Ok yes, optimal no. You cant say a diet (vegan) that requires artificial produced supplementation (vitamin b12) in order for you to survive is the optimal diet for humans. It just doesn’t make any sense. If our ancestors ate vegan diets before we had mastered science we literally would not be alive having this conversation because they would have all perished of anaemia.
> on top of that the longest living populations are mostly eating plant-based diet.
The longest living populations are eating diets that are heavy on plants yes, but not vegetarian or vegan. If anything, the blue zones have a higher proportion of fish intake than elsewhere.
And I went off on the bodybuilder tangent because the original commenter specifically asked about a line in my story which was to do with me hitting my macros and trying to find lean protein sources in order to do that. At the time, I was doing bodybuilding and CrossFit so it was relevant to the question asked.
You know animals don't produce B12 as well, right? They come from bacteria in the soil.
> The longest living populations are eating diets that are heavy on plants yes, but not vegetarian or vegan.
Take a look at the Seven-day Adventist study (the population with the highest longevity ever recorded). Between this group, the ones excluding all animal products from the diet actually live longer than the rest.
Good luck with your soil recipes.
> Take a look at the Seven-day Adventist study (the population with the highest longevity ever recorded). Between this group, the ones excluding all animal products from the diet actually live longer than the rest.
Not true. Pesco-vegetarians had a lower death rate.
Farm animals eat tons of added B12 in their feed.
Grazing animals get their B12 from dirt, because they don't wash their greens.
If you purchase B12 fortified vegan foods, you don't have to eat supplements.
When you wash your salads and don't eat fortified foods, then you should eat B12 supplements ... there are vegan B12 supplements from algae on the market.
Wtf.
> Not true. Pesco-vegetarians had a lower death rate.
They are not statistically distinguishable.
> The longest living populations are eating diets that are heavy on plants yes, but not vegetarian or vegan.
The people longest living at the adventist church are pesco-vegetarians which are not vegetarians as far as I’m concerned. Also as far as I’m aware, there is no significant difference between the Adventist church goers in terms of life expectancy and the other blue zones, which are also consuming small to moderate amounts of meat, dairy, fish and alcohol.
It’s like saying getting vitamin D fortified milk is superior to taking the fortification yourself.
I bet this cashes out into the appeal to fallacy. Frankly I see no reason why the optimal human diet can’t be some undiscovered 100% artificial diet that we can synthesize from scratch. To say otherwise, including your b12 belief, leads to some pretty hilarious reductios.
The other thing to consider is amino acid profile. Milk and eggs have a full amino acid profile but vegan sources are normally incomplete. This means to get all the protein your body needs you have to consume multiple protein sources. And bioavailability: just because you consume 1g of protein doesn’t mean your body can necessarily use that entire gram. Vegan proteins tend to have the lowest bioavailability, often in the 0.7 to 0.8 range meaning you have to consume more of them for the same result. Which is problematic as it means you’re now consuming more carbs and fats knocking your macros further out of whack.
It is doable, it is just very hard work. Here is a vegan bodybuilder with 13.7% body fat percentage after 4 years.
https://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/a33807797/bodybuilder-v...
The other thing complicating matters nowadays is steroids, SARMS and TRT. If people are on them it makes life significantly easier: there were studies done that showed people on steroids doing absolutely nothing (no workouts whatsoever) still built more muscle than people who were natural (no steroids) doing hours of hard bodybuilding gym workouts. They are absolutely rampant, far more than people realise. For what it’s worth looking at this guy, I don’t think he’s doing roids. His physique is achievable without them. But I might be wrong.
Also, heart disease is absolutely rampant in India. So not the best country to be using as an example.