Following the decision of Warwick University students to make the campus vegan, Julie Babis shares her opinion.
The decision of the Students Union at Warwick University to make all the on-campus food outlets vegan has generated a storm of debate. Not one to back away from controversy, of course I’m happy to wade in and add my opinion. Personally, I think any decision that removes choice around food and nutrition is not a move in the right direction. Especially when that move is in a direction that is not beneficial to all. Here is my reasoning.
First up, Warwick is a campus university. That means that if you do not have the inclination or the means to leave the campus to forage elsewhere, your food choices are suddenly becoming very limited. Depending on the nutritional quality of the vegan food on offer, this could actually be a potential health concern.
The reason I have no hesitation in raising this, is that, being on the A level student tour of universities as parent taxi to the eldest child, I’m taking the opportunity to try out the food. So far, the results are mixed, the main negative being a lack of protein sources in vegan food combined with a high level of simple carbohydrates eg white rice, potatoes, pasta, and not much in the way of fibre.
A typical example of this is the aubergine curry I recently sampled on uni campus. The curry contained aubergine and whatever was in the sauce, accompanied with white rice and about a tablespoon of slaw. Was it satisfying? No. Was it nutritionally adequate for a student (and let’s not forget that young people finish growing around 25 years of age), even a totally sedentary one? No. Would it have fuelled an after classes sports session for a physically active student? Absolutely not.
In the spirit of fairness, the only improvement that the chicken version of the same dish offered was a decent source of protein – it was still high in stodge and low in fibre. But protein at least provides a greater feeling of satiety leaving one less likely to go back for a cake or pastry. Incidentally the café had sold out of the sweet stuff by early afternoon.
On the face of it, plant-based eating is associated with lower levels of obesity, lower cholesterol levels and better immune system function. However, whilst it is theoretically possible to eat a balanced vegan diet, it requires a considerable amount of thought and pro-active commitment to eating well. Simply avoiding animal products is insufficient to achieve this. Social media posts that point out that chips, oreo cookies, and jammy dodgers are vegan are not doing the world a favour. Whilst factually accurate, promoting junk food does not help with good nutrition.
My seven biggest causes of concern are:
1. A high ‘beige’ carbohydrate intake
A lot of vegan dishes are based around pasta or rice, and very rarely the wholegrain variety. In fact, a carbohydrate underpinning is promoted by by The British Nutrition Foundation, which is the so-called educational body one of whose roles is to inform government policy (list of current corporate donors here, draw your own conclusions as to its real function).
Whilst wholegrain cereals and rice are a good source of fibre and minerals, the refined white varieties are not. Refined carbohydrates break down within minutes into glucose in the stomach, cause a quick sugar high, spike blood sugar levels and over the long term are a driver towards metabolic damage. However, if you’re not eating animal proteins, you have to fill your plate with something. There might not be much difference between a sausage roll and a vegan sausage roll in that they are both pretty much junk food, but at least the real thing isn’t pretending to be a ‘healthy’ option.
2. Insufficient protein
The building blocks of proteins are amino acids. There are 21 of these compounds, 8 of which cannot be made in the body and have to be consumed in food. Unlike animal proteins, which contain a complete range of essential amino acids, the vast majority of plant proteins only contain some of them. So to ensure consumption of all the amino acids, you must eat a variety of different plant foods. Three plant foods that are the exception to this rule are buckwheat, quinoa and hemp seed, which contain all the essential amino acids. A combination of pulses and grains (for example beans on toast or dhal and rice) but using a plant such aubergine/jackfruit/banana flower or similar as the main ingredient of a dish won’t.
When you also take into account that the public health recommended protein intake per day of 0.75g per kg body weight is probably on the low side anyway, and is certainly not sufficient for an athletic student (that’s a subject for an entirely different post), you get an idea of just how much thought you need to give a vegan diet.
3. Potential for vitamin B12 deficiency
Vitamin B12 is essential for the formation of red blood cells, nerve function and DNA expression. The most common symptom of insufficiency is anaemia. Whilst there are some plant sources of vitamin B12 (some whole grains, shiitake mushrooms, and algae), you would need to consume a huge amount of them to ingest enough through diet. The digestive system has to work harder to extract plant source B12. There is the option of sprinkling nutritional yeast liberally over everything, and/or opting for fortified foods such as milk alternatives, otherwise taking advice on supplements would be a good idea.
