Just bought a brand new yogurt maker, to make the thick homemade Greek yogurt that I love with a friends’ honey on top, oh is it ever good!
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Mark, in a vegan diet not just iron and B12 but glycin, proline, carnosine, carnitine, chondroitin, choline, long chain omega 3, taurine, copper, zinc, vitamins D and K2, and retinol. If eating locally, also selenium and iodine. Some of these are produced by the body but not in sufficient amounts, specially in the late years. Some of these, like retinol, depend on your genes (there are genetic markers for decreased carotenoids absorption). Regrettably our ancestors have eaten mostly meat for 1+M years, in the process extinguishing 26 types of megafauna just in Eurasia. in the process also prodigiously shrinking out gut and expanding our brains.
And here we are, many of us unable to thrive on diets too different from our ancestral diet. I get 35% of the calories from cabbage that a gorilla would get, thanks to my puny gut, and not just that, but the difference is all fats (short chain fatty acids), and probably also fewer minerals and vitamins, since these depend on proper fermentation too.
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A problem I see is that even for someone as well informed as you it can difficult to tie all the threads together! There are so many variable between individuals, just for starters. But it certainly sounds like you’re well on the way.
In the meantime I just try to eat a decent and varied diet, leaning towards the mediterranean model. Wish I liked fish more!
It’s not so difficult. Eat red meat (grass fed), fats (except seed oils), and vegetables (only those that agree best with my gut). some fruits. I will post about plant toxicity some other time because today I am swamped.
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Some plants can definitely pose problems. I was a vegetarian for many years before having kids, and was a very, very unhealthy person. I was young and wanted to save all the animals after watching videos on factory farming. I cut out all meat and replaced it with soy products. Soy is an endocrine disruptor when it is not properly prepared. This means it mimics estrogen in the human body. This has effects on every body system. I had symptoms that were similar to what someone going through hypothyroidism would experience.
Soy is in just about every packaged product out there. It’s very difficult to avoid. There is a lot of debate about soy, though, some studies showing it is great for the human body (anti cancer for example) while other studies show the opposite. This study goes into how each individual has a different ability to break down soy products depending on the makeup of their microbiota…which makes the differences found with all of the different studies more understandable.
It’s a very long study but here it is if anyone’s interested:
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I tested both myself and daughter for 150 foods. for both of us, the #1 allergenic food is soy. We do have a lot of similarities as you may expect, but for example I get almost zero reaction from coffee and am allergic to cocoa. She does get a reaction from coffee and near zero from cocoa.
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Fitting for this topic…
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!
:-)M
the worse part is not the urine, is the added sugar!
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I never heard of any recalls… guess the public has just been rolling the dice, occasionally eating Pee Flakes and Urine Krispies.
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My hubby was fed soybeans growing up…but not our kids. If God ever changes the world we would be happy to live without meat, but for now we raise our own so we have control of what they eat and what kind of quality of life they had…and they have a quiet non stressful end.
I have family that are vegetarian…but while we like fruits and veggies, we like our meat and dairy too. Sheep milk and yogurt is awesome!
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I would love to be able to raise all of my own as you are! That is a goal for my husband and I but will probably take us quite a few years to acheive. We just recently caught our first squirrel though, 
and plan to raise chickens for eggs and meat rabbits soon. 
we may end up scaring the neighbors, as we are all packed in pretty tight here in the city.
I have not tried sheep milk, but lamb is my favorite meat, for sure.
I buy my yogurt but do make kombucha, which is kind of like raising an animal. If a giant, growing mass of bacteria that looks strangely like a placenta counts. (Not really, just joking)
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You may look into quail for eggs. We are raising Coturnix quailand they are efficient layers that don’t need a lot of room. The rooster crows don’t sound like chickens…and are kinda cool.
The birds are small but tasty, and can be sexed as soon as they have feathers.
Lamb is my favorite too. Including lamb sausage.
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That’s the life the Creator intended, Jolene. Blessings accrue to the degree people follow His Guide Book. In the world to come, we are told every man will “sit under his vine and fig tree”. No crowded cities and no crooked big government politicians in charge of them.
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Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look into the quail for the future. I’ve never heard of that variety. I’m fairly certain we are limited by city ordinance to chicken, duck, rabbits and pigeons. I’ll have to check again though. Was thinking about getting silkie chickens, as they supposedly do less damage in a garden, being smaller. There’s always the chance that any inspector who came wouldn’t be able to distinguish a quail from a chicken.
The quail would need to be contained as they are small 1/2 pound each and vulnerable to many predators. I’m sure they would be ok if chickens and pigeons are ok. Hubby says there are usually no restrictions and many people raise them in their garage.
@BlueBerry I agree completely. I think there are a multitude of benefits to “taking care of the garden and the animals” like our first parents did.
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We have some silkies. They do far less damage than many of the larger breeds. They lay small eggs (~35 grams), and very few eggs per year. I think we average about 90 eggs per bird per year, compared to 230 eggs per year from our Barnevelders. I love silkies, which is why I have them, but they are not great egg layers.
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Yes I had read that they are not the best egg layers. Seems they prefer to go broody, too! Do you keep all the birds together? Do the larger birds pick on the silkies? @TurtleWax
Oh geez, I just YouTubed it and the first guy talked about how chickens are predators and could be too aggressive to be with quail, potentially even eating them. 
@joleneakamama do you always take the quail eggs and incubate/hatch them out separate from the parents? All of the videos I’m seeing show that being the way people do it. Are the birds unable to hatch their own chicks? If they could do it themselves I think I’d like to let them try but I know some birds have had that instinct bred out of them.
I have seen people run mixed flocks of silkies and larger breeds together, if they have space it seems to work ok. I keep mine separate as I breed them and don’t want crosses.
I keep my large birds in one run under some fruit trees, and the silkies in another run that is movable. We got the larger hens for eggs/meat, and the silkies more as pets that pay for themselves. The kids call them “cuddle chickens”. I think they are delightful. Yes, they do go broody at the drop of a hat and are great mothers.
The eggs are small, but the yolk to white ratio is high. I think the eggs taste richer than most other breeds. If you hatch them the babies are cute as a button and are easy to sell. People also happily buy fertile eggs. They are generally a docile and friendly breed.
If you breed them and butcher the males, silkies have black meat and skin. The meat is sweeter than most other breeds. I have about a dozen males growing out at the moment, while I dread dispatching them I look forward to their meat.
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