After the boom of the vegan food, comes the counterattack: every time most experts claim that this diet is harmful to your health. It will be one of the debates ‘gastro’ of the year that now starts

it Is necessary to confess: back in the 80’s and 90 chroniclers gastronomic devoted little attention to the first vegetarian restaurants, which began to operate in Madrid: the calle de Esquilache, Manuela Malasaña… And is that the key was the term “gastronomy”, and that value was very little present in those temples of the sosez. So we used to spend long after an initial visit to meet the new phenomenon.

But, as you already know, the vegetarian movement has not stopped growing and spreading. The well-placed sources tell us that in 2010 he opened the first restaurant in the dominican republic in the Spanish capital, and the following year something more radical still, the first crudivegano. It is a world that omnivores we played poorly, although in a matter of flavors and culinary delight some have taken positive steps, less evil.

however, the opposite reaction also manifests itself today with more strength, from countries such as the united States where vegetarianism and veganism extend much before. And the controversy between omnivores and vegans, which run in parallel to all the controversy about the animalism that so many of its manifestations is having in Spain, it will undoubtedly grow by 2019.

And here the question is not if the artichokes are more or less tasty -and they are, and a lot-, but if so only with a plant based diet preserves the health. And without health gastronomadismo on this page, defends it loses all its sense…

Recently, the nutritionist John Revenga reacted with impatience and refusal before the publication in Spain -nine years late – of the work of the american Lierre Keith, the myth of The vegetarian (Captain Swing), which in its day caused controversy in the united States with his complaint front of the vegetarian and vegan diets that the author had followed in his youth. Revenga, stigmatized the lack of scientific basis in the argument of Keith, defined as the “metaphysics of kindergarten in the guise of nutrition” and responded: “With adequate reasons, with a sufficient degree of objectivity and with two fingers of forehead can be both a good vegetarian as a good omnivore. Without those ingredients, we may find ourselves with discourses such as those of the book The myth of the vegetarian disservice done to any follower of any of the food options”.

The type of iron found only in meat is absorbed much more easily than is present in some plants

Miriam Stoppard

Another more radical view, and something gruesome expressed in The Truth of Murcia Salvador Zamora, professor emeritus of Physiology, university of murcia, denouncing the imposture of the vegan diet: “Not only is not healthy but that cannot continue. There is no person in the world who follow a vegan diet strict because it is incompatible with life. So, why aren’t you dead? Because they add chemicals -that both criticize – or of synthesis, or extracted from natural products. If a lord tells me that is vegan, I answer him: ‘I’m looking at You and you’re not a vegan’. I’m looking at the color of the skin, the mucous membranes, the brightness of the eyes, the lips, and that is telling me that you are taking things that do not come from plant foods, because it does not provide polyunsaturated fatty acids in sufficient amount, or some amino acids, some vitamins or iron in sufficient quantity. Without all this will develop major diseases, so important that if you extend the time produce death. We talk about megaloblastic anemia, pernicious anemia, etc.”.

In fact, even a dietitian vegan Lucia Martinez, co-director of the Center for Nutrition Aleris Madrid, interviewed in The Forefront, recognizing, on the one hand, that “about 90% of the new vegan products are unhealthy” because the food highly industrially processed and contain ingredients of dubious quality, and, on the other hand, I was reminded that even with the most natural and healthy vegan diet is essential suplementarla permanently with vitamin B12. Their lack is precisely the one that causes megaloblastic anemia.

This past week came news more accurate and more disturbing: in the whole of Europe and in the younger age groups, which are those with the most enthusiasm are passing to the power plant, is already seeing an increase in the health problems.

The concern is not, in effect, an exclusive of Spain. Read Dr. Miriam Stoppard, popular in Britain for her books and television programs, to comment on the current extent of the deficiencies in iron: “it Is a sign of the times. Diets that exclude whole groups of food, fashion, food little bit healthy, vegan diets that exclude the best source of iron, which is the flesh, all this helps. Yes, in part you can blame the increase of vegetarian and vegan diets. The type of iron found only in meat is absorbed much more easily than that of some plants”.

we will See in the next few months if this train wreck can arise from intermediate solutions to benefit the health and the satisfaction with the food. For example, there is a school that advocates an alternation: vegetarian diet, but with small breaths, more or less spaced in time, to eat a day meat or fish.

moderation, moderation, seem to be attitudes, sensible that deserve further follow-up. But let us recognize that, in food as in everything else, times are more than extremism and confrontation. So, literally, I apriétense belts in 2019!

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