Vegan Diet - Beneficial or not?

I seem to recall tomato is characterised as belonging to the "nightshade" group of plants which I think some people say you should avoid. I have not read up on it, it is just a memory sloshing around in my mind.

Hi chris. Any diet is worth a go. Alcohol free definitely worked for me. But when it comes 6pm. Cheers Mike

Hi Salty Backpack, My son has gone vegan so that now I am eating pulses again, but there is something you need to know about pulses (beans). The outside coating of these is rich in polysaccharides which are a problem, How to get around this and make your beans digestable is to first soak them in water over night, then cook them in a pressure cooker (recommended in "The Plant Paradox") or as I do, add a quarter teaspoon of bicarb to the cooking water, This latter method halves the cooking time, And throw away the water where all the polysaccharides have ended up. If you buy your beans in cans, throw away the water and rinse them off, Canning is a form of pressure cooking. I eat a lot of tomatoes and have no problem with them, however if they are causing you a problem it is likely centered around the seeds, so just remove these, or alternatively use roma tomatoes which have a much higher flesh to seed ratio, And one more thing, the vegan diet is too low in protein, The way around this, I have found, is protein powder which my son buys on line (vegan of course), I use this to make protein balls which are delicious, I got the recipes off uTube. Hope this is all helpful, wendyloish

Hi All, Thank you for your responses. Since Posting my skin seems to have calmed down, guessing that's due to not eating beans & tomato since Tuesday. My skin does appear to be improving again in certain patches which is promising. In regards to the protein comment wendy, i do have pea protein isolate so will start including that in my diet, i am thinking of adding it into my pea falafel.

Hi Salty Backpack, According to my FODMAP app your falalfel and peas have in them the same problem chemicals as the beans, oligosaccharides. I know I can tolerate some small amount of these, so perhaps for you it is a question of degree with the beans. There is a way around the bean problem - skin them after cooking. I think you will find that will help. Watch out, too for commercially prepared chickpea products like falafel and besan flour (chickpea flour) as the skins will be included in those products. I have found in the end trial and error works best. wendyloish