Who are you kidding, its the latest fad. And whilst it might seem harmless, i’d like to propose that it in in fact, the exact opposite.
The vegan diet is one without any animal products in whatsoever, no milk, eggs, honey, butter etc. So imagine this, you’ve quit eating the majority of foods that were central to your original diet (and I say this as a devout vegetarian) and you’re good at controlling this. That’s the essential word: control. This diet encourages a very, very unhealthy relationship with food, establishing borders and order in a way that changes your lifestyle and not for the better.
“But Novak Djokovic does it!” (or replace Novak with any well-known vegan athlete). And its true, but the diet of an athlete is strictly controlled anyways and a full-time nutritionist is on call.
As well as this, all of a sudden you can’t necessarily go out and eat with friends, for fear that there will be no vegan options and worse yet, these very same friends won’t even notice when you eat alarmingly little throughout the day because of the throw away “sorry, I can’t, its not vegan”. Your social relationships suffer.
I am also a strong believer in maintaining nutrients that I would get from a meat diet, in my vegetarian one. I tend to do this by eating butter, milk and cheese, eggs and occasionally fish. Nutritionalists all know that in order to do this, a vegan must ingest supplements, and as far as I know, none of my vegan friends do. Vegan diets do not provide enough vitamin A and D, vitamin K2, B12 and iron. YOU WILL BE DEFICIENT IN THESE IF YOU DO NOT TAKE SUPPLEMENTS. It is not debatable.
But my frustration comes not from the fact that veganism is harming your body and your energy levels if not done with an expert level of precision and care but the harrowing breakdown of the mind that you sign up for, ironically for the sake of your ‘health’. Perhaps one day when controlling you food isn’t associated with weight-loss and a Summer body and the real reason remains solely a moral one, we’ll be ready for the vegan diet. But for now, if you’re happy, you’re healthy.