Most people who consume animal products do so for one or more of the reasons below –
- Habit. Their family ate animal products growing up and the culture around them does too. It’s normal to consume animal products and abnormal to abstain.
- Cognitive dissonance. If someone were to think about where their animal-based food is coming from, they might feel bad about eating it. So instead of doing something about that conviction, to avoid discomfort they convince themselves that the food on their plate is just “food” and not connected to living animals that suffered immensely to end up on their plate.
- Taste. Fried chicken, burgers, cheese, and steak taste good to most people, so it’s enjoyable to consume animal products.
- Convenience. Most restaurants, cookbooks, recipes, and convenience foods include or even feature animal products. Because that’s the culture we live in, it’s convenient to go with the flow.
- The circle of life and the food chain. A lot of people believe that because other members of Kingdom Animalia/Metazoa consume other animals to survive, it’s natural and normal for humans do to so as well. These people feel abstaining from animal products would be hypocritical by pretending that humans are not part of an ecosystem. Everyone has a time to be born and a time to die – it’s the circle of life.
- Dominion over animals. People from some religions – Christians in particular – believe that humans have dominion over animals. Genesis 1:28 says, “God blessed them: God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.'”
Some Christians take this concept of dominion to mean that people have a God-given right to domesticate animals and raise them for food. These Christians often believe that the circle of life and humankind’s need for animal products to survive were built into creation and God’s original design for the world.
Other Christians, like myself, believe that scripture indicates when God originally created the world, He designed it so human beings and animals would only eat plants. Genesis 1:29-30 says, “Then God said, ‘Here! Throughout the whole earth I am giving you as food every seed-bearing plant and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. And to every wild animal, bird in the air and creature crawling on the earth, in which there is a living soul, I am giving as food every kind of green plant.’ And that is how it was.”
It wasn’t until after sin and death entered the world that we see a recording of an animal potentially being killed as the first sacrifice (as a covering for Adam and Havah’s nakedness, the direct effect of their sin). Genesis 3:21 says, “The Lord, God, made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
Only after the flood do we see a reversal of the plants-only diet introduced in the creation account. At that point, not only had sin and death entered the world, but a flood had ravaged the world to cleanse it from evil for over a year, so it’s likely little to no vegetation remained on the earth at the time Noah and his family exited the ark. Genesis 9:2-6 says, “The fear and dread of you will be upon every wild animal, every bird in the air, every creature populating the ground, and all the fish in the sea; they have been handed over to you. Every moving thing that lives will be food for you; just as I gave you green plants before, so now I give you everything – only flesh with its life, which is its blood, you are not to eat. I will certainly demand an accounting for the blood of your lives: I will demand it from every animal and from every human being. Whoever sheds human blood, by a human being will his own blood be shed; for God made human beings in his image.”
It certainly sounds like prior to the fall, God did not designate animals to be slaughtered for sacrifices, and that prior to the flood, God had not handed over animals to human beings as food; but afterwards, God handed animals over to human beings as food because He recognized it was now a necessary evil in a broken, fallen world. It is true that from the flood until the invention of modern agriculture and dietary supplements, human beings could not survive without animal products.
We also see evidence in scripture that God’s design is to return the world to a violence-free, plants-only diet state in the ‘olam ha-ba (world to come). The reason God gives for this shift back is because the earth will be saturated with the knowledge of Him and his character. Isaiah 11:6-9 says,
“The wolf will live with the lamb;
the leopard lie down with the kid;
calf, young lion and fattened lamb together,
with a little child to lead them.
Cow and bear will feed [graze] together,
their young will lie down together;
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
An infant will play on a cobra’s hole,
a toddler put his hand in a viper’s nest.
They will not hurt or destroy
anywhere on my holy mountain,
for the earth will be as full
of the knowledge of The Lord
as water covering the sea.”
Isaiah 65:25, in a passage describing the new heavens and new earth, says,
“‘The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’
says The Lord.”
So, although God gave human beings dominion over animals, it’s apparent that it wasn’t originally intended to be a right to use animals for food. Also, in the world to come, all of creation will cease to exist in the circle of life we have come to know as natural. - Health. Some people believe that humans must consume animal products to maintain optimal health. I will spend most of this article exploring this argument.
