Below I explain why you should never follow a long term vegan or vegetarian diet. You will learn how vegan and vegetarian diets do not have the health benefits that an omnivore diet has - an omnivore diet includes both plant foods, as well as several types of animal foods.
In a previous article, I've talked about how food from animals - milk, oysters, eggs, and liver help you build muscle and lose fat. But this article goes deeper than finding the perfect foods for body composition, this article looks at how the food we eat impairs or benefits our health.
Eight Reasons Why Vegan and Vegetarian Diets End Up In Disaster
In this article, I first look at the different vegan and vegetarian diets that exist. Next, I will have a look at all the problems associated with vegan and vegetarian diets - by giving you eight reasons why you should steer clear from any vegetarian, and especially vegan diet.
This article is not written as an attack on vegan's or vegetarian's. I have good friends who choose to follow these particular diets.
Instead this article is meant to help clear the confusion around whether plant based diets are the best for our health or not.
The sad thing is that a lot of people have been misled into believing that vegan or vegetarian diets are optimal for their health and mental performance, while in reality this is far from the truth.
Note - If you are a vegan or vegetarian and you know that all the evidence in the world won't change your way of eating, then I highly recommend downloading my FREE essential supplement guide for vegans and vegetarians. Click HERE to download.
Different Vegan and Vegetarian Diets
For those who are not acquainted with vegan and vegetarian diets:
- Vegan diets eliminate all animal meats and animal by products (such as eggs and milk from an animal) foods;
- Vegetarian diets on the other hand, allow for some animal food consumption, as long as the food does not come from the body of an animal. So, milk and eggs are allowed on a vegetarian diet, while bone broth, meat cuts, or fish are avoided.
Next to ostro-veganists, there are all kinds of difficult names to describe different vegan or vegetarian diet variations: there are lacto-vegetarians, raw-vegans, ovo-vegetarians, partial vegetarians, pesco-vegetarians, and so forth. For the purpose of this article, you do not need to remember all these names.
To keep things simple, this article assumes that vegans do not eat any animal products at all. And I assume that vegetarians still consume milk and eggs - because their argument basically boils down to the notion that milk and egg consumption does not hurt animals.
When considering the health effects of these two diets, I criticize vegan diets more heavily in this article, because I consider vegan diets more dangerous than vegetarian diets for your energy levels, mental well-being, and physical performance.
As will become clear, if you're following a vegan diet, you will be missing out on even more nutrients than on a vegetarian diet. However, keep in mind that you will still be missing out on essential nutrients on a vegetarian diet, compared to the omnivorous diet that I consider best for your health.
Enough of the context, let's look at 8 reasons why a vegan or vegetarian diet is damaging to your health.
Reason 1: It's Hard to Get Enough Protein in a Vegan or Vegetarian Diet
It's much harder to get sufficient protein from a vegan diet.[1] This is true for vegetarians as well, but only to a lesser extent.
Steak or fish contain 20-30 grams of protein per 100 grams of product. The main protein sources for vegans - vegetables, beans, soy, tempeh, and rice - contain only 5-20 grams of protein per 100 grams of product.
Why is this an issue? Inadequate protein consumption leads to protein deficiency. This leads to edema, fatty liver, hair, skin and nail issues, poor recovery and growth, weakened immune system and loss of muscle and bone density.
Sure, there are high protein sources for vegans, such as hemp protein powder, that you can use to increase your protein intake. But hemp protein powder contains large amounts of unstable polyunsaturated fatty acids. That PUFA content only becomes higher in other hemp products, such as hemp seeds. So, hemp is not a great option to get your protein needs met given the dangers of PUFA overconsumption (read more about this topic HERE).
I'm not saying that it's impossible to get your daily need for protein through a vegan diet - instead, I'm saying that you're swimming against the current when trying to get your daily protein needs met exclusively through plant food consumption.
An analogy would be my vision towards strength training: would you rather train 15 minutes a week, and get excellent results, or spend 5 hours a week sweating in the gym, and get the exact same result?
The same is true for getting your protein needs on a diet that includes animal foods: it takes less work to get all of your protein requirements from animal foods.
What about vegetarians?
