I don’t understand why the target subject here should be people who have never put any effort or thought into their diet. That way you don’t get relevant evidence about the prevalence of iron deficiency among veg*ns, but only the almost trivial conclusion that people who don’t take any care of their dietary health have some deficiencies.
It makes plenty of sense to me; I think the vast majority of people don’t put any thought into what vitamins they might be deficient in. I was vegan in college for ethical reasons, and I was in the school’s vegan / animal welfare club, and the entire year I was in that club I didn’t hear a single mention of taking supplements to offset what we weren’t getting through our diet. I had never heard about B12 or creatine supplementation until I came to the rationalist community.
And in any case if Elizabeth is trying to study the impact that ~veganism has on micronutrient levels, then comparing [~vegans who don’t take supplements] to [omnivores who don’t take supplements] will give the clearest data.
I don’t doubt your anecdotal experience is as you’re telling it, but mine has been completely different, so much so that it sounds crazy to me to spend a whole year being vegan, and participating in animal advocacy, without hearing mention of B12 supplementation. Literally all vegans I’ve met have very prominently stressed the importance of dietary health and B12 supplementation. Heck, even all the vegan shitposts are about B12!
comparing [~vegans who don’t take supplements] to [omnivores who don’t take supplements] will give the clearest data
Even if that might be literally true for scientific purposes (and stressing again that the above project clearly doesn’t have robust scientific evidence as its goal), I do think this won’t be an accurate representation of the picture when presented to the community, since most vegans do supplement [citation needed, but it’s been my extensive personal and online experience, and all famous vegan resources I’ve seen stress this], and thus you’re comparing the non-average vegan to the average omnivore, giving a false sense of imbalance against veganism. As rational as we might try to be, framing of this kind matters, and we all are especially emotional and visceral with regards to something as intimate and personal as our diet. On average, people raised omnivores have strong repulsion towards veganism (so much so as to override ethical concerns), and I think we should take that into account.
It sounds like you’re really passionate about vegan nutrition. Can I suggest channeling that into sharing resources that help naive vegans? Even if you don’t think they’re representative they clearly exist, and if the problem can be solved by linking to existing resources that seems incredibly high return.
Tbh I’m not that passionate, I feel like I’m just doing the necessary minimum to stay completely healthy?
Anyway, of course! But most are just really basic reviews/explainers that are one google search away, to get the big picture of what you need. Some of these are:
And regardless of these resources you should of course visit a nutritionist (even if very sporadically, or even just once when you start being vegan) so that they can confirm the important bullet points, whether what you’re doing broadly works, and when you should worry about anything. (And again, anecdotically this has been strongly stressed and acknowledged as necessary by all vegans I’ve met, which are not few).
The nutritionist might recommend yearly (or less frequent) blood testing, which does feel like a good failsafe. I’ve been taking them for ~6 years and all of them have turned out perfect (I only supplement B12, as nutritionist recommended).
I guess it’s not that much that there’s some resource that is the be-all end-all on vegan nutrition, but more that all of the vegans I’ve met have forwarded a really positive health-conscious attitudes, and stressed the importance of this points.
I’ve also very sporadically engaged with more extensive dietary literature, but mainly in Spanish (for example, Lucía Martínez’s Vegetarianos con ciencia).
There was one very high up guy who ran around vegan ea for years yelling at anyone who suggested veganism required the slight bit more effort, thought, or money. He left in 2018 or 2019 for unrelated reasons but I think he may have done serious long term damage to ea vegan culture in particular.
That’s a pity to hear, since undoubtedly any dietary change or improvement does require some thought (and we also should think about our dietary health regardless of them). That said, I do generally feel the required effort, thought, and money are way less than mainstream opinion usually pictures.
Regarding effort and thought, my experience (and that of all almost all vegans I’ve known who didn’t suffer of already-present unrelated health issues) was that the change did required some effort and thought the first months (getting used to cooking ~15 nutritious comfort vegan meals, checking the labels, possibly visiting your nutritionist for the first time), but it quickly became a habit, as customary as following an omnivore diet.
And regarding money, the big bulk of a healthy vegan diet aren’t meat substitutes, processed burgers etc., but vegetables, legumes, cereals… some of the cheapest products you can buy, especially when compared to meat. So a healthy vegan diet is indeed usually cheaper than an omnivore diet, even including the B12 supplementation, which is really cheap, and maybe even including the sporadic nutritionist visit and blood testing (in case they’re not already part of your public health/medical plan), unless doctor visits are absurdly expensive in your country.
Since this comment got linked to, and we are throwing around anecdotal evidence, I’ll add mine: the animal rights vegan club at my uni had at least one individual quite keen on supplementing (not in a wacky way, mostly commonsensical) and I didn’t hear any push back from the other members. And none of them ever heard of EA. And my very leftist vegan roommate had B12 & Creatine (I assume they took them). And I assume EA is at a equal, likely higher epistemic standpoint.
