Making the vegan diet work

 Vegetables don't have enough calories to be the primary food source, exception being the tubers. Let's say you wanted to be a "high raw" vegan (which means low levels of cooked starches), to get enough calories you really only have two choices to get enough calories, fruit or fat.

To get enough vitamins and minerals you also have to get enough calories. Vegans who don't understand this will fail on the diet sooner or later. And supplements are generally ineffective in this regard, isolated nutrients do not have the same power as the "nested nutrients" in whole foods.

But fats are lower in vitamins and minerals than whole food plants. Pure fat (oils) have nil levels of micronutrient content.

And eating too many fats makes one insulin resistant, or in other words carbohydrate intolerant.

Carb intolerance means plant food intolerance, because plants are mostly carbs.

Since I am a high carb vegan I keep my fats low and fruits are my staple food source. Starchy foods will work also, and I do eat them, but fruits are higher in micronutrient content and easier to digest. Lower energy load in digestion equals higher "available energy" per calorie. Similar to higher miles per gallon efficiency in cars. The net benefit is generally higher levels of available energy.

The story of life from childhood to elderhood is decreasing energy and (hopefully) increasing wisdom. Higher available energy as we age is a good thing.

My blood sugar is at low normal levels and stable. If I begin to consume higher levels of fat my blood sugar levels will increase and destabilize, and I'll begin to feel bad and gain weight. That is not good, so I don't do it...

Instead I "surround" my staple fruit consumption with a wide variety of other plant foods, using the basic prescription for the whole food plant based diet, which is fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and moderate consumption of nuts and seeds (the healthy fats).

Also: I have kicked refined products to the curb, reducing consumption of refined carbs (pure sugar) and refined fats (pure oil) to nil. And I avoid salt as it desensitizes the taste buds and reduces the innate deliciousness of healthy whole plant foods.

Pure sugar, pure fat, and salt are all toxic. Most people do not realize it can take as little as two tablespoons of salt in a single dose to kill a healthy adult human. But salt water sailors know this.

The key to robust health is to reduce toxic input to every extent possible, and increase nutrient dense energy efficient whole food intake.

BTW, pharmaceutical medications are toxic. One of the great benefits to the healthy whole foods plant based approach is it allows us to greatly reduce, and typically eliminate, toxic medications. That combined with "natural" bodyweight and increased energy is about as good as it gets.