It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes. Plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products because they use fewer natural resources and are associated with much less environmental damage. Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity. Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phytochemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control. These factors contribute to reduction of chronic disease
It’s not that it’s not possible, it’s that it’s so easy for the layperson to fuck up. Both those claims about low diabetes risks and being able to supplement missing micronutrients are true alone, but mix them together and you get a risky balance that needs careful tracking.
You’re basically required to eat a cup of cashews a day and put nutritional yeast in at least one meal. If you deviate from this you’re going to be at risk of malnutrition.
Otherwise you’re going to be opting for fortified foods like bread, rice, salt, cereal, etc. Which again have all good choices within them but if you deviate from the recommended track (wheat bread, bran cereal, etc) then without close tracking you’re most likely either eating too little risking malnutrition or you’re eating too many carbs to compensate and spiking your blood sugar
Also there’s several concerns of using fortified foods as your main source of micronutrients. Mostly that fortified foods don’t fully replace the nutrition of whole foods, and the upper levels of these supplements aren’t well controlled leading to a risk of toxicity. Stand-alone supplements are a better alternative, but do have a cost associated with them.
You can totally do vegan, and do it right, but you’re never going to recommend it to Debby down the street who packs her kids lunches every day without also recommending she starts her family on a multivitamin. It’s just not scalable to the whole population like that.
Vegetarians exhibit a wide diversity of dietary practices, often described by what is omitted from their diet. When a vegetarian diet is appropriately planned and includes fortified foods, it can be nutritionally adequate for adults and children and can promote health and lower the risk of major chronic diseases. The nutrients of concern in the diet of vegetarians include vitamin B(12), vitamin D, ω-3 fatty acids, calcium, iron, and zinc. Although a vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients, the use of supplements and fortified foods provides a useful shield against deficiency. A vegetarian diet usually provides a low intake of saturated fat and cholesterol and a high intake of dietary fiber and many health-promoting phytochemicals. This is achieved by an increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, legumes, nuts, and various soy products. As a result of these factors, vegetarians typically have lower body mass index, serum total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and blood pressure; reduced rates of death from ischemic heart disease; and decreased incidence of hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers than do nonvegetarians.
Despite the enormous benefits of food fortification strategies on nutritional status, some studies have identified opposite results in terms of no impact of food fortification programs and of guaranteeing safe upper limits. For example, a study conducted among Brazilian children under the age of six found no effect of iron-fortified flour on anemia prevalence. The study consisted of four population-based surveys conducted over a four-year period, and it measured dietary intake and hemoglobin levels. The findings showed an unexpected increase in anemia among children. Despite the average intake of fortified flour detected by the study amounting to 100 g per day, the poor diets quality of children with low bioavailability of iron compromised the benefits of fortified flour
Also from your article:
Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity.
While the diet supports it, this is just as much a correlation. It does not account for the other lifestyle choices of vegans and vegetarians such as exercising more often than the typical person.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/
It’s not that it’s not possible, it’s that it’s so easy for the layperson to fuck up. Both those claims about low diabetes risks and being able to supplement missing micronutrients are true alone, but mix them together and you get a risky balance that needs careful tracking.
You’re basically required to eat a cup of cashews a day and put nutritional yeast in at least one meal. If you deviate from this you’re going to be at risk of malnutrition.
Otherwise you’re going to be opting for fortified foods like bread, rice, salt, cereal, etc. Which again have all good choices within them but if you deviate from the recommended track (wheat bread, bran cereal, etc) then without close tracking you’re most likely either eating too little risking malnutrition or you’re eating too many carbs to compensate and spiking your blood sugar
Also there’s several concerns of using fortified foods as your main source of micronutrients. Mostly that fortified foods don’t fully replace the nutrition of whole foods, and the upper levels of these supplements aren’t well controlled leading to a risk of toxicity. Stand-alone supplements are a better alternative, but do have a cost associated with them.
You can totally do vegan, and do it right, but you’re never going to recommend it to Debby down the street who packs her kids lunches every day without also recommending she starts her family on a multivitamin. It’s just not scalable to the whole population like that.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21139125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066912/
Also from your article:
While the diet supports it, this is just as much a correlation. It does not account for the other lifestyle choices of vegans and vegetarians such as exercising more often than the typical person.