The Big Deficiency Scare (Boo!)

Myth 4: Vegan/Vegetarian diets put you at risk for deficiency!

I think that most of us know that deficiency is a big problem in impoverished and famine stricken places. In the developed world we tend to develop diabetes, cancer and heart disease at a much greater rate than incidences of nutritional deficiencies. However, you still get journalists, professors, Ph.D.s, your grandparents and ultimately marketers warning you of the high risks of vegetarians and vegans developing some sort of deficiency; be it protein, iron, calcium, EFAs or the latest, B-12.  Have you ever met anyone dying or suffering from B-12 deficiency? I ask myself, how have the hundreds of generations of long ago societies survived on vegetarian and vegan diets without the nitpicking nutrient deficiency jive of modern day fear-mongers? I call them fear-mongers because they seem to thrive on fear; whether it be for financial gain, for control of a population or for an acceptance/exaltation by a certain group or entity and thus, feeding fear. If I spent as much time fretting over where my next dose of B-12, Vitamin D, Iodine, etc. was going to come from and how to absorb it with specific food combining, on and on...I'd die of a stress induced condition like hypertension before I perfected the science or before I benefited from the extra years that my veg diet is supposed to give me.

So, therefore, my uneducated, precariously eating, vegetarian ancestors must have had less disease and deficiency from some scientific strategy they extracted out of the future experts through a time capsule, right? Now, if I remember correctly, the instruction given through documented methods and statistics such as those in books like "Bragg Healthy Lifestyle" and "Back to Eden" researched, tested, proven and written before most of us were even born and from the mouths of the elderly members of my family, community or the countless other records of pre-21st century successful veg folks, the focus seems to be that healthy vegetarian diets are based on a variety of balanced, minimally processed, whole foods, as simple as that. And I believe them! Because, they have proven themselves already by doing so and being no more deficient than their meat eating peers. Not to imply that nutrition deficiency is not at all possible. Sure, you can choose to be a picky eating, processed meal enthusiast, Twinkie-tarian (well, maybe not so extreme - but I think you get my drift) like so many I see handing the kids McDonald's french fries and calling it breakfast. An overwhelming amount of people who practice the SAD (Standard American Diet) fall into the state of over-nutrition as well as malnutrition from their damaging eating habits - feel free to do a search on the subject or just take a look around you.

I'm heading off on a slight tangid here: Every time I get a glimpse at someone trying to pick apart the vegetarian/vegan diet by using the one or two incidents of vegetarian/vegan parents driving their baby into malnutrition, I want to ask about the thousands of meat eating families driving their kids not only into malnutrition or over-nutrition but, childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and the high-risk category for heart disease/ heart attacks and eventually social ineptness leading to suicidal tendencies or worse - where are the breaking headlines on that? Oh, that's right - we have been involved in this travesty to such epidemic proportions for over a decade now making it a common, everyday fact of life. Can you live with that? I know I can't!

Back on track now: I have run into quite a few iron and calcium deficient meat eaters while my husband and I can't recall any vegetarian/vegan friends that we have had or met stating that they were deficient in anything or appearing as such. I, myself, had suffered from chronic anemia as a meat eating child, up until I went vegan and have since been told by my medical doctors that they cannot detect any anemia in me. I have habitually visited my GP over the past seven years for a complete yearly checkup including a nutritional evaluation of which I have passed with flying colors each time. I have read that women are more prone to low iron levels or blood levels due to different factors including menstruation, so they usually handle it by upping their iron intake (and this information is based on the greater majority of women, i. e. non-vegetarian women). Balance is key, whether you are vegetarian or not, we can all fall into deficiency if we make choices like the aforementioned Twinkie-tarians. So why are we as vegetarians supposed to be more careful than non-vegetarians in relation to deficiency? The only answer I can figure is to sell a product, supplement, program, book or meat based diet; none of which will benefit me more than eating a variety of nutritious vegan food.