My opinion of Veganism

Published 3.30.2016
This is another piece of writing that's been languishing as a draft for a while.

Disclosure: I am not vegan and never have been. I was a vegetarian (eating eggs and dairy, but no meat) for over a decade.

In the past, I have revealed my opinion regarding supplementation and then more recently my rules for a healthy diet. A key point is that supplements should not be necessary if someone is eating a healthy, well balanced diet. I don't think that any pill can do better than nature, thus for me, veganism is eliminated as a diet option because veganism requires supplementation. At the very minimum, vegans need to take a B12 supplement, and some vegan advocates (excluding those looking to sell supplements) suggest a variety of supplements beyond B12 because too many vegans wind up with deficiencies. Among the supplements suggested for vegans beyond B12 are Ca and vitamin D.

While there are a number of plant based traditional cultures, none are vegan because of the issue of B12. Supplementation is the modern phenomenon that makes veganism possible. Very little animal food is necessary to meet the B12 requirement, but as B12 is essential for human health, to eat traditionally always means at least a small amount of non-plant food in the mix. Deficiency in B12 can lead to both heart and brain disease due to increased levels of homocysteine.

Most, but not all, vegans acknowledge that taking B12 is essential. Here I will highlight Dr John McDougall, whose version of veganism emphasizes consumption of starches, and who has equivocated in the past about B12. There is no room for equivocation on B12. B12 is essential for life. Vegans MUST supplement B12 to be healthy. Any vegan advocate who states anything less in not only wrong— he or she is dangerous.

If you are not against supplementation, a vegan diet can be healthy. However, in my opinion, if you have to take supplements to be healthy eating a certain diet, then that diet cannot be said to be the natural diet of humans. It doesn't pass the "zombie apocalypse" test because after the apocalypse, there will be no supplements.

That being said, what else is there to write? Well, I wanted to write about veganism because I actually do think that it is a very healthy way to eat— if you are open to supplementation. Eating a diet composed of whole plant foods (meaning not ultra-processed) is going to be healthier than a lot of other diets. However, it is also possible to be vegan and eat a very poor diet. After all, the only requirement for a vegan diet is that you not ingest animal products. Potato chips and beer are vegan, but a diet based on those types of a foods will not be an optimal one.

Different types of veganism?

Some readers may not be aware of all the different flavors of veganism that exist, and in that case I congratulate you on not wasting as much of your life as I have done. But I have done the research as I have tried to stay current on fads that might appeal to my daughter. What follows is a brief run down of vegan diet variations that raise a red flag. In all cases, it is assumed that the adherents take a B12 supplement. That's the assumption so that I don't have write over and over that B12 supplementation is essential.

Fully Raw

As the name implies, these vegans only eat raw plant foods. Fruit and raw vegetables are on the menu, but issue with this diet is what's not on the menu— most grains and legumes, which are the main sources of plant proteins. Fully raw eaters eat a diet very low protein by default. Adherent of this way of eating often assert that most people (at least in developed or "first world" countries) eat much more protein than is required for health. However, the protein minimum required is different than the amount of protein required for optimal health. This diet also tends to be a low fat diet, unless the adherent is eating a lot of avocados (which is a fruit, botanically).

Fruitarian

Fruitarians, as the name suggests, base their diet on and eat only fruit. The diet needn't be completely raw, but in most cases that I've observed it tends to be. Eating only fruit is choice that is easiest to accomplish if the eater lives in a tropical or at least temperate region of the globe. A resident of the frozen tundra is going to have a tough and expensive time eating only fruit. This is also a very low protein, and usually low fat diet.

80-10-10

This is the diet created by Doug Graham, to whom I'm not going to link because there are enough sleazy allegations about him to render him dangerous in my opinion— and not just for his extreme diet recommendations. 80-10-10 refers to the macronutrient ratios of the diet; the diet consists of 80% carbohydrates, 10% protein and 10% fat. It's very low protein and very low fat, and a very restrictive diet. Keeping protein and fat that low severely limits the number of possible food to eat.

Raw till 4

This is the diet created by Youtuber "Freelee the Banana Girl" as a derivative of her raw fruit-based diet. She created this hybrid because (so she claims) too many people found a fruit only diet too difficult to follow. As the name implies, breakfast and lunch are raw foods, dinner can be cooked. I've written about this woman previously, and so won't belabor the details and problems with her diet advocacy here.

The Starch Solution

This is weight loss diet developed by John McDougall MD, based on the traditional diets of the Hawaiian islanders, or so he claims. Traditional Hawaiian islanders ate fish and sea food (it's an island, for goodness sakes), but McDougall's plan is a vegan diet that emphasizes eatings potatoes, rice and other starches as the main foods of the diet. These foods, McDougall asserts, are satiating, and so weight is lost. Once the weight is lost, it is maintained by eating the same monotonous diet. However, McDougall does not (so far as I know) prescribe macronutrient ratio limits or limit foods choices, beyond insisting all foods be plants, not animals.

Bottom Line

I'm sure I'm missing a few of the extreme variations of the vegan diet, but these are the ones known to me. I recommend NONE of them.

None of these variations are necessary, and none is particularly healthy because they are too restrictive. A vegan diet is restrictive by design— to avoid ingesting animals or additives derived from animals vegans still have to carefully read labels though with more and more products being labelled "vegan" this is getting a bit easier— there is no need to make it even more restrictive by eliminating plant options. With the significant exception of the essential vitamin B12, all necessary vitamins and minerals can be obtained from a diet based on plants— but only if a large variety of the entire wide kingdom of plants is eaten. Eating a plant based diet (even if not vegan) should never be boring or bland— there are simply too many options (spices have no animal products people!). But you have to be willing to eat the plants for that to be true.

And finally, one more time for emphasis:All vegan diets require B12 supplementation, no exceptions.

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