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Becoming Vegan
Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina
Widely regarded as the standard reference on plant-based nutrition, Becoming Vegan translates the science of eating without animal products into practical guidance. Registered dietitians Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina work methodically through protein, fats, vitamin B12, calcium, iron, zinc, and omega-3s, through the needs of pregnancy, childhood, athletics, and old age, and through the evidence linking plant-based diets to heart, weight, and metabolic health. It is a nutrition text more than a cookbook: careful, well-referenced, and aimed at getting the details right rather than at quick inspiration. The book appears in a heavily documented "comprehensive" edition for professionals and students and a streamlined "express" edition for general readers. It speaks to anyone adopting or counseling a vegan diet who wants trustworthy, dietitian-grade answers about doing it healthfully.
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The authors
Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina are Canadian registered dietitians and prolific authors on vegetarian and vegan nutrition. Both have been active in professional dietetics, have co-written several standard titles in the field, and are frequently cited in position papers on plant-based eating. They write as clinicians, grounding advocacy in nutritional science.
The book
Becoming Vegan (Book Publishing Company) is a comprehensive guide to meeting human nutritional needs on a plant-based diet across the whole life cycle. Later releases split into a research-dense "comprehensive edition" (2014) for professionals and an accessible "express edition" (2013) for lay readers, both covering the nutrients of concern, life stages, and the health evidence in detail.
How it reads
It is thorough, sober, and reassuringly evidence-based, the book dietitians tend to recommend when someone wants more than slogans. Its strength, meticulous attention to nutrients like B12, iron, and omega-3s, is also what makes it read more like a textbook than a lifestyle read. Nutrition science does move, so specific intake recommendations are best cross-checked against current dietary guidelines, but the framework and the emphasis on planning a diet properly rather than by default have held up well.
For more context
Pair it with the authors' Becoming Vegetarian and with current national dietary guidance on plant-based eating.
Sources - Becoming Vegan (official site) - Google Books record
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina
- Publisher
- Book Publishing Company
- Place of publication
- Summertown, Tennessee
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Reference
- Location
- Colorado