Behold the lilies of the field.
If that’s all you eat, you’ll probably die of malnutrition.
Check out this article at Authority Nutrition on why vegan diets are a bad idea.
Behold the lilies of the field.
If that’s all you eat, you’ll probably die of malnutrition.
Check out this article at Authority Nutrition on why vegan diets are a bad idea.
Not sure what provoked this post, but the case _against_ vegan diets is not exactly airtight. And I can’t help but note that despite the headline, the article you cite doesn’t actually make it.
That’s not to say that it isn’t annoying when vegans make misleading nutritional arguments in order to win converts (and note: I am an ex-vegan, and as such am especially irritated by such arguments). But Atkins advocates and the like do the same thing. And vegans at least are well-supported when they say that their diet results in less animal cruelty and less environmental degradation.
Really the problem is with the field of nutrition itself, which is about as clear in its prescriptions as, well, economics. Other than “don’t eat a lot of refined carbohydrates,” “eat your vegetables,” and “don’t starve yourself,” there’s very little we really know for sure about what people need to eat to be healthy.
@Tom, there certainly is some burden-shifting in the linked piece, but I’m not certain that establishing homo sapiens as omnivores and requiring evidence to justify being something different is completely inappropriate. But yes, if human studies are inconclusive or fail to account for confounding factors, then the burden for change quickly becomes insurmountable.
Speaking of “don’t starve yourself” and “what are homo sapiens,” I saw an interesting show on PBS recently about intermittent fasting that made a case for fasting at least one day per week, which can have a lot of very positive outcomes for heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It seemed fairly counter-intuitive given the typical recommendations for regular, moderate meals, but not if our starting point is that homo sapiens are scavengers, that would not infrequently go without food.
“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. A vegetarian diet is defined as one that does not include meat (including fowl) or seafood, or products containing those foods. This article reviews the current data related to key nutrients for vegetarians including protein, n-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, iodine, calcium, and vitamins D and B-12. A vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, supplements or fortified foods can provide useful amounts of important nutrients. An evidence- based review showed that vegetarian diets can be nutritionally adequate in pregnancy and result in positive maternal and infant health outcomes. The results of an evidence-based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Features of a vegetarian diet that may reduce risk of chronic disease include lower intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, soy products, fiber, and phytochemicals. The variability of dietary practices among vegetarians makes individual assessment of dietary adequacy essential. In addition to assessing dietary adequacy, food and nutrition professionals can also play key roles in educating vegetarians about sources of specific nutrients, food purchase and preparation, and dietary modifications to meet their needs.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
One of the most basic rules of medicine is that all diet studies are crap.
Steve
Steve,
Stop dancing around and say what you really mean!
“One of the most basic rules of medicine is that all diet studies are crap.”
Wouldth that you had the same skepticism of economic studies.
Red,
Good call! But, it won’t happen.
There is a retort to that. Consider the UofC med school curriculum. If it’s typical, these future physicians may never have paid any particular attention to nutrition, other than as it’s covered in passing in some other course.
Dave S.
In western medicine it’s always been prescribing pills over good food choices.
@PD – yeah, that makes a certain logical sense. When I wrote “don’t starve yourself” I was thinking of anorexia, but moderate fasting is another story entirely.
And wrt veganism, certainly. I do find it exasperating when vegans I know talk about how it’s not “natural” for humans to eat meat, despite ample biological & anthropological evidence to the contrary. It’s just that, as Ben Wolf points out, the evidence that veganism is actively unhealthy is very, very sparse.
My own view is best reflected in my title of this post: one size does not fit all. There are things that we know about human nutrition that are not particularly controversial. Not everybody processes all foods the same way and some of the differences are mediated genetically.
Africans and Asians frequently have problems with dairy in their diets. That’s much rarer for Europeans. Some people (me, for example) are genetically predisposed not to do particularly well on a completely vegetarian diet.
Tom brings up good points about the ethical treatment of animals and environmental issues. My concern is that the difference between those concerns and concerns of personal nutrition is the people for whom in order to effect the outcomes they want other people will need to change their behavior, regardless of outcomes, rather than they just need to change their own behavior.