There are many different diets in this world that people may or man not choose to go on. There are vegetarian diets, vegan diets, paleo diets, lactose free diets, gluten free diets, and many more. Some of these diets people choose to go on, and some of them people are forced to go on because of health reasons. Even though some of these diets have positive benefits for some people, there has been research done that shows that going vegan is actually not healthier.
According to Kris Gunnars from Authority Nutrition, there are many reasons why going vegan is not healthy for a human being. Since humans are omnivores, we need to eat both plants and animals in order to obtain our vitamins. Vitamin B-12 that is is crucial to brain functioning and blood creation cannot be found in plants. People who are vegan do not get enough of this vitamin which can be unhealthy and dangerous. Other nutrients that people who go vegan do not obtain are animal proteins, creatine, carnosine and DHA. Gunnars also talks about how there aren’t studies to prove that vegan diets are healthier. A study done by Stanford University compared two diets and recorded the differences in health. They compared a low-fat and high-carb diet to a vegan diet. In the end, it turned out that the low-fat and high-carb diet was healthier and lost more weight than the vegan diet. Even though there are some experiments that study vegan diets and their healthiness, these studies are only observational in nature and do not prove that vegan diets are healthy.
On the other hand, there are many studies that show that veganism is healthy and benefits humans. The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC) at Oxford University has done many studies on the effect of veganism on heart disease. Their most recent 2013 compared the health results of people who were vegan to those who were not. After 16 years of experimenting being vegan or not being vegan, it was found that the people who were vegan had 30% less of a risk of heart disease than non-vegans.
A study led by Dr. Michael Orlich and Dr. Gary Fraser at a university in southern California experimented the relationship between distend deaths in a population of Adventist men and women. The participants were similar in their current health but had different diet patterns. Almost half of the population were non-vegetarian or non-vegan, and the rest had dietary restrictions. After a period of 6 years, there was count of 2,570 deaths, and most of these deaths were non-vegetarians. At the end of this experiment, it was found that some vegan diets can reduce death and illness rates.
Some say the lack of nutrients is unhealthy for the body, but others say the lack of some foods is good for the body. Since there is research supporting both positive and negative effects of veganism on health, it is hard to say whether it is actually healthy.
Vegan diets in my point of view are majorly unhealthy in the sense that they do not provide the required nutrients and minerals needed to carry a healthy life. They cut off way to many food types that at the end what is really much left. When I decided to be a vegetarian by doctor told me that it was a good choice however though I was going to be missing some vitamins as part of my diet and so he recommend taking vitamin B-12 to replace what meat and other produce had to offer. I think vegetarian diet is the best way to go if you are looking for a healthy lifestyle.