The fact that vegetarians eat milk and eggs does give them a huge advantage compared to a vegan diet. However, most vegetarians do not make milk and eggs a staple of their diet. And only eat small amounts of milk and eggs to avoid health problems. Many vegetarians therefore end up having too little protein in their diets as well.
If you're following the diet on my Hormone Reset Program, where fish, meat, liver, bone broth, milk, and eggs are staples of your diet, then you will have a lot lower chance to ingest too little protein.
Reason 2: Vegan and Vegetarian Diets have Lower Protein Quality
Vegan diets not only make it more difficult to ingest sufficient protein, but the protein quality of many vegan foods is also lower than that of animal foods.
Animal proteins are the highest quality proteins: eggs, fish, milk, whey protein and beef, for example.[2],[3]. I wrote a detailed article on protein quality HERE.
Yes I acknowledge that soy protein made it on the list of high-quality proteins as well, but soy has enormous drawbacks as a food group. Soy increases your estrogen levels, is a GMO crop meaning it is extremely high in glyphosate, and it is also high in PUFAs.
Other plant-based options, such as hemp, pea, or rice protein powder, all have much lower protein quality compared to animal sources, such as fish or meat.
Protein quality is always really important. Let's say you're trying to improve your results in the gym. In that case, when soy, rice, beans, grains, and vegetables are the staple foods of your diet, you will just not have the same muscle building response compared when ingesting different types of animal foods.[4] In essence, more muscle tissue is built on high-quality animal foods compared to plant foods.[5]
But protein quality is not just important for muscle mass.
The greater the quality of the protein you ingest on a diet, the easier it becomes to lose weight.[6] Ingesting higher quality proteins will also help you build stronger bones.[7] And a higher quality protein - as found in animal products - is better absorbed in the body than proteins derived from plants. [73]
The fact that vegetarians eat some animal foods, means that they will have less of a problem with regard to protein quality. So, if you're a vegetarian, make sure that milk and eggs become a staple of your protein-rich foods.
If you're a vegan, however, these protein quality issues cannot easily be circumvented. By following a vegan diet, you're making it harder for yourself to achieve optimal health and performance.
Reason 3: Vegan and Vegetarian Diets lack Specific Amino Acids
There is another big issue with both vegan and vegetarian diets: these diets lack specific amino acids. Amino acids are the "building blocks" of proteins. You need a balanced intake of amino acids, to get the most benefits out of your diet.
Bone broth, a food source avoided by vegans and vegetarians, is one food group that contains unique amino acids, that are lacking in our modern diet.
In my guide to bone broth, I covered how bone broth has so many amazing health benefits. You can make bone broth by slowly boiling bones over a long period of time, which takes up to 48 hours.
Gelatin and collagen proteins - which are often sourced from the skin and connective tissue of animals - contain the same unique amino acids that are found in bone broth.
Consumption of collagen or gelatin proteins, however, are avoided by both vegetarian and vegan diets because they stem directly from the connective tissue of animals. As bone broth is sourced directly from the bones of animals, vegetarian and vegan diets avoid the use of bone broth as well.
Sure you can make vegetable broths, but from a nutrient standpoint these lack the amino acids found in traditional bone broth. Just because they share a name, doesn't mean they share the same nutrient properties.
The elimination of these foods creates big problems for vegetarian and vegan diets: the specific amino acids contained in them, such as glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline, cannot be ingested at adequate levels in a typical vegan or vegetarian diet.
Even omnivores need to consume bone broth, collagen, or gelatin, to get adequate amounts of these amino acids in their diets. By just consuming meat, fish, and shellfish, you cannot get these amino acids.
Why do the amino acids found in bone broth matter so much?
Bone broth has been shown to:
- Improve your gut health and smoothen and strengthen your skin[8],[9],
- Toughen the connective tissue in tendons and ligaments and increase bone health[10],
- Decrease joint pain[11],
- Improve sleep quality[12],
- and improve overall mental well-being[13].
You might think that vegans and vegetarians can get the specific amino acids contained in bone broth, collagen, or gelatin, by supplementing them. But even supplementation is difficult. I've searched far and wide, and cannot find any vegan or vegetarian source of proline or hydroxyproline, which are key amino acids in bone broth, gelatin, and collagen.
