[vlan0]

>Say, if you are a vegan with a sedentary life style. You're simply not getting enough of the trace elements through the restricted type of food you eat.

I'm unsure what the sedentary life style has to due with not getting adequate nutrition. A balanced vegan diet generally will easily cover all your bases. The only worry is B12, and even that is easily overcome with fortified milk alternatives.

Just look at Jon's food plans for example. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE-LXXVl3u9yJO3WRGTrEoA

Hell, I eat a plant based diet, live a fairly sedentary life style while maintaining a balanced diet, and my full panel blood work taken at six month intervals comes back with no issues.

[Tor3]

> I'm unsure what the sedentary life style has to due with not getting adequate nutrition. A balanced vegan diet generally will easily cover all your bases. The only worry is B12, and even that is easily overcome with fortified milk alternatives.

It's easy: You need a certain amount of trace elements every day: Some iron, some minerals, etc. The food you eat contains a bit of that. If you don't eat enough of that food, you don't get enough of the trace elements. A balanced vegetarian diet is fine, but if you eat little (and you will, if you only need, say, 1500 calories a day), you may not get enough of everything. When that's said, maybe you do - depending on exactly what you eat, but as you said yourself, B12 could be a problem.

Go biking - hard - for four hours after (physical) work, and you'll have to eat enormous amounts (relatively speaking) of the same food, and you'll definitely get enough of everything.

The biggest problem is for those who try to live on uncooked vegetables. For some reason they think that it's just the thing, but humans evolved away from that diet a very long time ago, before we were homo sapiens. We don't have the jaws, the teeth, the guts to digest enough nutrients from raw vegetables only. If you live on that, you'll need supplements.

But let's go back to my initial statement: "The general rule is: You don't need supplements." What you are saying doesn't contradict that. What I meant with my too long additonal comments was just that the more you need to eat (e.g. due to exercise), the less supplements you need - if you ever needed any at all. Which is the opposite of how certain "health" and training magazines state it.

[vlan0]

>But let's go back to my initial statement: "The general rule is: You don't need supplements." What you are saying doesn't contradict that. What I meant with my too long additonal comments was just that the more you need to eat (e.g. due to exercise), the less supplements you need - if you ever needed any at all. Which is the opposite of how certain "health" and training magazines state it.

I did not present a counter argument for your initial statement. That was not my concern and I agree with your statement.

The main issue was the conclusion you were drawing between a sedentary lifestyle on a vegan diet. Considering vegetables are some of the most nutrient-dense foods relative to their calorie content, sedentary vegans following a diet rich in these low-calorie nutrient-dense foods will have an advantage over people who consume animal meat and follow the same calorie count.

[Tor3]

Vegetables are nutrient-dense - no question there. And I was on a mostly vegetarian diet when I did competition bicycling in my youth, simply because I just couldn't get enough nutrients any other way. The problem with a pure vegetarian diet is only that it doesn't cover all your needs, or not completely at least. The trace elements again. If you eat enough of it, no problem in general. If you eat like a bird you may have a problem. And may need some kind of supplements.

[bunderbunder]

FWIW, B12 is something that everyone gets from fortification. It's just that, with animal products, it doesn't need to go on the ingredients label because it gets there by putting it in the animals' feed.