations for cardiovascular disease prevention) it's pretty much essential that any LCHF diet be vegan or almost totally vegan (even vegetable fat has around 10% saturation, so any animal fat pushes you over the edge really fast).

Anyway, we'd be glad to help!
What blood thinners are you on, and which veggies interfere with that?

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 9:12 pm Eco atkins is a great choice which provides high nutrient density and can help a lot of people with weight management, and might help with a little with diabetes too (sounds like you had good success with lower carbohydrates so far, but weight loss also helps with diabetes so it's hard to control for just the macro ratio).

Interesting fact: in order to stay under 10% saturated fat (as per mainstream recommendations for cardiovascular disease prevention) it's pretty much essential that any LCHF diet be vegan or almost totally vegan (even vegetable fat has around 10% saturation, so any animal fat pushes you over the edge really fast).

Anyway, we'd be glad to help!
What blood thinners are you on, and which veggies interfere with that?

I'm on coumadin (well, the generic of that) and have to avoid dark green vegetables, so most lettuces, broccoli (no great loss - I only like it drenched in butter or cheese sauce), Brussels sprouts (I love them so that's hard), etc. Basically, I live on cabbage, cauliflower, turnips and rutabaga, occasionally some iceberg or butter lettuce salads.

Do you know of any sites for Eco Atkins, besides the main Atkins site? That one really doesn't seem to go into any details about how to proceed.

OnlyMyDogKnows wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:35 am I'm on coumadin (well, the generic of that) and have to avoid dark green vegetables, so most lettuces, broccoli (no great loss - I only like it drenched in butter or cheese sauce), Brussels sprouts (I love them so that's hard), etc. Basically, I live on cabbage, cauliflower, turnips and rutabaga, occasionally some iceberg or butter lettuce salads.

Sorry, must have missed that it was a blood thinner. So you are basically trying to avoid foods high in vitamin K because of the reaction with blood thinners?

The healthiest veggies are allium and brassica, sounds like you still have brassica covered with cabbage and cauliflower. Those are very healthy veggies.
But pretty much all of them have some vitamin K.
What I've seen is to keep vitamin K consumption consistent, since those are healthy foods that may help you lose weight and lower cholesterol etc.

https://www.nems.org/Files/Health%20Ed/ ... nglish.pdf

KEEP YOUR DIET CONSISTENT
Wafarin interacts with Vitamin K in your diet. Eat the same amount of dark green leafy vegetables every week. Do not eat a lot of vegetables one week, and then none at all the next week. As long as you maintain a consistent amount of Vitamin K in your diet, the Coumadin will balance with it.

You should try to eat the same amounts of these foods every week.
Vegetables HIGH in Vitamin K:
Cabbage. broccoli. spinach. brusselsprouts, mustard greens, kale, cauliflower, bok choy, ong choy, watercress, turnip greens, lettuce, asparagus, Chinese broccoli

Vegetables LOW in Vitamin K:
Green beans, potatoes, carrots, peas, celery, corn, eggplant, pepper, Zucchini

Potatoes, carrots, peas, and corn are out due to high carb content.

Your low vitamin K AND low carb staples would be celery, eggplant, peppers, and zucchini (probably squash generally), maybe some green beans. Roasted squash is pretty good. Most of the nutrients from it are carbs, but it's very low calorie.

Anyway, my recommendation (and run this by your doctor) would be to slowly transition to more vegetables, but to use a tracking program like Chronometer to keep track of your vitamin K, and aim to keep that consistent and very slowly increase it over time. So you could vary your diet a little more, but still keep the "avoid" kinds of foods balanced so you don't get a spike of vitamin K in your diet.

Also: do you eat garlic? It acts as a mild blood thinner rather than counteracting your medication, and might be antithrombotic. There's a little research on this. Might be worth talking to your doctor about if you like it, as a veggie option that could expand your consumption of phytonutrients without compromising your meds. I'd make sure to, like other vegetables and any medication, start slowly and consume a regular amount though. Not a ton of garlic one week then none the next.

With luck, and monitoring by your doctor, you might be able to reduce your medication in time.

It's a tricky situation where the meds that keep you alive also keep you from eating a lot of healthy vegetables which might (given time) help resolve the underlying condition that makes you take the meds to begin with. The trouble is how to get from here to there. But I hope you'll be able to do it by taking it slow and tracking the problem nutrients so you don't accidentally overdo it.

OnlyMyDogKnows wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:35 amDo you know of any sites for Eco Atkins, besides the main Atkins site? That one really doesn't seem to go into any details about how to proceed.

Good question!
In terms of sites... this is probably the only one you'll be able to get good advice on the topic in text. There's only a spattering of articles on the subject, and a few studies. You could read the relevant studies and see what they ate, but that's about it.

However, there are a few keto vegans on youtube who do things like "what I ate in a day" videos. I'd look to follow the keto and low carb vegans on social media for more info. Just make sure you run anything dubious by your doctor, and you're always welcome to check here with questions.