Is the Vegan diet the most healthy diet in the world?!

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A vegan diet can be very healthy or very unhealthy, depending on what's eaten. The same is true of a vegetarian diet and a diet that includes meat.

Yes, we're omnivores. Omnivores are able to survive and thrive on a plant only diet if they have to ... or if they choose to. It's one of the advantages we omnivorous species have over carnivores and herbivores.

The trouble is, the 'health and longevity benefits ' you mention are often exaggerated and even invented by vegans. And I say that as a vegan of 16 years.

The Vegetarian and Vegan section of YA is full of such unsubstantiated claims - such as that a vegan diet can prevent (and even reverse) cancer, or that diabetes can be reversed by a vegan diet.

These claims are nonsense, and make all vegans look silly.

Nor is there any actual evidence that vegans live longer (or shorter) lives than anyone else.

I had been a vegan for more than 8 years (and an 'almost vegan' for decades) when I was diagnosed with an advanced cancer. I was also a juicing enthusiast, starting most days with green juice. None of this prevented my cancer, or cured it, and I'd be foolish to rely on it to prevent recurrence or metastasis.

Through cancer support networks I've met 5 other vegans who have or have had cancer, one of them a lifelong vegan.

I'm not suggesting that vegans are any more likely than anyone else to develop cancer; just that they are as likely as anyone else to do so, and should not trust in unsubstantiated claims for the health benefits of veganism to protect them.

Personally, as the daughter of a doctor who raised me this way, it is an ambitious undertaking that is worth trying.

I suggest that you try it. See how you feel after three weeks and after six weeks. You make the decision then. It is simply a personal thing.

Did you know being completely vegan would keep you from eating honey and marsh-mellows? Bees make honey which makes it an animal product. Marsh-mellows are made with gelatin which is usually made from cow's hooves, so it too is an animal product. Being vegan will require lots of research and label reading.

Hi Jade,

We are 'hunter gatherers' by nature - or, at least, we WERE way back when ! The problem these days, I believe, is that 'they' play excessively with our food - to the point often that I wonder if what they sell is really 'food' any more.

The other problem is that meals seem to be constructed these days around the meat component - i.e. lots of meat and not a lot of the non-meat components - effectively, the meat is considered the CORE component, and the accompaniments far less important. We have lost the sense of balance when putting meals together.

As you suggest, natural, unprocessed food is far better for us. If this includes meat in a balanced proportion (if you can find meat free from hormones, chemicals, etc. that is!) then it can be a healthy diet.

You are wise to ask about veganism before launching into it - as one of the other respondants pointed out, there will be several foods you probably won't expect to be ruled out - but vegans don't eat any animal product, nor anything which comes from animals. To take on a vegan diet and ensure that you get all the nutrients you need to stay healthy, requires a lot of research, and a lot of planning. Done properly, it IS a very healthy diet.

I'm a Naturopath

Not even close.

There is a very good reason there has never been a vegan society on this planet.

No, it is not.

Man is an omnivore. Embrace your omnivorism!

no.