I was honored to be interviewed—along with Jack—by Paul Appleby for the Spring 2013 issue of Vegan Views magazine in the U.S.
Paul is the senior statistician on the EPIC-Oxford research project—an investigation that has provided some of the most important current information about vegan and vegetarian nutrition—and he is widely known and respected in the nutrition research world.
You can read the interview here.
Great interview!
Great interview, Ginny.
As a vegan for over 30 years, I too have been really curious re. the value/need of adding a DHA supplement. As I understand it, the algae derived products are quite pricey, and there is no vegan sourced EPA. What is your personal practice and/or latest advice on this issue?
(I laughed in recognition when you mentioned Laurel’s Kitchen as being a formative book for you; I really connected with that book too as a pre-teen, and actually still have my original yellow, tattered copy of that trailblazing cookbook!)
“In fact, there are instances where ecological studies have led us completely astray. For example, the belief that vegans have lower calcium needs than omnivores comes, in part, from an ecological study that compared rates of hip fracture to protein intake around the world. It showed that hip fracture rates were highest in countries with the highest per capita protein intake. The obvious conclusion is that eating protein causes weak bones. But it’s turning out that this conclusion may in fact be wrong. There are other explanations for the differences in hip fracture rates in these countries, all of which are missed in ecological studies.”
Should readers assume that by ‘protein’ you mean animal flesh (meat)? Most or many plant foods contain protein; I was under the impression that meat was thought to be the culprit in bone loss because of the acid state its digestion is thought to cause which is counteracted by drawing calcium from the bones. Please do not say protein when you mean protein from animal products. Makes it harder to decide what’s really being said.
I’ll be interested to read Vegan for Life.