Simple carbs are tasty indeed! But anyone who exists on that is going to end up sick sooner or later. "Junk food vegans" are missing the point, in my opinion, because they ARE doing harm to animals - themselves and their families! If animal welfare matters, then human health matters, and eating poorly is doing nobody any favours. As for pasta, the typical white wheat pasta has never had any nutrition in it, and in recent years has added gluten and Monsanto's roundup all through it. To be avoided for sure! We like organic wholegrain pastas made from quinoa and/or brown rice.
I myself have had a lot of health problems in the past 6 years, since my Grama died in early 2016. Chronic horrible nerve and joint pain... crippling fatigue (head on desk all day, could not even lift my arm to shave my face, etc)... unwanted movements (twitching, jerking, tremors)... paresthesia (abnormal sensations like a cold wet foot when it was warm and dry)... insomnia... basically what they now call "long Covid" but way before Covid. It also matches with illnesses like MS. I searched for diagnosis for a few years before giving up. In late 2016 I went gluten-free and started on Effexor (addictive SNRI antidepressant that helps with nerve pain at high doses) at the same time, and that's when I began to put whatever it was into remission. I went off the addictive Effexor by substituting cannabis after a couple years (also well documented on Hive). No change in the illness, but was so good to be off the pills.
I did ask several doctors through the whole thing, could any of this be related to my diet? To me, that seemed likely. To them, it was silly. In fact, a few laughed right in my face for asking the question. The ones who humoured me would point to the blood tests and say "everything is within range... whatever you're doing with your diet, keep it up!" That doesn't mean they were right, of course. As you know, they only test what they think will come back "normal" so they can send you home and tell you nothing's wrong, or that something is wrong but they just can't figure it out. Nobody actually wants to find out what's wrong with you here in Canada, because that would mean having to treat it. "Free health care".... you get what you pay for. But yeah, anything they DID test (like magnesium, potassium, vitamin B12, etc) was always totally normal.
Anyway, I say all that to say, I still wonder what effect my diet over the years has had on my health. I believe it has both positive and negative consequences. I was a junk food vegan when Katie and I were homeless, since we couldn't afford proper food and supplements, didn't have anywhere to prepare it anyway, and didn't have time to do the research. When we stabilized in 2018 after landing an apartment in the Vancouver subburbs, and got established on Hive, we improved our diet, got on some vitamin B and D, and our health improved. She conceived in 2019 - surprise! We'd been together 10 years, and she had been told as a teen that she would never be able to have children (due to the radiation she got to kill the spinal cancer). They were wrong! Good diet and cannabis healed her enough to make it happen. That's when we moved up to the Okanagan (where we just moved away from last month), and got out of cannabis activism. During Covid we continued to upgrade our diet, but remained strictly vegan. We even gave up honey for a time (something that is controversial even among vegans, because it does not harm the bees if done right, and insects are kinda fair game anyhow... it's not like vegans don't exterminate bedbug infestations or swat mosquitos!) We felt healthy in many ways, but my MS-like illness never went away completely. A couple years ago, we found a local source of truly-free-range chicken eggs, and decided there was little harm being done if we had a few per week. It was nice to have cookies that held together properly again, and the occasional scramble for breakfast. Didn't seem to change our health much, but didn't hurt. A year ago I suddenly developed arrhythmia (probably myocarditis due to spike protein transfer from mRNA shot victims). Tried all year to get a diagnosis for that, got the runaround, put on wait lists, all sorts of bullshit. EVERYBODY is having heart problems now, get in line. So we're on our own. I just about had something sorted out, when we had to move way up here, and the unvaxxed clinic I was using closed down, so I'm back to square one in a new town. No doctors are taking patients. There's a walk in clinic, but if you have heart issues like mine they say "you have to go to the ER". I was there a couple weeks ago for my son's chin injury, full of kids hacking, screaming, and wheezing. Not sure when I'm going to go, to try to start the process of getting diagnosed, so there's a hope of treatment/recovery.
When we moved here a few weeks ago, we decided to go back on shrimp/prawns, after learning they contain many of the nutrients vegans typically get low on, and evolving our understanding of the ethics involved. In short, they are less intelligent than mosquitos, do not feel pain, and can be sustainably caught wild. Feeling it may be my life or theirs, I decided to sacrifice a few shrimp and see what happens. Can't say I've seen any immediate results, other than some tasty stirfrys! Anyhow, full post coming soon on the shrimp topic, lol!