[raffraffraff]

I've been vegetarian for 25 years. I'm male, 45 years old, my resting heart rate is around 50, and I can run 10km in under 50 minutes (and I do this about 3 times per week).

Scroll back 5 years. My wife and I decided to become vegan (for various reasons - carbon footprint, animal welfare, all that jazz). Having been healthy vegetarians for about 20 years, it should have been easy, but regardless, we were meticulous. In fact, not being the "religious" type, and having found out that bi-valves (oysters, clams, scallops etc) don't have the where-with-all to feel pain, I added them to my diet. We just cut out all eggs and dairy.

Now, I can't swear that going vegan caused my health problems, but about a year after going vegan, my overall "vitality" had dropped (I felt tired, but kept up frequent exercise). But the biggest issue was that I couldn't shake off a cold. It would start with the usual sniffle, and within a few days I have a temperature and my lungs would be infected. I went through about a year of constant on-and-off infections. At the worst point, I had two straight months of infection, seemed to shake off for a few weeks, and got it back again for another two months. I was miserable. I was worried it was something really bad like lung cancer. The doctor prescribed me two types of inhaler, lots of antibiotics and told me I had adult onset asthma.

The inhalers helped me manage things, but I really just felt like I was keeping another infection at bay all the time. I went back on eggs and a small amount of dairy. A few months later I was back running. I haven't had a single problem since. 5 years without inhalers.

I have no idea what really caused my issues. My wife developed an intolerance to soy during our veganism. If she eats tofu for a few days, her skin gets itchy and she eventually get a flare up of rosacea (which btw, she had for months until she figured out the soy connection, but it took weeks after cutting out soy and taking meds before it completely cleared up).

The biggest issue I have with a pure vegan diet isn't just cutting out foods, it's the addition of huge amounts of stuff that you normally wouldn't eat in such high amounts (nut milk, nut butter, nut cheese, nut burgers... soy in everything)

I have encountered these militant vegans too. I don't get into arguments, I just say "it's not for me".

[pacomerh]

This hasn't been my experience being vegan. I actually feel great, vitality and everything. My whole family is and they're also fine like everyone else. We just make sure we eat good balanced meals.

[femiagbabiaka]

there are a lot of micronutrients that humans depend on that can be easy to miss out on when you switch to a vegan diet. but this is the case with any "extreme" diet.

[failwhaleshark]

Name even one that cannot be sourced except from animals.

Micros:

- Vitamins: A, B[1,2,3,5,6,7,9,12], C, D, E, K

- Minerals: Ca, P, Mg, Na, Cl, K, S

- Trace minerals: Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, I, F, Se

Or even macros:

- Glucose

- Fiber

- Lipids

- Essential amino acids (EAA's): his, ile, leu, lys, met, phe, thr, trp, val

- Conditionally-essential amino acids (CEAA's): arg, cys, gln, gly, pro, tyr

Your definition of "extreme" is extremely dishonest FUD.

[femiagbabiaka]

Not dishonest, and not FUD. I'm simply stating the obvious -- we have cultural norms around a balanced omnivore diet that happen to include a lot of these micro and macronutrients. Most people don't even think about it and will only be deficient in a subset of micros. When people swap to veganism or vegetarianism they don't have the same cultural norms to fall back on and struggle to fulfill micro and macronutrients, which results in stories like the one upthread. It doesn't do your cause any favors when you ignore people's suffering from lack of nutrition while trying to swap onto it.

As far as the extreme label goes, any highly restrictive diet is extreme. Veganism, carnivore, keto, etc.

[failwhaleshark]

You still don't get it. Whatever you're going on about is only "obvious" to you. "Cultural norms" are your judgements and your biases. There is no mandate to "suffer" from a "lack of nutrition," millions and millions of people are vegetarian and just fine. I'm one of them. My CBC and vitamin panel came back as 100% normal.

Meat agriculture is killing us slowly like cigarettes and cancer, and kills us quickly.

1918 most likely zoonotic route:

Birds -> pigs (at a "piggery") -> humans.

2019 SARS-CoV-2 most likely zoonotic route:

Bats -("wet market")> humans.

You seem to emphasize edge-case FUD and "other" people who don't agree with your value judgements rather than opening your eyes to meat agriculture as a slow-moving existential threat to our survival like and causing climate change.

It's very unfortunate that you're so narrow-minded.

[TheCoelacanth]

They didn't say "cannot be sourced except from animals". They said "easy to miss out on". You're arguing against a strawman.

Anyone switching to a vegan diet certainly would be well-advised to pay attention to micro-nutrients and make sure they have their bases covered.