I've seen some good posts lately about veganism and health. Here's my two cents. 

I'm convinced by the arguments that many animals might have conscious experiences. I'd prefer not to torture the ones that do. Unfortunately, if I adopted a fully vegan lifestyle I might well be hospitalized for malnutrition within the year. In this post I'll give an overview of how I balance nutrition, ethics, and allergy constraints, and solicit ideas for improvement.

My problem

I am demonstrably allergic to a startling variety of foods, including, but not limited to:

• Peas
• Celery
• Uncooked egg yolks
• Chickpeas (and derivatives like hummus)
• Beans (but not peanuts, which are also legumes)

Not deathly allergic, but definitely my-afternoon-is-ruined allergic. A tablespoon of hummus can give me 2-4 hours of intensely distracting pain. I have also experienced an identical, though sometimes inconsistent, reaction to:

• Fish
• Soylent
• Shellfish
• Eggplant
• Sweet potato 
• Cranberry sauce
• Butternut squash
• Every protein shake mix I have ever tried
• Several mixtures containing none of the above but some hard-to-isolate combination of ingredients

You will notice that several of the items on the above lists are widely considered key sources of vital nutrients in a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Coupled with my strong dislike of spicy food, a typical restaurant menu typically contains at most 1-5 entrees I can safely eat. Catered meals often hedge me out entirely. At one (non-EA) event, after listing my allergies in the RSVP, I was served a dinner plate consisting of fish, lima beans, and rice pilaf with peas and celery. ^[1]

Even with these honestly ridiculous constraints, I've found some cheap ways to reduce my dependence on harmfully-produced meat. 

Reducing harm in an omnivorous diet

It's easier to cut the first half of my meat intake than the second half. Diminishing returns apply. By the same logic, two people eating half as much meat is just as good as one person eating none. 

Here are some things I've learned while trying to minimize the suffering my diet imposes:

• Tofu is a fine supplement in many dishes, and rice is a cheap and flexible staple. 
• Green vegetables like spinach and broccoli make good additions to any diet.
• Nuts and many dried fruits are nutrient-rich. Also, peanuts and cashews add a nice crunchy texture to homemade rice dishes. 
• I can also eat cooked eggs and yogurt, and I've heard some convincing arguments in favor of eggs being less harmful than chicken and dairy less harmful than beef.^[2] (Edit: eggs may be more harmful than I thought, but dairy still seems promising.) 
• I'm distrustful of "cruelty-free" branding because so many standards for that kind of thing are false or misleading, but with further research I expect I could find more harm-minimizing options there too. (Edit: yep!)
• Being allergic to fish really hurts, because I think fish probably suffer less than birds or mammals, if at all. If I could eat more fish instead of meat, I would. 
• I could probably bring myself to eat insect-based protein if it were a) actually available where I live and b) not recognizably still a whole bug at the time. Still working on that angle. 
• I'm tentatively excited about lab-grown meat.
• My wife and I did some math and determined we aren't getting enough protein in our diets, so we're stepping up meat intake overall, but it's still a significant improvement over my past eating habits. I used to cook lots of chicken.
• My wife can eat beans and likes them fine. We don't have to eat the same things, especially when leftovers are available. 
• We do a lot of home cooking, buy foods that keep, and try not to waste anything.

If you have other ideas for reducing diet-induced harm, please share! 

Conclusion

Even if you can't or don't want to fully expunge meat from your diet, it's possible to significantly reduce your meat intake. It's an easier lifestyle change, and I bet it's easier to encourage the average person to adopt a policy of meat-reduction than outright veganism. Public relations advocates, take note. 

1. ^{^}

   Dishes cooked with peas cause me problems even if I pick the peas out. 

2. ^{^}

   Specifically, an egg represents ~1 day of animal suffering at most whereas a fully-grown chicken takes months to mature. Similar arguments may apply for dairy vs beef. In the same vein, there are arguments that beef involves less suffering than chicken because it's a smaller fraction of one cow (but there are also arguments that beef is worse for the environment because of cow farts and caloric inefficiency, so I'm on the fence here).