A vegan diet could affect your intelligence (2020)
bbc.com
bbc.com
1. There was no supplementation. A modern vegan should be supplementing or eating foods fortified in B6, B12, D, and DHA/DPA. This type of advice is really common among vegan resources and many vegan foods will be fortified with these types of vitamins (DHA/DPA is a bit more rare). There are non-animal sources for all of these vitamins. There is some debate on if DHA/DPA is as effective as consuming Omega 3 directly. Omega 3s can be found in adequate amounts inside many types of seeds, and seeds will have other valuable nutrients as well.
2. The study put people on a diet of soup with meat, soup with milk, or soup with oil. Oil clearly has the least amount of protein and nutrients compared to the other three. In real life humans have better diet choices.
3. The BBC article has a lot of evolutionary arguments for eating meat. In my mind historical dietary practices is as irrelevant as historical medical practices. Modern humans live under such different circumstances. We have a massive food surplus, our life span is 2x, our lifestyle is highly sedentary, we have access to a much greater variety of food and we have a much better understanding of nutrition and human biology. “This is the way things have always been done” is not a good enough reason for me to base my health choices on, and diet is one of the biggest health choices you can make.
Plant based foods are healthy for the human body, significantly better for the environment, and more compassionate to all life.
That said, you are also right that obviously we don't have the capacity to live with the diet of our predecessor species. Famously early mammals (or possibly predecessors) were able to generate their own vitamins C, but this capacity is lost in modern humans and many other species as vitamin C was usually very well available. Just like we lost the fur on most of our bodies, evolution tends to drop things no longer essential for survival.
So we are dependent on our environment not just for general input but also for certain specific nutrients that we simply cannot produce on our own. But I don't think we can derive from this an argument for eating meat - as you flag, we do have modern agriculture, let's use it for the best, not junk food and often vile and inhumane treatment of animals.
Indian diets are also a great example here since the Kshatriya caste were the warriors and rulers and also included meat in their diet, partially for the caloric density to make transporting rations easier but also for the health benefits to get fighting fit. Most indians included at least some eggs and meat while none of them went without dairy, except in fairly narrow cases of ascetics for limited periods of time. The Brahmins, who had the strictest rules against meat, were not laborers, which should tell you something important about human physiology and heavy physical activity.
Of course in the modern era, with abundant food, refrigeration, dietary supplements, and so on...sure, a legitimately vegan diet is absolutely possible. Historically? Not so much.
"If we had continued doing things as they have always been done, we would still be hunter-gatherers on the African savannah, and civilization wouldn't exist."
> Vitamin B12 Sources and Bioavailability
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3181/0703-MR-67
> Serum concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate in British male omnivores, vegetarians and vegans: results from a cross-sectional analysis of the EPIC-Oxford cohort study
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2010142.?mod=article_inl...
> Subacute Combined Degeneration of the Spinal Cord in Vegetarians: Vegetarian's Myelopathy
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/internalmedicine/45/10/...
> Is vegetarianism healthy for children?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1...
> Vitamin B12 deficiency is endemic in Indian population: A perspective from North India
https://www.ijem.in/article.asp?issn=2230-8210;year=2019;vol...
And more.
B12 is a solved problem for vegans via supplementation, and we even supplement farm animals to get enough into omnivore diets. Vitamin D is also a solved problem, and omnivores are deficient as well.
There are some vegans that refuse to supplement due to being on fad diets, but that does not mean vegans cannot get the nutrients they need.
Go ahead, but those are irrelevant if they're about eating meat. The studies I linked to suggest that not eating meat can cause B12 deficiencies. They say more things that might be interesting but you'll have to read them for that.
And of course it's not a "solved problem" if people actually suffer from it. That's just wilful ignorance.
> There are some vegans that refuse to supplement due to being on fad diets, but that does not mean vegans cannot get the nutrients they need.
And that's a classic No True Scottsman, I believe.
I use an alt for conversations like this because I genuinely feel soiled afterwards, the level of debate is so low, almost without fail. Dishonesty and politicking all the way down.
No, I am not ignorant, I am following my doctor's guidelines and the national nutritional guidelines for vegans/vegetarians. Doctors can actually measure B12 levels and provide supplementation advice, and remeasure to make sure you are at safe levels.
B12 supplementation for a vegetarian/vegan diet is well understood. I would need preponderance of evidence to convince me otherwise.
Just because you cherry-pick articles that point to a conclusion you prefer, does not make it true. That is not how science works. I will let the experts work out the details and form a consensus then let my health care provider and/or dietitian provide me with evidence-based medical advice.
>I use an alt for conversations like this because I genuinely feel soiled afterwards
If you need an alt to debate something you believe in, then you might not have a defensible moral basis for your beliefs.
