Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

Don't forget meat has absolutely tons of essential nutrients and vitamins, some of which can't be found in fruits and vegetables.

View on HN

Shouldn't all vegetarians or vegans fall ill sooner or later then? It seems like a weird statement given how many people do it successfully. Of course, as a vegan/vegetarian you have to look at replacements for what you are missing, but saying that "don't forget that you need your meat!" in this modern world with no source or mention of any specific nutrient is a little weird.

I've personally known of a handful of vegans and vegetarians who've all reported back after years of being on that diet of being extremely deficient in nutrients. Brain fog, lack of energy, anemia, pale skin, thinness, a ton of symptoms. Doctors recommend them to begin eating at least fish and these people got noticeably better.

Have heard of dozens more of similar cases from friends of friends. I think the vegetarians and vegans are indeed falling ill, it just happens over a long period if time and not very noticeable.

I also know that half the population is overweight or obese and has various problems and they eat meat. Both vegans and meat eaters can have good or bad diets. I know vegans who only eat processed junk foods or who are deluded with some weird restrictive diets. But eating varied whole food plant based diet provides all the nutrients needed.

No it doesn't. B12, K2 and DHA based Omega-3s that your brain runs on are non existent in plant foods. Cholesterol, Choline, calcium, Vitamin D are difficult to come by in plant based diets. Finally, the plant based form of Vitamin A (beta carotene) is only bioavailable to humans in 0-8% of the quantities consumed depending on your individual genetics. And women can convert this better than men.

Plainly false, read my comment (search for ssijak on the page) in this thread about b12, k2, vit D and dha so I dont repeat myself.

Regarding cholesterol, why would I need any additional cholesterol? Liver and cells make enough for what the body needs. Choline RDA is questionable and European food agencies are lowering RDA for Choline. But anyhow when I track my food intake through apps like Cronometer I consume RDA levels of choline from plants only.

As for the Retinol/Beta carotene, RDA for retinol is about 3000IU/day, just one sweet potato has about 30 000IU of beta carotene, so even with a low conversion rate it is very easy to go over RDA for Retinol.

Calcium is abundand in whole food plant based diets too. And osteoporosis is not a simple issue as the amount of calcium, D and K2 vitamins are very important for this issue too, for example Japanese vegan woman who eat Natto (k2) and low (what is concidered low) calcium do not have problem with osteoporosis.

Point is that you can have crap diet being vegan or not but you can also have very healthy one if you are smart with the food. And again, if vegans miss on some very essential nutrient (except maybe b12 which should be suplemented), why are vegan populations living longer on average?

If you take a dive on PubMed you'll find again and again that people with nutrient deficiencies have a longer lifespan, for some reason.

It occurred to me that nutrient deficiency might be an indicator of inadequate caloric intake, which might explain the increased lifespan.

To your above point about Vitamin A, some people can't convert vegetable forms of caratanoids to a useable AT ALL. It is entirely genetic in the same way that roughly half the world is lactose intolerant.

Natto does have K2, but that is not the common form that Westerners consume at all. Meanwhile soy has quite a lot of lectins and phytic acid that inhibits uptake of nutrients.

The thing is with a vegan diet it requires this carefully balanced cocktail of complex foods that require fermentation, sprouting, etc to get around the many trade offs in the diet. And people just pitch it as some cure all approach to human health.

Hong Kong eats 50% more beef per capita on average than Americans do and they're the 3rd longest living population in the world. The Sami (an indigenous group of carnivore reindeer herders in Northern Scandinavia) and Swedish people (mostly omnivorous) have comparable life expectancies, but the Sami suffer from lower rates of heart disease.

India has a very large population of vegetarians, and their life expectancy is less than 69 years.

People in India eat very processed food and add a lot of refined oils and live in very bad conditions overall with no proper medical care. And phytic acid and lectins are not some vilans, they have also many positive effects. You can google that easily. And I did not say 100% of people should go vegan, I responded to say that an average human CAN trive on vegan diet, but it is not the one diet to rule them all in every situation.

Vitamins B12, K2, DHA based Omega-3 (the kind your brain runs on) are all animal-based nutrients not found in plants.

Furthermore, some plants like Spinach for example, have oxalates that bind to nutrients and prevent your body from absorbing them. It binds to calcium and prevents your body from absorbing it. Animal foods have a lot of calcium. Plants not so much, and you couple that with the antinutrient effect of some plants and you end up with deficiencies. That's not even getting into lectins and phytic acid.

> Animal foods have a lot of calcium. Plants not so much

Broccoli has plenty of calcium.[1] B12 is easily supplemented and also present in dairy (which vegetarians consume) and eggs (which also many vegetarians consume). I'd never heard of vitamin K2 but it also is apparently present in eggs, butter, cheese and natto (fermented soy).[2] I love meat but let's not state with complete confidence that eating animals is mandatory for good health. India has more lacto-ovo vegetarians than the rest of the world put together and they're doing fine.

1. https://www.iofbonehealth.org/osteoporosis-musculoskeletal-d...

2. https://kresserinstitute.com/vitamin-k2-consuming-enough/

Farm animals are also supplemented with b12. There is b12 in some algae but it is not reliable source and it is the only thing smart vegans should supplement. There is no RDA for EPA and DHA, just for ALA but you can buy algae derived EPA/DHA if you want. Just FYI, yes, brain is mostly DHA but DHA from supplements cant cross blood-brain barrier. For k2 the best source bay far is Natto which is fermented soy and it is in the form of mk7 which stays much longer in the blood thank mk4 form of k2 from animal sources. Other fermented veggies also have k2 but much less. D3 over the winter can be obtained buy eating sun dried mushrooms (i dried mine over the summer), yes plants are amazing and mushrooms make d2 and d2 vitamin in large quantities by drying them in the sun or under UV light. Etc, etc.. But in the end just look at vegan populations or plant based eating population and on average they live longer and healthier so they are not missing anything in the diet, not anything essential anyhow

"Effect of different cooking methods on vegetable oxalate content" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15826055

Boiling vegetables removes a lot of oxalate. Recommended for people with a predisposition toward kidney stones.

I too don't understand this attitude. Vegans exist and are not all ill. Clearly animal products are not required for good health. It's certainly possible that meat makes getting all necessary vitamins easier and it takes great diligence as a vegan.

From my experience they are. They gain a ton of weight, loses muscles, hair, skin softness, become weak, emotionally unstable and underproductive.

Almost all women experience menopause, and some lost their ability to reproduce.

Becoming a vegan and getting nutrients you need is especially hard and almost all vegans fail on that.

And from my experience they are not. I have never met an unhealthy looking vegan. If we are both telling the truth then it must mean that it is entirely possible to be a healthy vegan, but some of them are not.

Those are just some random anecdotes that aren't based on facts or anything remotely scientific. Do you have any sources to back up your claims?

I wouldn't doubt that meat suffers from similar nutrient deficiencies. After all, livestock are fed from the same supply chain.

Cows are still fed grass. Over 90% of their diet even in grain-finished beef is grass. Chicken and pork I can't speak to as much.

In American feed lots? That's not what I read in the Omnivore's Dilemma. It was the opposite actually.

In feed lots they're fed grain, but that's only the last few months of their life. That's why it's called grain-finished rather than grain-fed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com