The opinions on this topic around here are so depressing given how easy, cheap and healthy it is to live without meat, or dairy, for that matter.
Given the volume and nature of advice in the vegan community for how not to hurt yourself eating as a vegan, I would say that "easy" or "healthy" is not a word that could be reasonably associated with a sustained, long-term vegan diet.
Even long-term vegans have difficulty in getting complete nutrition on their diet which is offered almost by default in a basic omnivorous diet.
Like I said, it's depressing how much ignorance is thrown around here on this topic.
You over estimate the difficult, yes it's a little more work.
Heck you can say the same thing about the current US omnivorous diet. Most omnivores have problem getting sufficient nutrition (in the form of fruits, veg and Vit.D) in their diet. It's not that they can't get it, it's just that they are a little lazy.
Tip to Vegans: for B12 put nutritional yeast on your popcorn... kinda tastes like cheese and super nutritious and delicious!
Tip to vegans: Hey! I thought you were going to have at least a little popcorn with that.
Thanks for pointing that out and it's really what I meant. My Mrs loves her popcorn this way (although she eats meat).
Citation please? I've looked into this subject pretty intensely over the last decade or so and know of no controlled studies (or even poorly done observational studies) that demonstrate this in the least. The only place I've ever even seen this claim is on vegan advocacy forums as unsubstantiated claims or in studies of nutrition absorption problems as a general factor in the elderly. The amount of animal meat needed for full dietary B12 is actually shockingly small. A few grams a week. And it's water soluble so you just piss out any that's not used.
On the contrary I've read several studies that show that in the study populations, up to 92% of the vegans in the population were B12 deficient.
In another a little over 50% of vegans were deficient, while less than 10% of vegetarians and a single omnivore were B12 deficient.
I know of no studies where the studied, randomly sampled, vegan population was not majority B12 deficient.
In other studies that look for it, elevated methylmalonic acid (associated with B12 deficiency) was found in the vast majority (over 80%) of vegans while only 5% of ominivores and 68% of vegetarians. In the same study almost 70% of vegans were diagnosed with Hyperhomocysteinemia (caused by sustained deficiencies in B-vitamin groups or chronic alcoholism) while less than 20% of the omnivores were.
The most effective and reliable treatment for Hyperhomocysteinemia is a regular omnivorous diet of meat and eggs with a cure rate of nearly 100%.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/2/693S.full
"Vitamin B12 deficiency is a common but under-recognized, yet easily treatable disorder in older adults. Although several causes exist, food-cobalamin malabsorption is now believed to be the most common etiology."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12650116
Older adults because it can take 20 years+ for deficiencies to become apparent.
http://chriskresser.com/b12-deficiency-a-silent-epidemic-wit...
I'm looking for non-elderly studies, who, because of general age-related issues suffer from all-around nutritional deficiencies. In other words, we already know old people are sick in a variety of ways, I'm challenging you to support your claim, directed to non-vegans that
> you too, are likely to be running a vitamin B12 deficiency
I want to say it's absurdly untrue and laughable on its face, but I'm willing to eat my words if you can produce a couple independent studies that demonstrate your claim without citing some unattributed nonsense from veganforum.com or other rubbish filled site.
Pretty much agree, but the kinds of nutrition omnivores lack are absurdly easy to get even by accident.
But then again, you had to put a nutritional tip in your post which is a perfect exemplar of what I was talking about. Considering how small a percent of the population Vegans are (1-3% I believe), the amount of nutritional advice available and needed by the average vegan to sustain such a diet is...voluminous to put it mildly.
Socially, it's also highly irritating to be around. Since most Vegans are converts to the life-style, it's like any other recent convert to a chosen life-style (religion, fitness, chosen computer platform, etc.), endlessly inserting it into every conversation and constant moral chastisement to self-justify the difficulties of their chosen life-style to those that honestly don't care in the least and have better things to do with their time.
It's more complex than that.
Every time I sit down to eat in a social situation, everyone around me is fishing for small talk to make. So, they comment what I order, and want to hear all about it. Since I've had this conversation a thousand times before (at least), I'm sick of it, but also well versed in any responding to anything they say.
It's also stressful, because many times I've had to play this game, people will say patently offensive things - sometimes obliviously so, and sometimes because they genuine assholes. Either way, it slowly sticks to your psyche
So, I'm making small talk, on a topic, which makes me feel bad, that bored me to tears long, long ago, and has marked me as a permanent outsider in more than one situation. And this is while my erstwhile friends sit around chewing on a steaming piece of something that I could have easily made friends with too.
So, I'm not at my best.
Even as a veggie (and vegan dabbler) I 100% agree that these types of people are annoying and I avoid them. Generally I avoid talking about it the same way I avoid what colour underwear I'm wearing. :)
If you genuinely feel bad about what you are doing, I would suggest a two pronged approach: try and incorporate more kinds of vegan foods in your diet over time and educate yourself on a visceral level on the nastiness that is the food industry: watch the videos made inside slaughter houses and feedlots. Having options will make you want those options, and seeing the unhappiness that is actually going into your sausage will make you >feel< differently about the sausage, rather than just knowing that it's wrong.
I was vegetarian for 10 years before going vegan (vegan for 10, now), so I'm the last person to point fingers at people taking the slower road. That said, the selections and choices available (at least in western countries) today were inconceivable back when I became vegan ten years ago. It's the promised land!
The social part (ie, people being shitty, every dinner conversation revolving around what I just ordered, etc,etc) is always the hardest, still as hard today as it was then. Sure, people are more tolerant of dietary differences, but for the same reasons, they are also more full of dietary scientism (Soy gives you man boobs. Wheat gluten is a radioactive GMO byproduct. By eating locally, no cows were harmed in the creation of this steak.)