but... where do you get your protein?

This is the question vegans hear most frequently about their lifestyle choice, so why not start there. Here are some basics.

Most plants have all three of the macronutrients - fats, carbs, and protein, as opposed to the micronutrients such as vitamins, minerals, recently discovered bioflavonoids and other antioxidants, and potentially others not discovered as yet. (And many plants have many or most of the micronutrients also.)

If you ate only a variety of fruits and vegetables, along with moderate amounts of nuts and seeds, you would be getting a calo nutrient ratio of 80/10/10 carbs/fat/protein.

Not enough protein? Check out latest cancer research (links coming in a subsequent post) showing excess protein may be a root cause for cancer epidemic, along with all the other so called "metabolic" disorders - diabetes, heart disease, alzheimer's, arthritis... to name a few.

Check out the growing body of serious athletes who prefer lean muscle to bulk to achieve a higher strength to weight ratio, and have gone vegan. Those same athletes typically blow right thru previous personal best performance records.

Here for example, Rich Roll, one of my favorite vegan atheletes, did a blog on getting enough protein on a plant "powered" diet

http://www.richroll.com/nutrition/my-top-7-sources-of-plant-based-protein/

Check out the vid on that page too. Let me know if you think Rich is missing out on nutrition:)

High level athletes are going vegan in increasing numbers for one reason only, increased performance, clarity, focus. The rest of us, well, we do it to feel better, also clarity and focus, and to be disease resistant.

I have two friends who tell me their docs have told them not to eat greens. That causes the red light to go on, it does not make sense to me. I am now convinced with a little luck one should be able to recover and heal completely from any disease by intervening with the healthiest lifestyle choices. But you gotta make luck come to you.

There is a lot of debate out there about what those healthy choices are exactly, and it's still a problem. It's not like science has figured it all out and has all the answers. Like most things the truth is somewhere in the middle. I have come to believe that green plants are at the very base of the healthiest possible lifestyle choices, the bottom rung of the ladder. So yeah, if a doc says you shouldn't be eating greens, I wonder if that doc has something wrong in their approach. Just maybe.