The problems with veganism

I’m going to ruffle some feathers here— I have a lot of problems with veganism and I strongly believe it’s not a healthy way of living for most people like many claim, nor is it the golden ticket to preventing climate change or disease.

If this really presses your buttons, I encourage you to keep reading. This post is not to slam vegans or the diet in general but rather the dogma of veganism.

The problem with diet culture, that’s largely influenced by the agricultural industry, is that popular diets often become a religion. This is especially true with veganism.

How many times do vegans have to announce to the room they’re in that they’re vegan? Newsflash: No one cares what you eat.

I want to preface this post by saying that I respect whichever diet someone follows, I just don’t believe it’s necessary to preach and try to “convert” anyone to your diet because everyone has their own beliefs, economic means and unique physiological needs. This is true for any diet including Paleo, carnivore, and any fad diet du jour, not just veganism.

This post is meant to address veganism in general and doesn’t mean to place every single vegan on this planet into the same basket. I also want to mention that undoubtedly eating a plant-based diet can be very beneficial for your health, but strict veganism is another story.

Here are my problems with veganism:

• It’s become cultish

  • Ever notice how many vegans are very similar to cult followers? I know this is a generalization, but I’ve observed how so many vegans will blindly follow and fervently defend their diet at all costs, even if it means sacrificing their health or disregarding the unique nutritional needs of others who don’t follow a vegan diet.

    There is also an all-or-nothing mentality among veganism. Meat and meat eaters are the devil and plants are their gods. It’s kind of like you’re either vegan or a heathen with little regard for someone’s own religious beliefs or unique nutritional needs, which brings me to my next point:

• It sets you up for a ton of nutrient deficiencies

  • B12, iron, protein, choline, omega 3 (EPA and DHA), vitamin D, calcium, and even essential amino acid (protein) just to name a few. This is especially true if you’re: pregnant, lactating, a child, or a training athlete. It’s important to note that a long-term vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to permanent brain and nerve damage.

    Pregnant women’s protein and overall nutritional needs practically double and the need for specific nutrients such as glycine and proline, which are primarily found in animal products, increases greatly during this phase.

    Athletes have also been shown to benefit from collagen and branched-chain amino acids for recovery, which again, are primarily found in animal foods. There are of course some exceptions in which ultra-endurance athletes like Rich Roll do quite well on a vegan diet, but I would say he’s an aberration.

    On another note, watch the Netflix documentary Bad Vegan and you might become convinced that being vegan, especially a raw vegan, might lead to some severe nutrient deficiencies that mess with your mental health.

• Potentially dangerous for children and pregnant women

  • Lily Nichols RD, who wrote Real Food for Pregnancy and is an expert in pre and post-natal nutrition, has researched extensively about the potential dangers of following a vegan or vegetarian diet while pregnant and breastfeeding, so I won’t go into too much detail. In a nutshell, certain nutrient deficiencies during pregnancy such as B12, DHA and iron, can cause permanent developmental damage to the fetus. So unless the mother and her OBGYN or nutritionist specialize in prenatal vegetarian diets and know how to supplement appropriately, the mother is putting her child in danger.

    Another study concludes that there are few studies that adequately document the nutritional status of vegans, especially children, so the long-term growth and developmental effects are unknown. Proper supplementation is crucial to avoid critical nutrient deficiencies, which let’s be honest, most parents aren’t nutrition experts.

• Vegan and vegetarian diets are not necessarily “healthier” or “better” for the planet

  • While many vegans may be saying namaste while sipping on their vegan soy smoothie, what they don’t realize is that much of what they eat may not have been ethically or sustainably grown.

    Thanks to the agricultural and diet industry’s interests and government subsidies for cheap crops like corn and soy, monocropping has essentially destroyed ecological biodiversity, the soil microbiome, local farmers’ businesses, heirloom seeds, as well as animal and plant life. Since monocropping disturbs the ecosystemic homeostasis, harsh pesticides and herbicides like RoundUp are used to eradicate pesky pests. This seems a bit hypocritical to the vegan argument that their diet saves more lives doesn’t it? If we are to believe that all lives are equal, why don’t the bees, bugs, and other animals that are killed by modern farming considered equally as valid as a cow, pig, or chicken?

    Another big pro-vegan argument is that it’s “better” for the planet and that raising cows and pigs contributes to climate change. Without going into a ton of detail because it’s been well documented in the book and documentary titled Sacred Cow as well as this podcast episode, monocropping may actually contribute to climate change. I wholeheartedly agree that the modern beef, chicken, and pig industries need a major overhaul, but the science simply doesn’t add up to support the current agricultural model.

    As a researcher myself, I can’t deny that the majority of nutritional studies are biased, poorly designed, and most importantly, funded by industry interests. Many do not involve double-blinded studies nor have long-term follow-ups in order to address the nutritional status of the study’s subjects to evaluate overall health and nutrient deficiencies. Diet studies often rely on what’s called a food frequency questionnaire or 24-hour recall of what you’ve eaten. The bottom line is they rely on the subject’s memory, and honestly, most of us don’t remember what or how much we’ve eaten in the past accurately.

    There are also few studies that have observed the effects of the growth and development of a vegan diet in children long-term. Moreover, many diet studies that compare a vegan and/ or vegetarian diet vs an omnivorous diet tend to be biased and choose subjects who follow a more Western diet full of processed food and meat, which is not the same as a person who follows a traditional Mediterranean diet, which is also omnivorous but full of whole foods and fiber and phytonutrients.

