Nutrient Intake and Status in Adults Consuming Plant-Based Diets Compared to Meat-Eaters: A Systematic Review

FAB RESEARCH COMMENT:

This systematic review of 141 studies found that compared with omnivores, adults consuming vegetarian and vegan diets were significantly more likely to show multiple essential nutrient deficiencies. 

So-called 'plant-based' diets are widely promoted as having benefits for health as well as the environment - and this review concludes by repeating this as though it were established fact - which it is not. This simplistic claim is simply not evidence-based, as it fails to take into account two crucial facts.

1) 'Plant-based' is NOT the same as vegetarian (excluding meat and fish) - let alone vegan (excluding ALL animal derived foods - i.e. meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products).  Most traditional human diets have been plant-based - but ALL have always included at least some animal derived foods, because strictly plant-pased (vegan) diets simply cannot support human suvival, let alone fertility, healthy reproduction and brain growth.  

With respect to health, as this systematic review itself shows, vegan and vegetarian diets compared with omnivorous ones provide signficantly lower anounts of many key nutrients that are absolutely essential for brain and body health - including the long-chain omega-3 fats (EPA and DHA), vitamin B12, vitamin D, iron, zinc, iodine, and calcium.

The most commonly cited diet for supporting cardiovascular, metabolic and brain health is the so-called 'Mediterranean-type' diet (originally modelled on the traditional diet of Crete - because the first studies to investigate dietary patterns in relation to health in developed countries found that that the Cretan diet was the one most strongly linked linked to freedom from degenerative diseases.

While any traditional Mediterrean-type diets are 'plant-based' in terms of the proportions of different foods consumed, their defining features incude frequent consumption of fish and seafood, as well as meat, eggs and dairy products. 

Importantly, in all traditional diets, these animal-derived foods are also consumed in fresh or minimally processed form - NOT as the industrially produced, ultra-processed versions most common in modern, western-type diets. 

2) The Environmental effects of food production depend on the methods used in every stage of the production, storage, packaging, transport and distribution of that food (including all inputs and ingredients, as well as the energy, labour and capital costs involved).

Again - fish and seafood, meat, eggs and dairy products produced via tradtional rather than large-scale, highly industrialised 'factory farming' methods, are not only highly nutritious, but are also sustainable, and less damaging to the environment.


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