Eating a vegetarian or vegan diet, you will not get the benefits from consuming bone broth, gelatin, or collagen.
However, the problem with with amino acid deficiency does not stop with bone broth. There's an additional amino acid that's almost exclusively found in animal foods: taurine.
Taurine is mostly found in shellfish, meat and fish. Eggs, seaweed, and milk are another - but very suboptimal - way to get taurine in your diet.
The only way to get taurine for vegans, is to supplement with taurine, or to ingest taurine through brewer's yeast. I hope you are beginning to see a pattern here: it takes a lot of time and effort to support the body with all the individual nutrients that you will be missing out on a vegan or vegetarian diets.
Sure, vegetarians can ingest some taurine through their eggs and milk, but the taurine content in eggs and milk is not nearly as high as it is in meats and fish. If you're a vegetarian, you therefore still need to supplement with additional taurine.
You can download my FREE vegan and vegetarian essential supplement guide my clicking HERE.
Why is Taurine important?
- You need adequate amounts of taurine to lower your chances to get cardiovascular disease[14],
- develop and maintain a healthy nervous system and eyes[15],
- to prevent inflammation[16] - which lies at the basis of many modern diseases,
- for optimal immune functioning,[17]
- to slow down aging,[18]
- and to improve exercise performance.[19]
Scientists have actually tested the levels of taurine in different populations. In vegans, taurine levels were much lower than omnivores.[20] This means that almost all vegans are not getting enough of this key nutrient right now.
Reason 4: It's Hard to Consume Enough Quality Fats on Vegan and Vegetarian Diets
I've already stated that getting the right amount of proteins and good quality proteins is much more difficult if not impossible on a vegan or vegetarian diet. To make matters worse, it's also problematic to get the right fats into your body on these diets.
Sure, there are some great options to get some healthy fats in your diet as a vegan, such as coconut oil, high-cacao dark chocolate, or avocados. But let's say that you're mostly eating beans, rice, soy, fruits, vegetables, and (hopefully soaked or sprouted) grains. In that case, you will still end up having problems getting the right fats into your diet.
If you're eating foods such as full-fat raw milk, oysters, and pastured eggs, then you will be getting all the healthy fats you need, just by eating these staple foods.
Healthy fats such as saturated fats, cholesterols, some omega 3s etc.
These high-quality (animal) fats are essential to your health. High quality fats reduce your bodyfat, are great for your heart and brain health, and will give you stable energy for hours.
Sadly enough, many great fat sources such as beef or fish are avoided by vegetarians. This problem is worse for vegans, as they do not even consume eggs or milk, which contain some of these important fats.
The problems do not stop here: there's an additional problem with many vegan foods.
Almost all oils that are found in many vegan products, such as soybean oil, rice oil, margarine, different vegetable oils, sunflower oil, and even flaxseed oil are very high in PUFAs.
PUFAs are extremely detrimental to your health. As a vegan, you therefore need to avoid many supposedly "healthy" pre-packaged foods are stuffed with these PUFAs:
Meat-free does not equal healthy.
It's almost impossible to get all the right fats in your diet when you're eating a vegan diet on a daily basis.
The problem gets worse though. There are also some very specific fats that are lacking in a vegetarian or vegan diets.
- One main missing healthy fat for vegans is CLA - or conjugated linoleic acid. CLA is mainly found in butter, eggs, and beef. There's rising evidence that CLA will help you lose bodyfat,[21] improve insulin functioning, and aid in building muscle.[22]
- There's yet another very important healthy fat called DHA, which is lacking in vegan diets. DHA is also very hard to consume within vegetarian diets (but not entirely impossible).
It is possible to supplement with DHA in the form of fish oil, but most fish oil on the market has a very poor quality. The fish oil is often either oxidized, or not very absorbable.[23] So supplementation is not always your best option to get your DHA needs met.
Vegetarians and vegans can use an algae oil as a DHA supplement - or they could simply consume some wild caught fish or even egg yolks - both which contain readily absorbed DHA.