    Many studies conclude that vegan diets lower cholesterol and increase weight loss, but they don’t mention muscle and bone loss, nutrient status like iron, mental accuity, athletic performance, and hormonal status. Women who follow a vegan diet are at more risk of suffering secondary amenorrhea (aka diet-induced loss of menstrual cycle) and possibly other cycle irregularities due to having a low calorie diet or excessive weight loss which lowers estrogen levels.

    Vegans often eat highly processed foods like Tofurkey, vegan cheese, and soy burgers. Beyond Meat burger has recently gained a lot of attention for being a “healthy” alternative to beef burgers, but it contains some very questionable ingredients such as pea protein isolate, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, yeast extract which is another name for MSG, and gums which can irritate the lining of your gut. A report has found pea protein, even made from organic peas, are very high in glyphosphate, aka RoundUp. Additionally, it’s very difficult to eat a lower to moderate carbohydrate vegan diet, so if you struggle with balancing your blood sugar, you may want to reconsider adopting this diet.

    How is it “healthier” to eat highly processed foods and to take a bunch of supplements that require a lot of energy to produce and ship. I have a hard time believing that eating processed vegan foods are NOT healthier for your body or the planet compared to eating a whole foods based omnivorous diet, which brings me to my next point:

• It’s a predominantly white elitist diet

  • Ever met a poor person who willingly chose to not eat animal products? In order to safely follow a vegan diet, especially if you’re pregnant, breastfeeding or a child, you need to supplement a lot. Not only B12, but likely iodine, iron, choline, omega 3, and possibly calcium and essential amino acids. It’s not cheap to supplement this much, especially with quality supplements.

    This begs the question, what makes traditional diets that incorporate animal products as a means of necessary, inexpensive, and nutrient-dense foods versus veganism any less valid or healthy? Traditional cultures intuitively knew that animal products like organ meats, eggs, butter, and yogurt are packed with essential nutrients. In Westernized countries, obesity and other metabolic diseases are a cause of eating too many calories while paradoxically being undernourished. Meanwhile, in many other parts of the world people are starving and in desperate need of crucial nutrients like B12 and iron, which can be better absorbed and assimilated from eating animal foods. Those are just the facts, not political bias speaking.

    Veganism is a new diet and from a purely biological and evolutionary perspective, this diet is most people not sustainable without supplementation. Humans are biologically designed to eat animal foods in order to obtain all of the necessary nutrients. Not everyone can afford expensive supplements, organic foods, and raw kombucha, and it’s not fair to judge others for what they can afford to eat.

• It ignores bioindividuality

  • Some people for various reasons do horribly on a vegan diet, yet so many vegans ignore this fact and instead judge others for eating animal products. I’ve come across a number of people who tried to go vegan and they couldn’t sustain this strict diet because their body was lacking certain essential nutrients which caused them fatigue, anemia, brain fog, and a myriad of other symptoms.

    In fact, some have never been sicker on a vegan diet, my brother-in-law included. Conventional doctors thought he had some horrible, possibly terminal disease because he was so anemic and weak. When he finally went to a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, he told him to eat a hamburger!

    Some people just simply need to consume animal protein in order to maintain health or heal, perhaps for the specific amino acids, B12, iron, calcium, or the fact that many of the nutrients are more readily absorbed from animal products. For example, I personally need to eat animal foods in order to maintain my health and energy levels. This is true of many people who have an autoimmune disease or are healing from a chronic condition that requires a nutrient-dense diet that’s high in easily absorbed nutrients.

• Veganism ignores the fact that many plant-based nutrients are not easily absorbed

  • Plants contain what some call “anti-nutrients” such as lectins, saponins, tannins oxalates, and phytates which are the plants’ defense mechanism and inhibit the absorption of various nutrients like iron, magnesium, and calcium.

    It’s simply a myth that spinach and lentils contain more iron than red meat because our body absorbs a very small fraction of the nonheme iron found in plant foods because it contains phytates. It is true that vitamin C as well as malic and citric acid increase iron absorption, but the overall absorption rate is still low.

• Veganism doesn’t make you holier than thou

  • Veganism has become like a religion, and it goes back to the idea that some religions follow that certain foods are deemed profane and therefore should not be eaten if you want to live a “pure” and “holy” life in the eyes of God.

    This also goes back to the belief that God is some father figure who judges us mere mortals strictly depending on what we eat. Well, I’m pretty sure God doesn’t look down upon anyone who eats meat or other animal products and I bet God has better things to do than worry about which diet we adhere to. I believe that all humans have the freedom of choice when it comes to what we eat, and it’s better for our bodies, planets and spirits when we consciously choose what to put in our mouths whether that’s a raw vegan smoothie or a T-bone steak.

• The question should really be more focused on ethically sourcing both animal AND plants.

  I don’t think anyone is going to argue that conventional animal husbandry is ethical nor good for the planet, yet no one seems to want to talk about the numerous negative effects monocropping has on the environment, soil microbiome, local ecosystem and climate change. It’s also hard to argue that following a plant-based diet doesn’t confer numerous health benefits. The problem has become that the debate has become so polarized around whether it’s “good or bad” or “ethical” to eat meat, that many vegans don’t want to address the nuances involved.