If you resonated with one or more of these arguments, you’re not alone. Considering the arguments for a vegan lifestyle forces one to confront a lot of difficult and uncomfortable questions.
When I first began to think about a vegan lifestyle, I read. A LOT. Mostly articles from opposing viewpoints, like from the Weston A. Price Foundation.
At the time, I ate a primal-style diet and I wanted to be 100% sure that humans could meet their nutrient needs and thrive on a vegan diet before I could seriously consider transitioning.
I had to work out my objections over a long period of time in order to come into alignment with my convictions. Eventually, the following thought processes helped me come to a conclusion.
To start with, we have to explore the definitions of “ethical” and “sentient”.
According to Dictionary.com, the definition of ethical is, “Pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct.”
Merriam Webster states the definition of sentience as, “Finely sensitive in perception or feeling [ability to feel].”
Right now, research supports the conclusion that living organisms with nervous systems (which is 99.99% of Kingdom Animalia) are sentient.
Similarly, living organisms without nervous systems are highly unlikely to be sentient, based on the current evidence. This includes plants, algae, microorganisms, and fungi.
So, members of Kingdom Animalia are able to experience and feel sensations of both pleasure and pain. In spite of people who might tell you “plants feel pain too” in order to dissuade you from supporting animal rights, the research does not currently support that idea.
Moving on, it’s really no question as to whether animals suffer in the animal agriculture system.
Animal agriculture inflicts routine psychologically and physiologically painful procedures and slaughter on the animals involved.
In addition, they’re raised in a way that exploits their biology in order to use their secretions for profit. A female cow produces milk when pregnant and raising a young calf. Just like human females do for an infant. In order to keep a female cow lactating continuously on a dairy farm, she must be routinely impregnated until she reaches the end of her life cycle. For hens, they have been bred to lay far more eggs than biologically natural. This strips their bodies of calcium and leaves them vulnerable to a number of harmful diseases.
If you want specific examples, there are thousands of (both biased and unbiased, so do your research) videos and articles on the internet to look into.
Animal agriculture is profit-driven. In a profit-driven industry, animal welfare can never be THE top priority, because profit margin is always going to take that spot. If someone tries to tell you otherwise, they’re fooling you and themselves.
The way business works is by making enough product (supply) to meet customer demand, while minimizing production costs in order maximize profit.
Caring for animals the right way is expensive, so animal welfare can never be optimal in a system that profits from animal flesh and secretions.
Most people know that factory farming harbors the worst conditions in animal agriculture.
One popular response to this phenomenon is to stop supporting factory farms and purchase from smaller farms instead.
The first problem with this response is that if the current nationwide demand for animal products remains the same and everyone switches to independent farms to source their animal products, small farms will have to adjust their operation methods in order to keep up with the increased demand while still making a profit.
Following this outcome, independent farms may be forced to morph into a factory farm type of structure in the future. Thus, the increase in demand on smaller farms would perpetuate the factory farm model.
The second problem is that small farms still subject their animals to a fair amount of cruelty and pain due to the nature of the industry.
After thinking all this through, we’re left with one very important question. Is it ethical (good and right) to consume animal products and support animal agriculture when it means contributing to the exploitation, pain, suffering, and slaughter of sentient animals?
Let’s apply this question to each of the above reasons for consuming animal products.
Most people agree that it isn’t right or good to inflict pain and slaughter on a sentient animal only to satisfy tradition, convenience, or taste. So we can scrap those reasons as justifiable right now.
The cognitive dissonance reason does not stand up to scrutiny when you face the facts about the origin of the animal-based food on your plate. Pushing something out of your mind doesn’t mean it isn’t happening anymore.
The arguments for eating animal products left to explore are circle of life, dominion, and health.
For the first two, I think it helps to ask a couple of questions.
- Just because some animals have to eat other animals to survive in the wild, does that really mean humans are morally and/or biologically obligated to eat animals and their secretions too? I believe it depends on whether or not we need animal products to survive.