4. Potential for iron deficiency
Dietary iron comes in two forms: haem iron in meat products, and non-haem iron in plant sourced foods. Haem iron is in the form that the body uses to make haemoglobin, the compound in red blood cells that binds to oxygen molecules and carries the around the body; non-haem iron has to be converted to haem iron in the body. Although the headline requirement of the two forms of iron is the same, you need to eat quite a lot of peas, pulses, pumpkin seeds and prunes (among other things) to get the amount the body needs. Consuming a source of vitamin C alongside a plant source of iron will help with absorption.
5. Potential for calcium and vitamin K insufficiency
There is much debate around food sources of calcium, and it is only the Western world that routinely consumes large amounts of dairy produce. However, as with iron, plant-source calcium is harder to absorb, which means that you need to consume multiple portions of green leafy vegetables daily to ingest enough. However, it is largely ignored that vitamin K is essential to bind calcium where it’s most needed in the body, which is in the bones. Whilst vitamin K1 is found in green leafy vegetables (I suspect that is no coincidence, as generally Mother Nature has a wisdom that we humans don’t), but this needs to be converted to the more active form K2 in the body. K2 is only found in animal produce, with hard cheese made from whole milk being a particularly good source.
My personal view is that young people who are still growing and athletes of all ages should be minding their vitamin K consumption, which means going for whole milk products and steering clear of the low fat stuff (cue for another blog post), or taking a supplement if they are vegan. Whilst some food products may be fortified with calcium, these tend to be foods such as breakfast cereals that have a low nutritional value anyway. I’ve yet to see anything fortified with vitamin K.
6. Lack of omega-3 fatty acids
These are abundant in oily fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, anchovies, sardines) and in grass-fed meat and dairy products, and in game meat (venison, boar etc as these tend to have a more natural diet). Plant sources are algae – but you need to eat a LOT of spirulina to get a dose that might make a decent ratio against your omega-6 intake from nuts, seeds, etc if you are following a reasonably healthy vegan diet.
7. Increased consumption of ultra-processed food
Let’s not beat around the bush. With the exception of tofu, which is produced in pretty much the same way as cottage cheese (if made using traditional methods), the increasing number of meat-alikes available on supermarket shelves are ultra-processed versions of various vegetable proteins, usually pea or rice. These are new creations. I would point out, as a cautionary note, that previous attempts to recreate natural food by denaturing otherwise natural foodstuffs, has been found to have negative health implications:
- Trans-fats: manipulating liquid vegetable fats to recreate the texture of solid animal fats is now known to be toxic
- Artificial sweeteners, the “calorie-free alternative to sugar” are now known to be ineffective in reducing calorie intake because they do not trigger the release of satiety hormones. They also interfere with the gut microbiome in a negative way. Did you know that sucralose actually contains chlorine, which is the molecule that differentiates it from sugar?
Although the jury is still out on the long-term effect of fake meat, it is a natural food that is processed in an unnatural way. I think it is very likely that it will be found that our bodies simply don’t have the capacity to process the end product.
Is vegan eating really about food?
Ultimately, one considerable driver to vegan diets is a desire to safe the planet. However, I issue a word of caution here: there are significant commercial interests behind demonising meat and promoting veganism. These have more to do with increasing demand for their own products (soy and cereal products in particular) than in reducing carbon emissions.
Events such as Veganuary and Meat Free Monday are heavily promoted by lobbying bodies such as the Alpro Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation. Animal welfare organisations such as PETA heavily cherry pick the science that they present as irrefutable fact. I’ve yet to hear anyone promoting a vegan diet pointing out the disproportionate amount of water that it takes to produce 1 litre of almond milk compared to 1 litre cow’s milk. Or debate whether the lack of any other vegetation in an almond monoculture contributes to aridity and soil erosion. And that’s before the food miles in importing it from California. Or that the cultivation of soya contributes more to deforestation in Brazil than does cattle farming. I’d better jump of my soapbox, before I go off topic.
Do young adults make good food choices anyway?
They certainly aren’t taught to at school: the school one of my children attends doesn’t even bother offering vegetables or salad as an option on the basis that the students don’t buy it, so why waste money. They are only allowed 20 minutes to eat including queuing up to buy it, so thinking about food content and choosing food that you have to sit down and eat with a knife and fork is not a priority. But removing the option of choosing something that is likely to be superior in terms of the nutritional content is not going to improve that. In a democracy, shouldn’t every individual have the right to make their own food choices?