> Dishonesty and politicking all the way down
There is no dishonesty in what I believe.
The mass industrialization of the breeding, raising, and slaughter of animals for human consumption is bad for the animals, the environment, and humanity. That needs to end, and I will dedicate time, effort, and karma to advocate for that.
And I'm with you on "mass industrialisation". Factory farming is an atrocity that should be eliminated. But what does that have to do with eating enough meat to stay healthy? Most people in the world don't get their meat from factory farms.
Now, did you really not know that, or did you know it and willfully ignore it, too?
That does not prove that supplementation does not work. I cannot attest to what many vegans and vegetarians are doing or what people in India are doing. I know many who refuse to supplement. I supplement and have a open fact-based relationship with my doctor.
Meat eaters can get B12 deficiency as well. When they do, they go to the doctor and get tested, and then get supplementation.
> You follow your doctor's advice so you don't care what everyone else does?
I care, that is why I am debating with you.
> And I'm with you on "mass industrialisation"
I am glad we agree on something.
> But what does that have to do with eating enough meat to stay healthy?
The crux of the problem is you can't scale Western levels of meat consumption to 7 billion + people in the world without the immorality of mass industrialization.
Locally grown, organic, grass fed beef (or even environmentally better kelp fed), free range chickens and eggs from your back yard, ethically caught fish grown in the untouched pristine waters, managed by your friendly ethical farmer or fisherman at scale is unachievable. The reality is, in order to feed everyone on a meat and fish diet at the price people can afford you need industrial scale. With industrial scale you get the absolute moral hellscape we live in now.
> Most people in the world don't get their meat from factory farms.
I actually believe you. However in the US 99% of farmed animals live in factory farms and I am sure it is similar in the EU, and as people around world become richer they are transitioning to Western style diets with meat and dairy which will require them to industrialize.
What is interesting is that in all of the online debates I have had. No one has ever defended the ethics of mass industrial farming.
Before I spend another second on your comment show me where I said that "supplementation does not work".
If you don't have the time to read what I actually wrote and understand it, then why should I waste my time writing it?
For my own anecdote my health has skyrocketed since I started eating more meat, but not things like sausages, hamburgers and chicken breasts. Instead I take an entire chicken and break it down and eat everything: skin, sinew, and make broth from the carcass. I swear I recover from exercise like I’m 20 again.
Soymilk/Dairy Alternative ls will often be fortified with B and D vitamins.
I mostly agree, although I think the title and tone taken at the beginning are uncharitable.
The article mentions B12, and it has been known since the 1930s (and before that to some extent) that people need to eat foods with vitamin B12. Vegans and vegetarians need to make sure they get enough B12 and other things, and anyone who has sought to read about a good vegan diet for decades has known this. Just as people know that many non-vegan American diets tend to be too high in saturated fat, sodium, simple sugars etc.
The article mentions Gandhi. Many in India have been vegetarian for millennia, including many Brahmin. It seems to have worked for them over the past 3000 years.
That vegans need to make sure they get B12 and the like or they will eventually suffer ill effects is not new information, it has been known for a long time.
This whole thing really reads like FUD.
I've seen vegans on YouTube putting sugar into banana milkshakes of all things, so I'm led to believe there are quite a few ethical vegans who don't have such a concern for their health.
Spot on. Plenty of people have poor diets due to habits (e.g. way too much meat) or poverty (e.g. unbalanced diet).
The article is clearly cherry-picking examples of uninformed or poor vegans while also ignoring how unhealthy other diets can be.
(And no, I'm not vegan myself)
Those "uninformed or poor vegans" (do you mean vegans "with poor eating habits"?) seem to be about half of all vegans:
> Results:
> Mean serum vitamin B12 was highest among omnivores (281, 95% CI: 270–292 pmol/l), intermediate among vegetarians (182, 95% CI: 175–189 pmol/l) and lowest among vegans (122, 95% CI: 117–127 pmol/l). In all, 52% of vegans, 7% of vegetarians and one omnivore were classified as vitamin B12 deficient (defined as serum vitamin B12 <118 pmol/l). There was no significant association between age or duration of adherence to a vegetarian or a vegan diet and serum vitamin B12. In contrast, folate concentrations were highest among vegans, intermediate among vegetarians and lowest among omnivores, but only two men (both omnivores) were categorized as folate deficient (defined as serum folate <6.3 nmol/l).
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2010142.?mod=article_inl...
(Study cited in the article)
Plus, it's from 11 years ago before a lot of B12 fortified products were introduced.
And most importantly, it's only showing decrease in B12 while folates are higher and a healthy diet requires many hundreds nutrients.
This is exactly what cherry-picking represents.
