Comment by PretzelPirate | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PretzelPirate | Hacker News Reader

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> Probably going to be short lasted, as the nutritional deficiencies caused by those products start to produce symptoms. >... > I know all this because I’ve been vegan for 5+ years and i had to study a lot to >... > The processed products on the market are not good for you.

You appear to have a bias and are proclaiming that everyone will soon align with your bias.

I've been vegan for over 13 years and eat a ton of processed vegan foods, a lot of oil, and don't have a ton of fresh fruits of vegetables. Clearly my diet isn't as healthy as yours, but it's close to the typical American diet.

My latest checkup and blood test show that all of my key health indicators are in the middle of the healthy range and my organs are all working as expected.

It's unlikely that, in general, people will notice some nutritional deficit from eating plant-based mock meat and dairy products and stop purchasing them.

I knew a smoker who lived to 90. I'm not sure how either of our anecdotes are valuable here.

Yours less so. The commenter made an extraordinary claim, without evidence, that nutritional deficiencies would soon appear as a result of vegan food. The responder at least cited personal evidence that despite being on a vegan diet for 13 years they have had no abnormal blood work. Obviously it’s not as valuable as a well constructed large scale study, but it’s at least marginally better than literally nothing.

This is an example of something you aren't going to disprove in a large study. It is known that people relying too heavily on processed food makers suffer deficiencies and a reasonable hypothesis that food processing working with less choices will raise the rates of some deficiencies. A change on the order of 1 in 10 000 vegans is not going to show up in an affordable study but in something suspiciously close to an opinion piece in a rag newspaper.

> eat a ton of processed vegan foods, a lot of oil

All you're convincing me of here is that it's easy for a typical vegan diet to be incredibly unhealthy.

Well, it's true. Artificially limiting your choices imposes hardships, not opportunities.

It’s up to you. But it’s the same with an omnivore diet, hot pockets and coke isn’t too healthy either.

> You appear to have a bias (...)

Nutritionists everywhere point out the fact that diets which exclude whole food groups don't guarantee an adequate supply of some key nutrients, and in some cases require taking supplements to avoid suffering from health issues.

And you refer to that fact as "bias", to try to dismiss it?

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