Preface
Briefing description and more.
We provide possible reasons you may not be feeling well on your vegan diet.
Companion Videos
How to use companion videos
Videos may be posted on multiple social media platforms, and you can share them on each platform according each platform’s conventions.
Share this Briefing
Social Media Sharing Image
This image will be used when sharing the briefing on a social media platform. You can see all social sharing images in the grid view.
How to share this briefing
Click on the icon for the platform on which you wish to share. What happens next depends on the platform, but generally a popup will appear, letting you add your own text as you share.
Briefing Meta
Metrics
Additional media and advocacy resources are on the way, though not every briefing will feature every type of media.
| Text: | |
| Key Points | 11 |
| Counterclaims | 0 |
| Advocacy Notes | 0 |
| Footnotes | 9 |
| Media: | |
| Companion Videos | 0 |
| Memes and Infographics | 0 |
| Presentation Slides | 0 |
| Flash Cards | 0 |
Other Meta
Date Posted:
Last Edited:
Contributors
Help Us Improve
Please send your suggestions for improvements, or report any issues with this briefing to team@vbriefings.org
We appreciate that you are taking the time to help up improve. All suggestions and reports will be carefully considered.
Summary
A concise summary of the briefing (see below for citations).
There may be a reason or reasons that someone feels unwell on a vegan diet, such as underlying health conditions, insufficient calorie intake, consuming too much junk food, or sensitivities and allergies surfaced by trying new foods.
Individual dietary needs vary, but there is no scientific basis for the necessity of animal products. Some people may need time to adjust to a vegan diet, and initial discomfort may subside as the body acclimates.
Major dietary and health organizations agree that a vegan diet and be healthy and protective against chronic disease, but, as with other dietary patterns, you may be lacking in a nutrient or nutrients. So supplementing certain nutrients under a doctor’s recommendation may help.
Negative experiences with a vegan diet might improve on a second attempt, considering the various factors that can affect well-being.
Finally, some may exaggerate or feign the illness, subconsciously or not, as an excuse to give up on their vegan diet.
Context
Places this topic in its larger context.
Occasionally we hear of someone who says they got sick, didn’t feel well, or lacked energy on a vegan diet. While this is the opposite of what most new vegans experience, it’s heard enough to warrant a response.
More often than not, these kinds of assertions are made without a professional diagnosis. And without a diagnosis, it’s hard to say the cause of this for any one individual. Determining the cause of a condition is a complex process best left to your doctor.
Nevertheless, we examine some possibilities and try to shed a little light on the topic, offering the following points gleaned from firsthand reports, personal experience, and those qualified to weigh in.
Key Points
This section provides talking points.
Keep in mind that we know of no nutrients that must come from animal products.
When the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Mayo Clinic, Harvard Public Health, Cleveland Clinic, and others say1 that plant-based diets are adequate and even advantageous, they do not say “except that certain people must have meat, dairy, or eggs.” Nor do they qualify their statements by pointing out nutrients that are difficult to obtain unless you eat animal products.
Science knows of no nutrient that cannot be obtained—and obtained in sufficient quantities for good health—outside the animal kingdom.
Your malady may be caused by something other than your diet in general or your vegan diet in particular.
When you combine the fact that people get sick or feel bad for a multitude of reasons with the fact that self-diagnosis is often wrong, it seems at least possible that your troubles may not be caused by a vegan diet—or even by any diet at all. People get sick all the time and attribute that to various reasons, often without adequate justification.
Bio-individuality does not confer a need for animal products.
Sometimes the claim is made that because we are all different a vegan diet is not for everyone. It’s true that bio-individuality may justifiably cause you to restrict or supplement your diet, but such restrictions have no connection to a vegan diet.
For example, if you have an allergy, you should avoid foods that trigger that allergy. If you are prone to kidney stones, you may decide to restrict oxalates and sodium.2 If you have absorption problems with any particular nutrient, you may want to supplement for that nutrient. People with diabetes will want to minimize fatty foods and added sugars.3
But there is no scientific basis for saying that any given individual should not eat vegan because that individual is unique. The color of our hair and eyes, our height, and our body proportions, for instance, do not dictate which foods to eat.
Some attempts to link physical or physiological traits to an optimum diet (attempts such as the blood-type diet), are regarded by the scientific community as lacking credibility.4
Your body may need more time to acclimate.
Your body may need more time to adjust to the new way of eating. Some feel sickly and weak when they first start on a vegan diet. Then, as their body adjusts, these feelings go away and the nutritional advantages of a plant-based diet start to be realized.
You may be eating too much vegan junk food.
The science is clear that leaving animal products off the plate reduces your risks for chronic disease5, but that alone does not guarantee a healthy diet.
You might not be getting enough nutrients because you are consuming too much vegan junk food, such as Oreos, potato chips, and cola.
You may not be getting enough calories.
