Doctors against vegetarian/vegan diets

Bumping up.. who is your doctor? I've been wanting to find a veg*n one for years! Western Sydney? (fingers crossed!)

Bringing this up again, anyone got a good recomendation for a vegan friendly GP in sydney? I want to get blood tests and dont want all the bullsh!t mumbo jumbo!

My doctor is vegan .. she also goes around the world to help kids and 3rd world countrys

Pretty sure my local GP has some strong anti-vegan bias. Long story short, I went and got a blood test done a month ago, I got the results back and the doctor said, 'Oh overall it looks like you have fine iron, but when you look at the details, you are lacking. Here, take this iron supplement for three months.'

I asked him if there were like, different forms of dietary iron (as in heme and non-heme), or if the body could like, contain iron, but not metabolise it; you know to account for the discrepancies between my seemingly high results, which still indicated that I was somewhat 'deficient'.  

So I got print-out of my results, and compared them to the results of an omnivorous friend who had had an iron test two weeks earlier. She had normal iron levels, albeit on the low-side, but her doctor did not suggest a supplement. When we compared my results however, not only did I score higher than her on all four categories of serum iron, TIBC, transferrin saturation and serum ferritin, I also scored well within the normal range for transferrin saturation and serum ferritin, above the normal-maximum for TIBC (which is the actual absorbency of the iron), and I scored on the high-high-almost-heamacromatosis-end of serum iron.

Go figure.

yes please do tell. want to also go there.

There is a good book you can look into. It's called "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell. If you've read it, you'll know why I'm recommending it. If you haven't, please get a copy from Dymocks. There is a misconception that people who eschew meat have problems getting adequate levels of iron and vitamin B12. The real issue, I think, is the lack of variety in food choices of many people who start off being vegetarian. Spinach is an obvious childhood example, yet many people hardly consume any of it. B12 is a vitamin that is exclusively produced by bacteria. It's not produced by meat, and the only reason that meat contains B12 is because it is easily infested with the bacteria that produces it. In the wild, plants do contain plenty of B12, but unfortunately chemicals used in farming have eliminated this vitamin. As a result, we unfortunately have to take supplements every now and then. Good news is, your liver stores a 5 year supply of B12 (yeah, meat industry doesn't want you to know that. They still recommend steak 3-4 times a week).

P.S. My friend who is a doctor once said to me "I'm a vegetarian, but I recommend a diet with plenty of greens and lean meat to people. Why? Because if everyone became free of degenerative diseases, we doctors would go out of business". He was blatant about it, but I appreciate his honesty.