• Question: Are you vegan? would you ever be vegan? Do you think being vegan is healthy for children also is being vegan healthy for adults?

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      Asked by anon-290185 on 15 Mar 2021.
      • Photo: Jesko Koehnke

        Jesko Koehnke answered on 15 Mar 2021:

        I am not a vegan, and I am not a medical doctor. From a biochemical perspective, humans are omnivore and especially children should not be on a vegan diet. People eat too much meat, that creates a whole lot of environmental and ethical issues.
        On the risk of getting into trouble: At home, we only eat animals we hunt and catch. That means a very limited supply of high-quality animal products and sometimes no meat for a long time. I am fine with that though.

      • Photo: Martin McCoustra

        Martin McCoustra answered on 16 Mar 2021:

        No and No… The human animal is an omnivore. Our biology has not evolved to use a vegan diet. There are risks associated with not getting the complete set of vitamins and other things that we need to make our bodies work properly. Yes you can supplement that with pills or being careful with what you eat but it is easier to stick to the diet our bodies evolved to digest.

      • Photo: Ben Esse

        Ben Esse answered on 16 Mar 2021:

        I am not a vegan, but I try to limit the amount of meat and dairy that I eat for environmental reasons (especially beef and lamb), which I guess makes me more of a “flexitarian”. For the question of if it is healthy I would say that I am in no way a medical doctor so my opinion is not based on professional knowledge, but I think that a vegan diet can be perfectly healthy.
        But you have to be very careful to make sure the diet is balanced and that you are getting everything you need, and this is especially the case for children for who not having a complete diet is especially dangerous. This can be quite hard to get right, so you should really research it thoroughly and consider consulting your GP (although this is true for any diet, vegan or otherwise).

      • Photo: Isolda Romero-Canelon

        Isolda Romero-Canelon answered on 16 Mar 2021:

        I am not a vegan and I do not think I would ever be vegan and there is a simple reason for that… I like the taste of meat and one of my favourite foods is bacon.

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