Seen a lot of posts on Lemmy with vegan-adjacent sentiments but the comments are typically very critical of vegan ideas, even when they don’t come from vegans themselves. Why is this topic in particular so polarising on the internet? Especially since unlike politics for example, it seems like people don’t really get upset by it IRL
It wasn’t a personal attack. I could see how it could be read that way but the second sentence was a point of science not insult. It’s hard to convey intention in text.
They are just my observations and interactions with vegans, and the science is clear that most vegans have nutritional deficiencies. It is extremely difficult to actually get everything you need without meat, and you essentially have to plan every single meal in a food planner. I know… I’ve tried it and even planned to a tee it is near impossible to have a balanced diet without meat. I wish it was.
the science is clear that most vegans have nutritional deficiencies
Source?
From my experience, it takes about the same effort to get a nutritionally complete diet as a vegan as a carnist. The difference tends to be that people compare their current, shitty diet to an unnecessarily restrictive vegan diet.
A vegan diet - which only contains plant-based foods - can lead to deficiencies in calcium, iodine and other vital mineral nutrients. This is particularly risky for people who need extra nutrients and for growing children and adolescents. For these reasons, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung (DGE) [German Nutrition Society] advises against following a completely vegan diet.
https://www.tk.de/en/i-am-tk/tk-members/vegan-diet-imbalanced-or-healthy-approach-2099610?tkcm=aaus
Sorry that doesn’t actually prove that a vegan diet is significantly more difficult to get complete nutrition than a non-vegan diet.
The two mentioned in the block you quoted (calcium and iodine) are often deficient in non-vegan diets as well. According to this analysis only 6 countries in the world meet the daily recommended 1000 mg of calcium per day. Calcium is also present in the easiest changes you can make to your diet (vegan milk in place of cow milk and tofu as a protein). Iodine is difficult to get for any diet, which is why so many jurisdictions put it in salt. It is also usually present in vegan milk.
Regardless, non-vegans tend to be deficient in a totally different subset of nutrients. Both diets need attention in order to get optimal nutrition. On a vegan diet, you need a source of B12, omega 3, and calcium. Most of the other nutrients are covered by commonly fortified foods or are very easy to keep in mind. Non-vegan diets you need to watch for fibre, vitamin D, vitamin E, potassium, magnesium, avoid too much cholesterol, sodium, red meat, and mercury from fish.
Regardless of the diet you choose, you need to put more thought in than the average person in order to have optimal nutrition. Using nutrition to discredit veganism doesn’t work