You can find a great quality algae oil here (and download my free supplement guide HERE) Such a supplement is very expensive though, costing $120 a month to get DHA's maximum benefits. It's much easier (and tastier) to just eat a can of sardines!
At the end of the day, vegans and vegetarians don't get enough DHA in their diets. When measured, vegetarians have lower DHA levels than omnivores - and the problem gets even worse for vegans.[24],[25],[26]
The reason vegetarians and vegans have lower DHA levels in their blood, is that it's extremely hard for the body to create the right kind of DHA from plant sources. [27],[28]
Luckily, vegetarians still consume some DHA through milk or eggs, but it's often not enough to get sufficient levels in your body.
You thus need fish, shellfish or egg yolks to get optimal DHA levels in your diet. Everyone needs adequate amounts of DHA: it's important for brain development and brain function,[29] cardiovascular health,[30] curbing inflammation[31], and improving your overall mood.[32]
So, DHA becomes yet another nutrient that you need to supplement while being on a vegetarian or vegan diet!
It now becomes very clear that it is extremely hard to consume enough healthy fats on a vegetarian or vegan diet, and it's also almost impossible to consume enough specific healthy fats that you need as well, such as CLA or DHA.
Reason 5: Vegan and Vegetarian Diets lack Essential Minerals
In addition to getting enough and high-quality proteins and fats, vegan and vegetarian diets lack in many very important minerals, such as calcium, iron and zinc.
The problem in getting enough minerals, originates because many foodstuffs that vegetarians and vegans rely on, such as grains, rice, beans, soy, all contain anti-nutrients in one form or another. Several anti-nutrients exist, such as lectins, [33] phytic acid, [34] and different phytates and fibers.[35]
When foods like grains or beans are left untreated, these antinutrients will prevent the uptake of minerals from that food. Antinutrients are the natural defense mechanism that foods like grains or beans have, to prevent them from being eaten by animals. While protecting the plant itself, however, these antinutrients also prevent you from absorbing the plant's minerals.
Because vegetarians and vegans rely so much on plant foods, their anti-nutrient consumption tends to be a lot higher - leading to mineral deficiencies. Remember, it's not what you eat, it's what you absorb.
The issue of anti-nutrients is actually a lot more complicated that I'm describing here. Overall the net amount of minerals you get from a diet that is rich in plant food, is a lot lower than that of a well rounded omnivore diet. Let's look at some examples:
- Calcium: Vegans have much higher fracture risk, due to their diets containing too little absorbable calcium.[36] While calcium in vegetables absorbs pretty well, you would still need to eat 2 pounds of vegetables on average a day to achieve your daily recommended allowance of calcium as a vegan.[37]
- Iron: Both vegans and vegetarians are at risk of developing iron deficiencies. One of the main reasons for this deficiency is the absence of meat in both diets.[54]
The type of iron in animal foods is called "heme iron", while plants contain non-heme iron. Non-heme iron is absorbed a lot more poorly by the human body. So even if you consume lots of iron as a vegan, you may still end up being iron deficient due to the absorbability of the iron consumed.[39]
Not only do anti-nutrients lower the iron that you absorb, but the iron that you absorb through plants remains less effective because it is non-heme iron. So, there are multiple mechanisms by which you end up with low iron levels as a vegan or vegetarian.
- Zinc: Many people are already zinc deficient - you could call this deficiency a pandemic levels. An estimate is that one in five people are already zinc deficient.[40]
Zinc deficiencies are problematic, because you need zinc for hormone functioning and reproductive fitness, cardiovascular health, optimal insulin functioning to prevent diabetes, and mental well-being and performance.[42]
These minerals are a great example to show what is wrong with our current food system - meat eaters or not. In our modern world, there are a lot of people who have access to a lot of food. Many people might overeat and be obese, but still be at risk of malnutrition. I cover this issue in more detail here.
Not getting enough essential minerals like calcium, iron, and zinc, will put you at greater risk for malnutrition. That's why I recommend that you eat a lot of nutrient dense foods, with vitamins and minerals that absorb very well.
Likewise, if you eat a lot of junk food, you will not end up with all the minerals you need, and you'll be malnourished - even if you're overweight. The same is true for vegetarians and vegans: eating a vegetarian diet, and especially a vegan diet, will make you more prone to malnourishment, simply because you ingest too few absorbable minerals.
