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Hi, I’m Nekodaiden, and in addition to being a Vegan, I’m an alcoholic. I was an alcoholic long before I cut out all meat, dairy and eggs – over a decade, and this has been the result of changing my diet to Vegan:
1) Often I would eat meat after drinking alcohol (primarily for zinc and some B vitamins but also for the protein I thought I needed). The result became very predictable the following mornings: Literally choking on mucus. Depending on how much I drank and ate – often a splitting headache and not being able to do much for most of the day.
Vegan change: Less mucus, much much less. If I drink I still get some in the mornings, but it’s nothing like the amount I was choking on drinking and eating meat.
2) Sense of smell:
Vegan change: Way improved sense of smell. This seems to change a little with the amount of seed type foods I include in my daily diet.
3) Overall recovery:
Vegan change: Faster recovery from alcohol. I can still drink enough to have a bad hangover and feel crap, but the characteristics of that are definitely lessened since I went vegan.
4) Tooth erosion: I’ve lost 2 teeth pouring acid in the form of alcohol into my body over a decade, along with acid from meat and eggs. I think in the balance of things the alcohol caused the greater damage here, but I do think animal products did not help.
Vegan change: Tooth erosion has stopped.
Things that help especially: Barley sprouts, post/pre drink hydration, pumpkin seeds and other higher zinc foods when I remember to eat them, and overall a mostly whole food vegan diet.
My suggestions for limiting alcohol impact if going out: Eat – whole food. And before you eat, drink plenty of water so you are not nearly as dehydrated after. A good high fiber wholemeal bread, brown rice, other whole grains and nuts and seeds are leagues ahead of meat and dairy for recovery. They don’t produce mucus, they aren’t inflammatory, they are higher in B vitamins and certain minerals that alcohol drains when it is metabolized. On the other hand, white rice, white noodles, white bread and other low nutrient/low fiber stripped grains are nearly worthless for recovery, satiation or much of anything else.