I have to say though that in conversations like this there's nothing easier than to accuse the other person of "cherry picking". I link to one study, you say "Cherry Picking!". You link to a counter-study, I say "Cherry Picking!". And so on.
What's difficult is to accept that there are things we don't know, that data is scarce, that most research results have low statistical power and that lacking solid information at a population level it's irresponsible to promote diets that may cause harm.
Like you sya, a healthy diet (probably) requires many hundreds of nutrients. B12 is one of those. To not advise people to do things that may deprive them of necessary nutrients, is the responsible thing to do.
No. We are talking about the article.
> that data is scarce
Nutrition science has been around for decades and people get PhDs in it. Like in most fields medicine there's always space to discover more but claiming that data is "scarce" is exaggerated.
> lacking solid information at a population level it's irresponsible to promote diets that may cause harm.
> To not advise people to do things that may deprive them of necessary nutrients, is the responsible thing to do.
There are millions of people in the world facing risks related to obesity like hearth attack and following other bad diets due to ignorance, or poor availability of healthy foods, or following absurd fad diets.
Of all irresponsible diet advice that can be given... you are clearly painting a boogeyman, like the article does.
That's very cheeky.
The article is citing a couple dozen studies. Which one is cherry picking?
And how about the studies that show the results you prefer? I was expecting you to link to some "cherry picked" studies of you own. But I guess you can't even be arsed to do that, right? You're happy to just accuse me of "cherry picking".
There's a lot of B12 deficiency in India, for example:
> Conclusion: Prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency is 47% in north Indian population. People with diabetes have higher vitamin B12 levels than general population though still have high prevalence of deficiency. This data shows that Vitamin B12 deficiency is widespread in Indian population.
https://www.ijem.in/article.asp?issn=2230-8210;year=2019;vol...
The study is mentioned in the article.
I genuinely don't know but it doesn't matter. It stands to reason that if even meat-eaters are B12 deficient, vegans will be even more so.
Still, Vegans do have to be careful as its really easy to fall in to deficiencies of various kinds. Its especially difficult for Western Vegetarians or Vegans compared to Indians as Indian vegetarians rely on their traditional meal combinations to ensure various nutrient needs are taken care of (unintentionally through tradition/culture).
It’s hard to imagine what math would be like today if he had made it another 40 years.
One interesting question is: where did vegetarians get adequate vitamin b12 before the age of supplements?
Perhaps fermented foods, contaminated water, soil on vegetables, use of manure fertilizer, or maybe animal products like eggs and cheese?
Most other vegans I know seem to be very aware of the nutrition issues, and take EPA/DHA supplements and extra vitamins. "Nootch" - nutritional yeast - is also a very common ingredient used to boost vitamins and minerals.
It's of course hard to be 100% sure what's safe, but then eating meat also has it's risks - heart disease, cancer, e. coli. etc - as well as environmental costs.
Going vegan is quite a big step, and most people would benefit from eating a lot less meat.
This is so true, as long as they are replacing it with fruits and vegetables. Many vegans are going to vegan anyway because of the ethical arguments. But holy hell, the western diet is severely lacking in vegetables.
If people ate lots of meat, but mixed with an equal proportion of veggies, they would be a lot healthier. But nobody does. It's highly processed grains and oils. Literally poison. Getting your typical American to simply eat less meat would probably result in a large uptick in consumption of processed corn products. Health would not improve.
The mediterranean diet has plenty and it is "western". Maybe you mean the american diet?
As someone diagnosed with a serious iron deficiency as a child that later went vegetarian, I never noticed an issue, however immediately noticed after taking creatine for work outs that my mental faculties improved. People just need to pay attention to their bodies and monds; most people would be better off if they did, not simply vegetarians.
I transitioned to all carnivore 11 months ago and have not had similar health problems. Or any health problems that I can attribute to the diet. This line from the article nicely summarizes my current point of view:
> and what better way to find the enormous array of fats, amino acids, vitamins and minerals these fastidious organs require, than by feasting on animals which have already painstakingly collected or made them.
If you're seeking the most dense and complete nutrition your quest will tend to lead you toward organ meats rather than plants.
(I will leave to one side the social signalling aspect, which again has absolutely nothing to do with animals)
(And of course other people have to bend over to accommodate your foible, or otherwise you can feel justifiably aggrieved - a win all around!)
Farm animals can be understood as devices for changing things we can't eat into things we can. Without them a large majority of the human population would starve.
Having said all that, we do eat far too much meat, and there is no reason to be more than necessarily horrible to said animals.
Sounds like you've got it all figured out.
The world cannot sustain meat production at scale. If there is magic nutrients in meat that currently can’t be replicated by a vegan diet via supplements (I am not aware of any), we better figure it out soon.
Citation needed.