The few minerals I've just described do not even tell the full story. For example, vegans are also prone to ingest too much copper, because plants contain more copper and less zinc on a relative basic, compared to what the body needs.
Meats, on the other hand, allow the body to get enough zinc while preventing the accumulation of too much copper. But meat is avoided on a vegan diet.[43] So, the mineral problems that vegans and vegetarians need to cope with, are actually worse than I've just described here.
Overall, it's slowly becoming clear that the best thing you can do is just avoiding vegan (and to a lesser extent vegetarian) diets if you want to consume enough minerals in your diet.
For a comprehensive list of all the recommended minerals vegans and vegetarians should use please download my FREE guide HERE.
Reason 6: Vegan and Vegetarian Diets lacks Absorbable Vitamins
Just as vegan diets tend to lack essential minerals, vitamins are problematic for vegan diets as well. The same is true for vegetarian diets, but to a lesser extent: when you're on a vegetarian diet, you cannot consume some foods that are really high in vitamins, such as oysters or liver. So as a vegetarian, you're still more prone to develop vitamin deficiencies.
Let's have a look at different vitamins that are missing in vegetarian and vegan diets:
- Vitamin K: Vegan diets lead to higher risks for bone fractures, because vegan diets contain little vitamin K that is absorbed well. I already talked before about vegan diets are missing absorbable calcium, and vitamin K creates yet another problem for bone health.
Vitamin K1 is found in plant sources. Different types of vitamin K2 are found in animal foods, such as butter, cheese, milk, eggs, meat, and especially liver.
Sure, natto - which is a fermented soy bean - contains a lot of K2 as well, but soy has big problems of its own, and I do not recommend excess consumption of soy products.
There's a specific reason you need vitamin K2 and not K1: vitamin K2 absorbs much better than vitamin K1. You can not get enough usable vitamin K through plant sources alone.
Vitamin K2 is very important for bone health, it ensures calcium is deposited in the right places. Without sufficient vitamin K2, the body is more prone to deposit calcium in the arteries, instead of in the bones where it belongs.[44],[45] Vitamin K2 will also reduce cardiovascular disease,[46] help preventing diabetes,[47] and improves hormone functioning.[48]
Vitamin K2 is essential for our optimal health.
- Vitamin D: There are two key types of vitamin D: vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Vitamin D2 is a plant variation, while D3 is the animal form of the vitamin. Only the animal form of vitamin D, vitamin D3, shows great benefits in scientific papers. D2 is often counterproductive for your health.
While the morning sun is very important for your general health, you cannot create vitamin D in your skin through morning sun exposure. You thus need to get outside during noon, with your skin exposed, and not wear any sunscreen.
However, the sunlight that supplies enough vitamin D is not available year-round when you're not living close to the equator. Many cultures that live on higher latitudes, have historically gotten their vitamin D from animal foods during the wintertime, to compensate for the lack of vitamin D from the sun.
Eggs or wild salmon are great sources to get your vitamin D3. But these sources are not consumed on vegan diets.
You'll thus have to supplement with vitamin D3 on a vegan diet, and most probably on a vegetarian diet as well.
- Vitamin A: Just as with vitamin D and K, there are differences between the plant version of vitamin A, and the animal version. Plant versions of vitamin A, such as beta-carotene, are converted into the animal form of vitamin A by the body.[49]
If you are eating a vegan diet and are genetically unable to convert the plant version of vitamin A to the animal version of vitamin A, then you may have a vitamin A deficiency.
Luckily, this conversion ratio is not problematic when you are eating sufficient amounts of animal-sourced vitamin A. When you eat your weekly dose of liver you will ingest adequate levels of well absorbed vitamin A.
As a vegan, you should be concerned about your vitamin A intake. As a vegetarian, you can get most of your animal form vitamin A from milk or eggs, but these alone may not be enough.
- Vitamin B12: Adequate amounts of vitamin B12 can exclusively be found in animal food sources. Oysters, sardines, wild salmon, beef, lamb, eggs, and milk are all excellent sources of vitamin B12.