It makes plenty of sense to me; I think the vast majority of people don’t put any thought into what vitamins they might be deficient in. I was vegan in college for ethical reasons, and I was in the school’s vegan / animal welfare club, and the entire year I was in that club I didn’t hear a single mention of taking supplements to offset what we weren’t getting through our diet. I had never heard about B12 or creatine supplementation until I came to the rationalist community.
And in any case if Elizabeth is trying to study the impact that ~veganism has on micronutrient levels, then comparing [~vegans who don’t take supplements] to [omnivores who don’t take supplements] will give the clearest data.
I don’t doubt your anecdotal experience is as you’re telling it, but mine has been completely different, so much so that it sounds crazy to me to spend a whole year being vegan, and participating in animal advocacy, without hearing mention of B12 supplementation. Literally all vegans I’ve met have very prominently stressed the importance of dietary health and B12 supplementation. Heck, even all the vegan shitposts are about B12!
Even if that might be literally true for scientific purposes (and stressing again that the above project clearly doesn’t have robust scientific evidence as its goal), I do think this won’t be an accurate representation of the picture when presented to the community, since most vegans do supplement [citation needed, but it’s been my extensive personal and online experience, and all famous vegan resources I’ve seen stress this], and thus you’re comparing the non-average vegan to the average omnivore, giving a false sense of imbalance against veganism. As rational as we might try to be, framing of this kind matters, and we all are especially emotional and visceral with regards to something as intimate and personal as our diet. On average, people raised omnivores have strong repulsion towards veganism (so much so as to override ethical concerns), and I think we should take that into account.
It sounds like you’re really passionate about vegan nutrition. Can I suggest channeling that into sharing resources that help naive vegans? Even if you don’t think they’re representative they clearly exist, and if the problem can be solved by linking to existing resources that seems incredibly high return.
Tbh I’m not that passionate, I feel like I’m just doing the necessary minimum to stay completely healthy?
Anyway, of course! But most are just really basic reviews/explainers that are one google search away, to get the big picture of what you need. Some of these are:
Harvard
NHS
BBC
More advanced
For waaay more stuff, see this vegan cheat sheet
And regardless of these resources you should of course visit a nutritionist (even if very sporadically, or even just once when you start being vegan) so that they can confirm the important bullet points, whether what you’re doing broadly works, and when you should worry about anything. (And again, anecdotically this has been strongly stressed and acknowledged as necessary by all vegans I’ve met, which are not few).
The nutritionist might recommend yearly (or less frequent) blood testing, which does feel like a good failsafe. I’ve been taking them for ~6 years and all of them have turned out perfect (I only supplement B12, as nutritionist recommended).
I guess it’s not that much that there’s some resource that is the be-all end-all on vegan nutrition, but more that all of the vegans I’ve met have forwarded a really positive health-conscious attitudes, and stressed the importance of this points.
I’ve also very sporadically engaged with more extensive dietary literature, but mainly in Spanish (for example, Lucía Martínez’s Vegetarianos con ciencia).
There was one very high up guy who ran around vegan ea for years yelling at anyone who suggested veganism required the slight bit more effort, thought, or money. He left in 2018 or 2019 for unrelated reasons but I think he may have done serious long term damage to ea vegan culture in particular.
That’s a pity to hear, since undoubtedly any dietary change or improvement does require some thought (and we also should think about our dietary health regardless of them). That said, I do generally feel the required effort, thought, and money are way less than mainstream opinion usually pictures.
Regarding effort and thought, my experience (and that of all almost all vegans I’ve known who didn’t suffer of already-present unrelated health issues) was that the change did required some effort and thought the first months (getting used to cooking ~15 nutritious comfort vegan meals, checking the labels, possibly visiting your nutritionist for the first time), but it quickly became a habit, as customary as following an omnivore diet.
And regarding money, the big bulk of a healthy vegan diet aren’t meat substitutes, processed burgers etc., but vegetables, legumes, cereals… some of the cheapest products you can buy, especially when compared to meat. So a healthy vegan diet is indeed usually cheaper than an omnivore diet, even including the B12 supplementation, which is really cheap, and maybe even including the sporadic nutritionist visit and blood testing (in case they’re not already part of your public health/medical plan), unless doctor visits are absurdly expensive in your country.
Since this comment got linked to, and we are throwing around anecdotal evidence, I’ll add mine: the animal rights vegan club at my uni had at least one individual quite keen on supplementing (not in a wacky way, mostly commonsensical) and I didn’t hear any push back from the other members. And none of them ever heard of EA. And my very leftist vegan roommate had B12 & Creatine (I assume they took them). And I assume EA is at a equal, likely higher epistemic standpoint.