Animal products and vegetable oils are calorie dense, while fruits and vegetables are nutrient dense.
It takes more pounds of fruits and vegetables to fill a stomach with any a given amount of calories then is does to fill a stomach with meat.6
So if you are eating the same volume of plant foods as you previously ate of animal foods, it’s possible you are not getting enough calories.
You may have introduced a food that causes a mild allergic reaction.
When you adopt a vegan, plant-based diet, it’s likely you will be eating a number of foods you didn’t previously consume. It’s possible that one of those foods will contain an allergen.
Your body might need a different mix of macronutrients
If your metabolism is high or you are an endurance athlete, you might benefit from a higher percentage of complex carbs.
If you are a bodybuilder or you have a job that constantly rips muscle tissue that needs to be rebuilt, you may need more protein.
You may be deficient in vitamin B12.
Vegans should ensure that they are getting adequate B12 by supplementing. Known symptoms of B12 deficiency include fatigue and weakness, but a deficiency can also lead to more serious disorders7
If you started a vegan diet recently, your chance of being deficient in B12 is probably small unless you started with a deficiency. This is because your body normally stores enough to last well over a year.8
You may be using the vegan diet as an excuse, subconsciously or not.
It’s true that a small number of people have health-related issues that are triggered by the transition to a vegan diet. But it’s also likely that in some cases, such issues are used as an excuse to give up on their vegan diet. And for some, this could be on a subconscious level.
Humans are experts at rationalization, as Ben Franklin realized when he said, “So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.9
Some do well on the second attempt.
Some have reported that on the second attempt at eating vegan, they did not experience any problems and instead felt better, as most of us have experienced.
Given the benefits of [[veganism]] to the animals, the planet, the starving and impoverished, and your own health, please consider trying again, taking into consideration the information presented above.
Counterclaims
Responses to some yes but retorts.
Counterclaims are often not included in objection-type briefings because the objection itself functions as a form of counterargument.
Supplementary Info
Additional information that may prove useful.
None provided.
Further Study
Sources providing a deeper understanding of the topic or related topics.
Other Resources
None yet.
Advocacy Resources
Information to help with outreach and advocacy.
Additional media and advocacy resources are on the way, though not every briefing will feature every type of media.
Share This Briefing
Cloned from the Preface Section on page load.
Companion Videos
Cloned from the Preface Section on page load.
Memes and Infographics
No images found.
How to use Memes and Infographics
To sequence through all memes and infographics on this page, click on any image than use the arrow keys or the arrow buttons to show next and previous images.
To share a meme or infographic, right click on the image and choose download or save as. Then upload the image to the platform of choice.
Presentation Slides
Slides not available.
How to Use the Presentation Slides
You can view the slideshow full screen by clicking on the first link above.
To use Canva presenter mode, view the speaker notes, or download the slides as PowerPoint, login to Canva (the free account works) and follow the Full Canva Link provided above.
To copy this presentation to your own Canva project, use the Full Canva Link provided above, then select File->Make a Copy from the upper left. You can build your own unique presentation from multiple briefings by copying the presentation from each briefing and then building another presentation from the copied presentations.
Flash Cards
We partner with Brainscape because of their excellent features for learning. You will need to create a free Brainscape account to study the cards.
About Flash Cards and Brainscape
Flash cards are here to help you commit important facts and concepts in this briefing to memory.
In Brainscape, there is one deck for each briefing. You can study more than one deck at a time. Brainscape uses spaced repetition to promote memory retention. It is “the secret to learning more while studying less.”
You can study using your browser, but Brainscape also has a free mobile app that makes learning anywhere easy.
Advocacy Notes
Tips for Advocacy and Outreach
This is a paragraph.
Footnotes
Our sources, with links back to where they’re used.
- Citations for these organizations and more can be found on our briefing on vegan diets ↩︎
- “Kidney Stones | Health Topics | NutritionFacts.Org.” Accessed August 9, 2018. https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/kidney-stones/ ↩︎
- Barnard, Neal. “Does Sugar Cause Diabetes?”. The Physicians Committee, August 7, 2017. ↩︎
- Cusack L, De Buck E, Compernolle V, Vandekerckhove P. Blood type diets lack supporting evidence: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Jul;98(1):99-104. Epub 2013 May 22. PMID: 23697707. ↩︎
- Our briefing on vegan diets clearly shows that there is a scientific consensus regarding this. ↩︎
- Jeff Novick, MS, RD. “Calorie Density Approach to Nutrition and Weight Management.” Forks over Knives, 19 June 2012. ↩︎
- Vitamin B12, Mayo Clinic, July 17, 2021 ↩︎
- Folate, Institute of Medicine (US) Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes and its Panel on. ”Estimation of the Period Covered by Vitamin B12 Stores”. National Academies Press (US), 1998. ↩︎
- “Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. AmazonClassics, 2017. 48-49 ↩︎