Vegetarians have fewer problems attaining enough vitamin B12 through their diets, because they can still eat eggs or drink milk. However, vegetarians still have a lower amount of options in terms of food sources to get their B12 needs met. When eggs and milk are the only foods that provide vitamin B12 to you, there's still a greater chance that you will develop a vitamin B12 deficiency.
Because vegans do not consume any meat, eggs, or milk at all, they tend to end up with vitamin B12 deficiencies over time.[50] The way to mitigate that risk for developing vitamin B12 deficiencies, is to get frequent (and costly) B12 injections.[51]
However, even B12 injections might become problematic, as the vitamin B12 might not be absorbed when you do not have the cofactors of vitamin B12 in your body. Even vitamin B12 injections remains guesswork, unless you get your vitamin B12 lab tested.
Vitamin B12 is very important in the body. Without adequate amount of vitamin B12, your brain will not perform well.[52] You also need vitamin B12 for a healthy nervous system, general energy levels, and to optimize iron levels in your blood.
Vegans and vegetarians are 12-15 times as likely to be deficient in vitamin B12 than omnivores.[53] The reason for this occurrence is because the richest sources of B12 are organ meats, sardines, wild salmon, or mackerel, or meats such as pasture raised beef - all foods restricted on vegan or vegetarian diets.
The fact that you have to inject a nutrient, instead of eating that nutrient, should make you very worried (and also indicate that this particular way of eating is not sustainable long term). Needing to inject a nutrient indicates that the diet might be flawed at a fundamental level, which should become clear now with regards to the vegan diet.
I hope I've shown you that both vegetarian and vegan diets are tricky: both diets make you prone to develop vitamin deficiencies: Vitamins A, D, K, and B12 are often devoid in these diets.
For a comprehensive list of all the recommended vitamins vegans and vegetarians should use please download my FREE guide HERE.
Reason 7: Vegan and Vegetarian Diets Do Not Contain the 4 Cs: Creatine, Choline, Carnitine, and Carnosine
In addition to protein quality, the amount of protein, the right healthy fats, enough absorbable vitamins and minerals, both vegetarian and vegan diets have yet another problem.
I'll call these nutrients the 4 Cs: creatine, choline, carnitine, and carnosine. If you're eating a vegetarian or vegan diet, creatine, carnitine and carnosine are unattainable through your diet alone.
Vegetarians and Vegans must then supplement these nutrients, or start eating an omnivore diet. Choline, while still problematic, is consumable through a vegetarian diet, but reaching sufficient intake is difficult on a vegan diet.
Let's consider the 4 Cs:
- Creatine: I've written extensively about creatine on my blog. Creatine is very important, because it will increase your maximal strength, power, and long-term endurance, boosts cognitive performance, testosterone, mental well-being, sleep quality, and recovery. Creatine thus has all-round benefits that few other substances can match.
Without supplementation, studies show that both vegans and vegetarians end up having much lower creatine levels in their bodies than omnivores do.[54] If you eat meat and fish, and do not supplement with creatine, you automatically end up with higher creatine levels than your peers who are vegetarians or vegans.
This is also why vegans who supplement with creatine have the best cognitive and performance gains.
As a solution, there are good creatine supplements on the market for vegans. However, this is another supplement they must pay for and consume to on a regular basis. By now it should be clear that a diet protocol which requires ongoing supplementation is not an optimal diet for health.
- Choline: Eggs, liver, dairy, are all great sources of choline. Plants contain choline too, but it's harder to get sufficient amounts of choline from plants alone.
You need choline to achieve optimal neurotransmitter and neurological functioning,[55] to have your brain and memory working properly,[56] to detoxify your liver,[57] and maintain your heart health.[58]
Vegans need to supplement with soy lecithin to get sufficient amounts of choline in their diets. Vegetarians just need to consume enough eggs to avoid choline deficiencies.
- Carnosine: Carnosine is an important nutrient as well. Carnosine helps in preventing diabetes, slows aging, and keeps your nervous system and eyes healthy.[59] It also helps you perform in the gym, by slowing lactic acid buildup, so that you can keep on going longer before you are too pumped to perform well.[60]
- Carnitine: Similar to carnosine, carnitine is also exclusively found in meat products or fish. While milk and eggs contain some carnitine, the amounts are very little. Even as a vegetarian, you will not be getting enough carnitine through your diet.
