Rubystars wrote:

> There are fortified vegan foods such as some brands of soy milk and
> breakfast cereals. However if you're going to get enough B12 on a vegan diet
> you must take a supplement. You may also be missing out on some other
> vitamins and minerals unless you include some eggs and milk in your diet. If
> nothing else I must insist you take a good multivitamin.

There simply is no reason a vegan needs to be consuming eggs or milk at
all. Milk especially is *not* a wholesome food these days. I don't know
what necessary nutrients you think you get from milk or eggs that you
cannot obtain from non-animal sources, but for the record your statement
is quite inaccurate.

Re the vitamin B-12, yes it is necessary to supplement this these days,
either through fortified foods such as nutritional yeast and fortified
soy milk, or by using a supplement. In days of yore this would not have
been necessary. The ultimate source of B-12 is from bacteria, for both
humans and animals. Our clean, antiseptic society now prevents us from
getting the bacterial input that would make supplementation unnecessary.
Antibiotics, both in medications and residues in factory-raised animal
foods, kill off bacteria in our mouths and guts that would provide B-12,
and also our food is much cleaner than in our past. This is good from a
disease perspective, but it makes supplementation of this one factor
wise for long-term vegans.

Most non-vegans have enough stored B-12 to last for years, by the way,
unless they have absorption problems. The majority of B-12 deficiency
problems are due to faulty absorption, by the way. For that reason, it
may be best to supplement with sublingual B-12 tablets rather than
relying on a multi-vitamin tablet.

There are healthy vegan diets and unhealthy ones. If you concentrate on
eating a varied diet of whole, relatively unprocessed foods, such as raw
and lightly cooked vegetables of all kinds, sprouted and cooked legumes,
cooked and sprouted whole grains, raw and lightly cooked fresh fruits,
and modest amounts of nuts and seeds, you will be eating a very healthy
diet that will likely be adequate in all the nutrients you need (other
than the B-12). If, on the other hand, you eat a vegan diet that
displaces these wholesome foods with lots of oil, processed grains,
sugars, etc., then you might find yourself very unhealthy. There's no
magic in just eating a vegan diet, other than avoiding the plethora of
toxic contaminants and food-borne illness that animal foods provide.

There is a lot of great information on vegan eating out on the internet.
My favorite source of free information is found at
http://www.drmcdougall.com , particularly the science part of his
website and the newsletter archives, which are loaded with referenced
science. A good book on the subject is "Becoming Vegan", which has been
recommended on this newsgroup many times by many individuals. There's no
doubt whatsoever that a good, healthy vegan diet is possible if you
ditch the junk foods and make good choices.

Karen