- Just because humans have dominion (sovereignty, control) over animals, whether you believe it’s God-given or simply biological, does that mean we ought to exercise that dominion by slaughtering and eating animals and their secretions? Again, it depends on whether or not we need animal products to survive. Because as we saw above, God’s original design was not for us to eat animals or their secretions. Instead, it was an allowance He gave in the event that circumstances necessitated animal consumption for survival.
When you approach those arguments from such a perspective, the answer to whether or not it is ethical to eat animal products boils down to the last reason. Health.
If we need animal products to be healthy, then the consumption of animal products is a necessary evil. Similar to obligate carnivores such as lions when they hunt their prey in the wild to survive.
If we don’t need animal products to be healthy, then the consumption of animal products has no necessary basis and is therefore unethical (wrong and bad).
So, do we need animal products to be healthy?
Boy. What an involved question to answer.
The answer for the modern day United States isn’t the same as the answer once was for ancient people groups who consumed traditional diets. Long ago (and still in certain countries), people relied on local agriculture and hunting for food. For that reason, in most cases, people did not have plant-based food available in enough quantity for it alone to meet their caloric and nutritional needs.
In addition, humans cannot make vitamin B12 through bacterial fermentation in their intestines like biological herbivores can. In nature, biological omnivores and carnivores get B12 by eating other animals that make their own. For that reason, even Eastern Asian cultures that adopted largely vegetarian diets still had to consume small amounts of dairy and eggs to meet their B12 needs.
Now, in the modern day United States, we have access to a surplus of plant-based staples in every grocery store. We’ve also learned how to replicate the bacterial fermentation process for B12, so companies can produce and sell whole food B12 supplements.
Before we go on, we need to address one more misconception. Some people confuse a healthy diet with a natural diet. A natural diet is one existing in nature, not made or caused by humankind. Applying that definition, not even minimally processed, cooked whole foods have a place in a natural diet.
As a nutrition student, on the other hand, I understand a healthy diet to be one that provides all the essential nutrients in optimal amounts and keeps harmful substances to a minimum.
Knowing what a healthy diet means, we can further break down the question, “do we need animal products to be healthy?”
Further defined, the question is really, “do we need animal products in order to meet our nutrient needs in optimal amounts and to keep harmful substances to a minimum?”
Let’s find out. It’s time to unpack every nutritional objection I have ever heard to a vegan diet.
1. You need fat to properly absorb fat-soluble vitamins and support hormone health.
Yes, you need fat to properly absorb fat-soluble vitamins and support hormone health. However, that is irrelevant here because this argument is based on a logical fallacy that all vegan diets are low fat.
Personally, my macronutrient distribution ratio is about 17% protein, 38% fat, and 45% carbohydrates on a vegan diet. Compare this to a general recommendation for 10-35% protein, 20-35% fat, and 45-65% carbohydrates across all diet patterns, and it’s easy to see that we don’t eat a low fat diet. We fall closer to the 35-40% fat percentage found in the Mediterranean diet, a higher fat eating pattern.
While you certainly can eat a low fat vegan diet, you can also eat low fat on just about any diet you choose. It’s incorrect to assume all vegan diets are low fat.
Vegan diets include lots of lipid-rich options, like tree nuts, seeds, olives, avocado, coconut, and every imaginable product made from these ingredients. Think nut butter, nut milk, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, coconut milk, flaxseed oil, and more.
2. But, you need meat to get protein and collagen. Plus, vegan protein sources aren’t complete proteins.
I’ve met a lot of people who think meat is the only protein-containing food.
Plant-based sources of protein include beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas, tofu, tempeh, tree nuts, seeds, pseudo grains, whole grains (gluten-containing and gluten-free), and even vegetables. Legumes contain the most protein, with nuts, seeds, pseudo grains, and whole grains coming in at second place. Vegetables don’t include a lot of protein, but they include smaller quantities that add to your daily total.
When you begin eating a vegan diet, it’s possible to be protein deficient if you remove meat, dairy, and eggs without replacing them with plant-based protein sources.
However, if you eat a variety of plant-based protein sources over the course of each day, you will meet or exceed your protein needs.
The average person needs 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. Athletes need closer to 1.2-2 grams per kilogram of body weight.
This is easy to achieve on a vegan diet if you make nutritious food choices. For example, I need 43 grams and get about 75-80 grams of protein per day.
The idea that you can’t get the collagen you need without eating it or taking a supplement is based on a misconception about how collagen gets synthesized in the body.
Eating collagen-containing foods or taking a collagen supplement doesn’t magically add collagen to the organs of your body. When you consume collagen, the body absorbs the amino acids, which get stored for future use. Ribosomes in cells are constantly synthesizing protein from amino acids, including collagen, for various bodily functions. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter where the amino acids come from, as long as your body has the bioavailable protein it needs to break down into amino acids and make its own collagen.
When you eat a variety of plant-based protein sources, you get the amino acids you need for the body to produce collagen. If you really want to support collagen synthesis via a supplement, though, you can do so through plant-based protein powder, liposomal vitamin C, individual amino acids, and even glucosamine and chondroitin made from fungi and fermentation.
Vegan protein sources aren’t complete proteins.
A complete protein is a food that contains an optimal amount of all 9 essential amino acids.
Several decades ago, a large concern for vegetarians was that only a couple of plant-based foods (soy, chia seeds) are complete proteins on their own. Because of this, at the time, it was advised that vegetarians combine certain foods at every meal to ensure that they were getting all 9 amino acids every time they ate.
Now, researchers have realized this isn’t necessary and that as long as a person is consuming a variety of legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and vegetables in general, they will get the amino acids they need over the course of the day.
If you feel unwell when you don’t eat animal protein, it’s important to address this with your health practitioner, because it isn’t the norm.
3. Diets that require a supplement (such as B12) aren’t natural, so they can’t be healthy.
As we covered earlier in this post, a healthy diet is one that meets a person’s nutritional needs while minimizing health-harming substances. A natural diet is one that only includes food found in nature and not produced or altered by human beings.
Sure, supplements aren’t found in nature, but neither is much of anything else we consume. Think packaged milk, packaged cheese, packaged and/or cooked meat, processed meat, prepackaged spices, salt, cut and washed vegetables and fruit, canned food, frozen food, dried food, etc. Unless you’re solely eating raw meat and plants you hunted and foraged, your diet is not 100% natural.
Instead of getting caught up on terminology like healthy, clean, and natural, it’s more accurate to focus on nutrient density and reducing harmful additives.
Additionally, some people need to take one or more supplements no matter what diet they choose to eat. For example, I’ve always needed to supplement iron, even when I ate a primal-style diet that included desiccated liver and red meat.
4. Synthetic supplements aren’t as bioavailable as nutrients from food.
It would take a long time to go over the studies done on the bioavailability of different vitamins and minerals and discuss the various conclusions. Bioavailability is a VERY involved topic.
*As far as cooking methods go, in general cooking reduces water-soluble vitamin content but makes fat-soluble vitamins and minerals more bioavailable. Therefore, it’s best to eat a variety of cooked and raw foods and to steam vegetables rather than boil.
However, if your concern with adopting a vegan diet is that a synthetic vitamin supplement such as B12 would not be as bioavailable as B12 from food, don’t worry. Instead of choosing a synthetic supplement, go for a supplement made with whole food ingredients.
Some of my favorite whole food vitamin and mineral supplement brands include Naturelo, Whole Earth and Sea, Vitamin Code, MyKind Organics, and Megafood. These companies make their dietary supplements from raw, plant-based food ingredients, fungi, and fermentation.
5. Legumes and grains have antinutrients, so they aren’t bioavailable and they harm gut health.
This argument has grown old and tired. Multiple studies show that normal preparation and cooking methods inactivate antinutrients like lectins (prolamins, agglutinins), oxylates, and phytates.
You don’t need to remove grains, nuts, and seeds to avoid antinutrients. Soak and pressure cook or thoroughly boil your grains and legumes, and soak your tree nuts before making nut butters, sauces, or milks. If you want to be extra careful, you can sprout your grains and legumes before cooking or try a fermentation method (like sourdough).
To date, studies have only found gluten to increase inflammation in people with Celiac Disease and other autoimmune diseases. Results show that other antinutrients don’t seem to effect the body in the same way as gluten.
In addition, a study called the dietary inflammatory index demonstrated that grains and legumes have anti-inflammatory effect on six inflammatory markers in the body, while meat, dairy, and eggs have a pro-inflammatory effect.
6. Our ancestors didn’t eat grains and legumes, so we aren’t biologically designed to either.
Evidence from archaeologists has demonstrated this hypothesis to be false over and over again. If you’d like to learn more, you can start here and here.
7. Vegan food is highly processed in order to satisfy our need for “umami flavor”. Just eat meat instead.
First, we have to look at the definition of umami. Merriam Webster defines umami as, “the taste sensation that is produced by several amino acids and nucleotides (such as glutamate and aspartate) and has a rich flavor characteristic of cheese, cooked meat, mushrooms, soy, and ripe tomatoes.”
Already it’s apparent that you you can find savory umami flavors across a variety of animal and plant-based foods. Other plant-based sources include onions, seaweed, soy sauce (or coconut aminos), yeast, and miso.
Beyond the fact that you can find minimally processed plant-based umami flavor sources, this objection to a vegan diet also contains a logical fallacy.
It’s untrue that all, or even most, vegan food is highly processed. Can you find some highly processed vegan foods for sale? Sure, just like you can find some highly processed animal products.
Minimally processed vegan food includes legumes, tempeh, tofu, whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds. Highly processed vegan foods typically include vegan meat, cheese, and butter substitutes.
Similarly, minimally processed animal products include milk, most cheeses, plain cuts of meat, and eggs. You can also find highly processed animal products like spam, bologna, sausage, chicken nuggets, pepperoni, hot dogs, cheese whiz, velveeta, margarine, and shortening.
Some classic highly processed foods like white bread and sugary desserts can be vegan or contain animal ingredients, depending on the manufacturer.
Whether you’re a vegan or an omnivore, you can choose for the most part to eat minimally processed foods or not.
If a vegan eats a lot of highly processed vegan substitutes, that is a personal choice, not a reflection on vegan diets as a whole.
8. Vegan diets are based on soy, and soy is unhealthy.
As mentioned above, a vegan diet doesn’t need to contain a lot of highly processed meat substitutes. If a vegan decides to base their diet on highly processed food, that’s a personal choice. Not a reflection on a vegan diets as a whole.
For example, the only soy food we consume is organic tempeh about once a week. Certainly not a soy-based diet.
The effects of soy and other phytoestrogen containing plants on the human body have been well-documented in studies.
In general, consuming highly processed soy multiple times a day is associated with poor health outcomes. On the other hand, including minimally processed soy like tempeh, tofu, soy milk, and edamame in moderation has been shown to effect health positively.
9. Milk is less processed than non-dairy milk, so it’s better to consume dairy.
Having made dairy alternatives myself, I can attest to most being minimally processed. The main ingredient (oats, almonds, coconut, soybeans, cashews, etc.) is pureed with water and strained. That’s it.
Many people argue non-dairy milk isn’t healthy because it contains added sugar, but for every brand, type, and flavor of non-dairy milk, there is almost always an easily accessible unsweetened version, so this is not a great argument.
Manufacturers often fortify dairy substitutes with vitamins and minerals in a similar way to cow’s milk. Sometimes they add gums to help with emulsification. If you’re not a fan of consuming fortified foods or gums, you can make non-dairy milk yourself. It only takes about 2 minutes.
If you don’t want to consume fortified non-dairy milk, you’ll need to monitor your calcium intake in the form of green vegetables, legumes, grains, and tree nuts a little more carefully.
10. Saturated fat is better for you than unsaturated fat, so you need animal products in your diet.
In the last decade, research has shown a weaker connection to saturated fat and the development of heart disease than scientists had previously believed. That being said, researchers still noted a connection.
What you don’t often hear in the holistic community is that unsaturated fats have been linked to a strongly reduced risk of heart disease.
So it’s true you might not increase your risk of heart disease if you eat saturated fat as much as was once believed. However, you’ll significantly decrease your risk if you choose unsaturated fats more often (source).
Unsaturated fat choices include olive oil, avocado oil, flaxseed oil, grapeseed oil, olives, avocados, and nuts and seeds, to name a few.
Of course, it’s important to pay attention to smoke point no matter what fat you choose to cook with.
If you truly care about getting a source of saturated fat, you can get it through coconut products and sustainably harvested palm oil on a vegan diet. You don’t need animal products in order to get saturated fat.
Full fat coconut milk tastes delicious in soups and stews, while refined (not raw) coconut oil replaces butter nicely in most recipes.
11. Vegan diets and supplements only contain vitamin D2, and you really need D3 for optimal benefit. Also, vegan diets don’t contain vitamin K2.
This argument is completely false.
1) Almost no foods contain vitamin D at all, because humans synthesize it as a response to sun exposure. Thus, our primary source is not from food regardless of the diet we choose to follow.
2.) Cod liver oil, the only food that contains vitamin D3, has such a small concentration that it makes a negligible difference to consume it. For example, Rosita Extra Virgin Cod Liver Oil contains 395 IU per serving. Most people need 1000-4000 IU per day to maintain a healthy level. For anyone deficient in vitamin D, that need increases significantly.
3.) Plenty of companies make whole food vegan D3 supplements from lichen. We take Whole Earth and Sea’s Vegan D3.
4.) Fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and natto to name a couple, contain vitamin K2. Vegan whole food multivitamins from brands like Naturelo, Whole Earth and Sea, Vitamin Code, MyKind Organics, and Megafood contain K2 made from fermentation as well.
12. Vegan diets only contain the ALA form of Omega 3, which has to be broken down into EPA and DHA by the body. If this breakdown doesn’t go ideally, the body won’t get the EPA and DHA it needs.
This is another totally false argument.
Omega 3 is an essential fatty acid group that includes linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
ALA is primarily found in foods like hemp seeds, chia seeds, flaxseed, and walnuts. The body breaks it down into EPA and DHA to some degree, in order to meet EPA and DHA needs.
EPA and DHA are solely found in fish and marine algae. Fish contain EPA and DHA because they eat Omega 3-containing marine algae.
If you’re worried your body won’t convert ALA from nuts and seeds to EPA and DHA in enough quantity to meet your needs, you can take a teaspoon of algal oil every day to get EPA and DHA in your diet directly.
13. Vegan diets contain too much Omega 6 in ratio to Omega 3. This is problematic because Omega 6 fatty acids promote inflammation.
First, if you include seeds and walnuts in your diet and consume a teaspoon of algal oil every day, that will dramatically shift your Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio in a good direction.
Second, the inflammatory action of Omega 6 fatty acids is not as black and white and well established as people like to say it is.
In the research, even though Omega 6 fatty acids make up a large portion of the membrane of cells involved in inflammation, increased intake of Omega 6 fatty acids does not actually result in an increase in many inflammatory markers.
Additionally, in clinical studies, Omega 3 fatty acids don’t always have the expected anti-inflammatory effects.
The takeaway of most studies on Omega 3 vs. Omega 6 is that we don’t understand the relationship between the two and how they affect the body very well at this point.
14. Vegan diets only contain non-heme iron, which isn’t as absorbable as heme iron, so you can’t get enough iron on a vegan diet.
While it’s true that iron from plants (non-heme) isn’t absorbed as efficiently as iron from meat (heme), vegetarians and vegans only need 1.8 times more iron to make up for this discrepancy.
For males, this means they need approximately 14 mg of iron per day instead of 8 mg. That’s relatively easy to achieve on a vegan diet. For example, Jonathan doesn’t monitor his iron intake or take an iron supplement, and his iron level is optimal.
For pre-menopausal and pregnant females, this means they need 32 and 49 mg of iron per day instead of 18 and 27. Females often struggle to maintain an optimal iron level whether they eat meat or not, because menstruation and pregnancy dramatically increase the amount the body needs. For example, I’ve always needed to supplement iron, even when I ate a primal-style diet that included red meat and bovine desiccated liver.
If you need to supplement iron, all of the whole food supplement companies I mentioned above carry women’s and prenatal multivitamins to help boost your intake. I take a Naturelo brand multivitamin, which has enough iron in it to keep my level optimal without adding a separate iron supplement.
15. Vegan diets only contain beta carotene and not active vitamin A (rentinyl/retinol). A lot of people have a genetically reduced ability to convert beta carotene to vitamin A, so vegans are vitamin A deficient.
This argument has the most weight of all objections I’ve discussed so far. It’s correct that people with certain genetic variants and health conditions have a reduced capacity to convert beta carotene from plants to active vitamin A.
Beta carotene comes from orange and red fruits and vegetables and dark leafy greens. Retinol, on the other hand, comes from animal foods like liver and egg yolks. The body always converts some beta carotene to retinol, but whether or not this meets your vitamin A needs depends on whether you have enough beta carotene to convert.
Normally, the body converts food beta carotene to retinol at a ratio of about 12:1 and supplemental beta carotene at a ratio of 2:1 (if taken on an empty stomach away from other foods). Depending on your genotype for the genetic variants, you will either convert beta carotene normally, have a 32% reduced conversion capacity, or have a 69% reduced conversion capacity.
If you have completed genetic testing from a company like 23andme before, you can use this article to check your raw data and determine which genotype you carry.
Jonathan and I both have a 32% reduced ability to convert beta carotene to retinol.
If you have a reduced capacity to convert beta carotene to retinol or your health is compromised, it might be beneficial to take a multivitamin that includes beta carotene or to add dunaliella salina (a type of microalgae) to your diet. This virtually tasteless powder contains 1500 mcg RAE (retinol activity equivalents) per 1/8 tsp.
Females need 700 mcg RAE of vitamin A per day, and males need 900 mcg RAE.
You can adjust this according to your genetic composition or health status to determine if you need to add supplemental beta carotene or dunaliella salina to your diet and if so, how much.
Additionally, dry vitamin A supplements contain retinyl palmitate or acetate from derived palm oil or created synthetically, so if you’re really struggling to convert enough beta carotene to vitamin A, you can add such a supplement to meet your vitamin A needs without resorting to animal products.
16. Certain health conditions get worse with a vegan diet.
If you have a preexisting health condition such as IBS or FODMAP sensitivity, IBD, SIBO, Celiac Disease, food allergies, diabetes, or hypothyroidism – talk to a licensed nutritionist or registered dietitian before attempting to switch to a vegan diet on your own. Make sure you choose a nutrition professional who is knowledgable about plant-based diets, so you don’t end up speaking with someone who can’t help you make a sustainable vegan meal plan.
I have at least non-Celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and likely Celiac Disease in addition to multiple food allergies, and I have been able to go vegan successfully. Jonathan is thriving on a vegan diet in spite of Celiac Disease and a laundry list of other GI problems, too. We can eat a wide variety of foods we enjoy and don’t feel deprived!
It is very possible to develop nutrient deficiencies and disordered eating when you have preexisting health conditions and try to transition to a vegan diet without the help of a nutrition professional. Please do not attempt this!
An experienced nutrition professional who is knowledgable about plant-based diets can help you create a safe, nutritious, delicious, and sustainable vegan meal plan.
Based on the nutrition topics I covered above, it’s clear that you can meet and exceed your nutritional needs on a vegan diet.
If someone has told you that a vegan diet is not the healthiest diet, guess what? They’re right! There aren’t any additional health benefits of a vegan diet compared to a plant-based diet (like the Mediterranean diet) that contains a small amount of animal products.
The primary benefit of a vegan diet is that you won’t be supporting animal cruelty through your food choices, and you reap the health benefits of plant-based eating at the same time.
While some people argue that vegans care more about animals than people by supporting animal rights, there’s good news. You can have empathy for more than one species at a time. You don’t have to choose between taking action to support humanitarian causes and animal rights.
There is truly no legitimate argument against adopting a vegan diet to fight animal cruelty that still stands when thought through logically.
While you’re just one person, each person that adopts a vegan lifestyle spreads much needed awareness that animal products are NOT necessary for health and wellbeing.
In addition, every person who lessens or removes animal products from their diet and lifestyle takes a little bit of demand away from the animal agriculture industry. As a direct result of a smaller demand, fewer animals need to be raised and slaughtered for food. If enough people go vegan, eventually, the demand for animal products will be so small that animal agriculture will no longer be able to exist as it does today.