Again, the message is clear for vegetarians and vegans: you need to supplement.
If you're a vegan, then it's impossible to get enough of the 4Cs in your diet. The bad news is that these are not nutrients of lesser importance that you can go without - you need these nutrients to thrive in life.
The message should be clear: to get an adequate amount of nutrients, you really need to eat an omnivorous diet!
Reason 8: Vegan Diets might make you feel good-but only initially
If you've been a vegan or vegetarian in the past, then the chances are high that this diet made you feel very good, at least initially.
A lot of people who switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet do so because they believe these diets are healthy. These people falsely assume that they will get healthier by cutting meat, broth and fish out of their diets.
When you're switching to a vegan or vegetarian diet for health reasons, it's very probable that you're also cutting out junk food, and that you're switching to organic food. Cutting out some bad foods can certainly make you feel better in the short run.
Over time, however, many essential nutrients are depleted on vegan diets. Vitamin B12 is a good example of this depletion.[69] For the first months, you might still have adequate vitamin B12 stores, after switching to a vegan diet.
You might feel great during the first months on a vegan diet, especially when you stopped eating junk food or started eating organic foods.
However, in the long run, you will always end up with one nutritional deficiency or another on a vegetarian diet, and especially on a vegan diet.
These nutritional deficiencies have real consequences. Studies show that there are many vegetarians and vegans that end up with mental health problems in the long run.[70] For example, you're more prone to get a depression on these diets, even if it's just a vegetarian diet.[71]
Nutritional deficiencies do add up over time.
Take Home Message: Steer Clear from Vegan and Vegetarian Diets if you Seek Optimal Health
It should become clear by now, that if you're following a vegetarian or vegan diet, you will be very susceptible to nutritional deficiencies.
The problem of nutritional deficiencies is not a minor problem, even in rich countries. Almost everyone who is following a standard American diet is currently suffering from one or another nutritional deficiency, even though these people might be overweight at the same time.
For example, if you're eating a standard American diet, there's a high chance that you're not getting enough of the mineral potassium in your diet. Likewise the risk is high that you're not getting enough choline, and there's a 66% chance that you're not getting adequate vitamin K.[72] In terms of vitamin D and E, there is also an extremely high rate of deficiencies in these vitamins.
As I've stated before in this article, it's even harder for vegetarians and vegans to get all the nutrients they need, compared to other diets. Getting enough nutrients is harder for vegetarians and vegans, because their diets do not contain many food groups that are very high in absorbable nutrients.
So, if you're a vegetarian or vegan, and you care for your health, please consider rethinking your diet.
I understand many people choose these diets in the quest for health, but hopefully I have shown you that this is not the best strategy if health is your goal.
Also, I am aware that many vegans and even vegetarians choose to eat this way to minimise harming animals. I appreciate this concern, but please note that you can still source animal products from well loved and properly cared animals.
Whether it's having your own chickens in your back yard, or sourcing meat from a caring farmer who uses practices that resonate with your values. There is a way to achieve the best of both worlds.
If you are a vegan or vegetarian and feel angered or frustrated or even depressed after reading this article, please don't blame yourself.
The issue is around the message that these diets are the 'healthy'. Yet as I have shown, this is wrong.
Thankfully you can change direction now and start turning your health around today.
Not Going To Change? Then Supplement
If you don't want to change your diet choices, but you do want to boost your health and cognitive function, then I highly recommend supplementing the vitamins and minerals you are missing out on. To help with this, I have created a FREE essential supplement guide for vegans and vegetarians that you can download by clicking HERE.
For references, please go to original article.
Comment: As outlined above, vegan and vegetarian diets are sorely lacking in vital nutrients and will inevitably lead to deficiency. If one prioritizes the delusion that vegan and vegetarian diets cause less animal suffering over one's own health, then the least one can do is supplement properly. However, there is little evidence that a deficient yet supplemented diet is as good as a natural unsupplemented diet. One could save themselves a lot of issues (and a lot of money) by just eating meat.
See also: