A popular vegan blogger recently posted "101 Vegan Picnic Recipes." The list is clever, but it's also disappointing in that so many of the recipes contain added oil. Around 80 or so (from a quick skim, and not always counting Vegan Mayo depending upon how it was made). The author does some amazing work on her blog, but I'm surprised at how often added fat is an element in posted recipes. Most of them can easily be made fat-free without loss of taste integrity.
It's so important to realize that independent peer-reviewed research by Dr. Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn has shown that a "no added fat" vegan diet can reverse and effectively prevent heart disease. You can exercise all you want, keep the cholesterol low, but it's the added fat that enables plaque to form and cause that fatal heart attack. It's not stress or genetics.
Going vegetarian or vegan isn't sufficient to ensure long-term health. Sure, ya gets a small reduction in heart attack risk, but it's not enough. Plaque most likely will still form over time, threatening your life with the biggest (and most silent) killer in this country. To stop plaque formation: no added fat. To quote McDougall: "Moderation kills." Every time you eat an "added fat" recipe, you are literally increasing your risks for heart disease and a heart attack. Like it or not, it's been scientifically validated that even one fatty meal affects your endothelium.
Yeah, a fun list/post for vegan picnics, and not as disagreeable as a popular vegan lunch blog praising "Pringles" a few days ago, but, imho, it's indicative as to where the vegan community needs to get its collective act together. It is encouraging, though, that apparently at this year's "Vegetarian SummerFest," according to a friend who attended, there was a special 'food line' labeled "fat-free." Kudos! Let's hope more Veg conferences and related activities do the same. It's not tough: if you can lose your taste for meat, you can lose your taste for fat.
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