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Vegan cheese, vegan chocolate, vegan ice cream, vegan pizza, and vegan burgers are just some of the popular herbal food variants. Their popularization is a consequence of the increasing presence of alternative and restrictive forms of nutrition in the Western world. Vegetarian and vegan diets are the most prominent among them.
(Vegetarian Vs. Vegan: Why Be Vegan and Why Not)
A vegan diet is a more extreme form of vegetarianism. While vegetarians exclude animal meat from their diet, vegans exclude all animal products.
Reasons for this are minimizing the suffering of animals, caring for the environment, and the pursuit of health. In the next few sentences, I will try to determine how well these reasons are based. However, I will emphasize the nutritional and health aspects of veganism.
Is Plant Nutrition Healthier?
Vegans have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. They have cancer less frequently. They live longer.
These benefits are probably due to lower blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, and triglycerides.
So should we all be vegans?
Not so fast.
One has to be very careful in interpreting these (and any other) observations.
Comparing eating habits:
In observational studies comparing eating habits, it is impossible to distinguish the influence of veganism from the importance of other practices that come with it. Specifically, vegans and vegetarians pay more attention to health than non-vegetarians.
They also have lower body mass, eat more fruits and vegetables, prepare their food more often at home, are smokeless, drink less alcohol, and are more physically active. Generally, they lead a healthier lifestyle.
It can only guess what the real cause of the benefits is. Maybe it’s a healthier lifestyle. Perhaps excluding animal products and maybe incorporating more herbs.
The fact that two events occur together does not mean that one causes the other. In other words, correlation does not imply a cause-and-effect relationship.
Furthermore, the vegan diet is most often compared to the non-vegan one, where the latter includes everyone else. It means that veganism is compared to the average human food. And the average intake is pretty inadequate.
Being vegan requires considerable discipline, so we will rarely find vegans uninterested in health among vegans. An interest in health leads to nutritional care. Dietary care generally leads to a higher quality of nutrition. So, on the one hand, we compare the habits of individuals highly interested in health with those who are generally not.
The real question is, is a healthy vegan diet a better choice than a healthy omnivorous diet?
I’m pretty sure it isn’t.
Vegans are healthier than omnivores. But not because they are vegan.
Risks of a vegan diet:
People are omnivorous. Even though some herbivores try to convince you otherwise, there is no respectable scientist who will agree with them. Evolutionarily, this has given us a great advantage because it has allowed us to adapt to different environments in different seasons.
It means that we have the nutritional needs of omnivores. It also means that eliminating all animal products is highly likely that they will be depriving our bodies of essential nutrients.
Research confirms this. Vitamins D and B12, calcium, iron, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids are typically low in nutrients commonly found in vegans.
The two nutrients that are less widely mentioned and on which vegans (and vegetarians) could also be deficient are choline and creatine. The persistent deficiency of each of these nutrients is associated with adverse health effects.
Protein intake can also be a problem. Vegans consume them up to 50% less than omnivores. For the stationary population to maintain body mass, this intake is sufficient. But for physically active individuals and those seeking to lose weight healthily, this could be a problem.
In addition to not getting enough of these nutrients, vegans may also have problems with their utilization.
Even when protein intake is quantitatively sufficient, the protein intake is less digestible, with a lower content of essential amino acids and suboptimal quality.
When the intake of omega-3 fatty acids is sufficient in principle, their utilization from plant sources is very low.
Moreover, when calcium intake is per the recommendations, its absorption due to its high content of phytate and oxalate may be reduced.
Even when the levels of vitamin B12 in the blood appear to be adequate, a high folate intake in vegans can mask its deficiency.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) claims that vegan diets are adequate for all age groups.
Planned yes, but the risk of malnutrition is too high to recommend veganism. Particularly vulnerable children are developing children.
For a particular dietary choice to affect health, it has to persist for a very long time, perhaps a lifetime. And over 80% of vegetarians and vegans return to consuming animal products sooner or later. It testifies to the unsustainability of this nutritional approach.
The ethical issue of killing! ing animals:
The consumption of fish and meat requires the kill! ing of animals, and the production process often leads to violence against them. Few will disagree that animal torture needs to be eradicated, and breeding conditions significantly improved.
It, of course, requires higher resource consumption, which means higher product costs. But this is a price that, at least in the developed part of the world, we could accept to pay.
Let us not be fooled that the production of plant foods does not cause the death and suffering of animals. According to some calculations, 25 times as many conscious animals kill! ed in wheat farming than in livestock grazing.
We can also assume that animals died in the field due to harvest and poisoning die much slower and more painfully than those slaughtered. There is no free lunch.
But is killing animals for food justified, given that we can survive on a plant-based diet? Given our dominant position in the food chain, I believe it is.
Let’s not forget the “deal” we have with breeding animals. In exchange for an earlier death, we extend their lineage. From a strictly Darwinian perspective, this is a perfect compromise.
Also, the vast majority of these animals would not be kept alive. Provided that by improving the conditions of cultivation, they enhance the quality of life, it is not impossible to see the point in claiming that agriculture is an ethical thing.
Environmental Protection:
Preserving the environment is probably the most persuasive argument for vegans and vegetarians to switch to a plant-based diet.
The production of animal products, compared to the creation of an equal amount of plant food, has a more significant environmental impact. It causes increased greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water consumption, and pesticide use.
However, not every plant product for the environment is better than any animal, nor is it environmentally friendly.
Most people on Earth are aware of the current unsustainability of its exploitation. Without a doubt, we should do everything in our power to keep the planet habitable for future generations.
However, eliminating all animal products from our diet is not the only or the most significant, step we can take. It can reduce resource use and improve animal husbandry methods.
It can reduce the serving of animal products and their frequency of eating. We can reduce the amount of food we throw away. If nothing works, we can recommend a vegetarian or even vegan diet to everyone.
The connection between human nutrition and the environment is complex. What is best for the situation is not necessarily best for our health, and vice versa. Some trade-offs need to be made.
Environmental protection is not an all-or-nothing game. It is not possible to live without ecological consequences, but we must make sure that these consequences are sustainable.
Good and bad reasons to be vegan:
I’m not against veganism per se. I am against the inhumane treatment of animals. I am against uncontrolled environmental pollution. But I am also against the extremisms, sensationalism, dogmas, and false and pseudoscientific claims that pervade the vegan movement.
If you opt for veganism out of religious or ethical beliefs, or simply because you do not like the taste or smell of animal products, go ahead.
However, if you do so for health reasons, keep in mind that this is not the best way and that you accept certain risks. Not every idea has a good reason. However, dear, we are.
I am not claiming that a vegan diet cannot be healthy. Also not claim that there are no healthy vegans. I declare that the mere fact that you do not eat animal products does not make you more robust than an omnivore.
Moreover, there is a real possibility that it may make you unhealthy. In any case, it does not make you morally superior.
Call me old-fashioned and restricted, but I cannot recommend a vegan diet at this time. I see no benefits, and the risks are more than present. But I’m not close to the possibility that my attitude may change one day.
If you opt for a plant-based diet, do it wisely. For a vegan diet to have positive health effects, it needs to plan even more accurately than omnivorous diets.
