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Comment by rantwasp | Hacker News Reader

nope. Eating a 100% vegan diet without taking any supplements and without having access to a great nutritionist will make you have a bad time. It’s stupid hard to get all the nutrients you need without meat and you need to be in a privileged position to start with to do this successfully.

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Do you have any references? Other than supplementation of B12, which meat eaters should do as well, there is no scientific evidence that "it's stupid hard" and you need a nutritionist. In fact, the only thing you need to know is to eat plenty of whole grains, legumes, and green vegetables and you WILL get your needed nutrients and proteins. Prove otherwise please - which nutritional requirements would not be met?

posted some references in here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28028126

also, start with this and do a bit of research:

https://michaelkummer.com/health/plants-vs-meat/

Scientific studies would be better sources of information than articles. In any case, the evolutionary discussions are not an argument for modern diets, for obvious reasons. The only thing with any merit in the links you posted is about DHA. Your body CAN produce it from plant sources, but if you must insist on taking DHA, it comes from algae, and there are algal sources. Animal sources get it from algae as well. If you are suggesting nutricional deficiencies due to DHA you need to provide real references indicating that, and not general articles on the nutritional profiles of meat vs vegetables that make vague associations with health outcomes.

you missed the 2nd part: access to a nutritionist or have a lot of knowledge about nutrition yourself.

there is no way average joe can figure all these things out on a limited budget + limited time

evolutionary considerations are a part if everything. you cannot ignore how you got here and biology

If you want to look at health outcomes, the average diet of the nutritionally ignorant is almost always going to be worse than a vegan diet, ignorantly planned or not. The majority of the US populace (mostly meat eating) is very unhealthy and sick due to nutritional ignorance, so this is a very weak argument. Furthermore, meat is a known carcinogen and inflammatory. Its absurd to me that health reasons are attempted to be used as an argument against plant based diets.

To be frank, using the argument that plant based diets are "privileged" is cynical and disingenuous.

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