My rule of thumb: when there are whole civilizations that exist on a diet, you will be okay.
In this case the Jain are a prime example.
In this case the Jain are a prime example.
One of the major criticisms of a vegan diet is the a almost complete lack of B12.
If okay = "survive long enough to leave offspring", then yes. However, health and quality of life are a lot more complicated than survival, that's why we look deeper into the science instead of using these rules of thumb.
Of course there is more to healthiness thsn that and science is important, but as far the rule of thumb goes, the second part is important.
It can take many years for freshly minted vegans to have their stores of essential nutrients depleted, so they may in fact reproduce successfully for one generation, but in the long run severe malnutrition is inevitable.
Jains are generally vegetarians, not vegans. There may be some anecdotes that some Jains did live off truly vegan diets, but then again there are anecdotes of people living off sunshine. Neither are plausible.
My point is I don't think there is a single "Western" diet with distinct health outcomes (just like the "Mediterranean" diet is also a myth).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828681/
> Results. Soft drink consumption increased globally from 9.5 gallons per person per year in 1997 to 11.4 gallons in 2010. A 1% rise in soft drink consumption was associated with an additional 4.8 overweight adults per 100 (adjusted B; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.1, 6.5), 2.3 obese adults per 100 (95% CI = 1.1, 3.5), and 0.3 adults with diabetes per 100 (95% CI = 0.1, 0.8). These findings remained robust in low- and middle-income countries.
I was just pointing out how you mentioned “Western” diet, but I don’t think that’s a thing.
Although the nation of India checks out for vegetarianism. One wonders what that collective moment of culture was that a whole group of people decided that meat eating was not going to be a part of their lifestyle.
Giving up Tamas food (meat, garlic, onion etc.,) is the first set of rules to follow on a spiritual journey.
once a family starts on this path, the behavior permeates to next generation automatically.
even though my family allowed me to eat meat, i started & stopped within a year because of ethical reasons (and not spiritual reasons).
Cannibalism, nutritionally speaking, is perfectly healthy, if you stick to muscle meats. Eating the brain of prion-infested sheep can kill you just as thoroughly as the brain of prion-infested humans.
We don't practice cannibalism for other reasons...
[1]: doi:10.3390/pathogens2030472
The diets in the US have gotten worse in recent decades (way more processed foods especially) and the US is objectively facing the ramifications of those diets. That doesn't make them any less powerful but this discussion was actually about health and I think in this regard it paints a clear picture that this is not the way to go.