A natural, healthy and compassionate
diet
To be truly healthful, a diet must be best not just
for individuals in isolation but must allow all six billion people to thrive and achieve a sustainable
coexistence with the many other species that form the "living earth". From this standpoint the natural
adaptation for most (possibly all) humans in the modern world is a vegan diet. There is nothing natural
about the abomination of modern factory farming and its attempt to reduce living, feeling beings to
machines. In choosing to use fortified foods or B12 supplements, vegans are taking their B12 from the same
source as every other animal on the planet - micro-organisms - without causing suffering to any sentient
being or causing environmental damage.
Vegans using adequate amounts of fortified foods or
B12 supplements are much less likely to suffer from B12 deficiency than the typical meat eater. The
Institute of Medicine, in setting the US recommended intakes for B12 makes this very clear. "Because 10 to
30 percent of older people may be unable to absorb naturally occurring vitamin B12, it is advisable for
those older than 50 years to meet their RDA mainly by consuming foods fortified with vitamin B12 or a
vitamin B12-containing supplement." Vegans should take this advice about 50 years younger, to the benefit
of both themselves and the animals. B12 need never be a problem for well-informed vegans.
Good information supports vegan health, pass it
around.
Further information:
- Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin,
Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline, National
Academy Press, 1998 ISBN 0-309-06554-2
- Vitamin B12: Are you getting it?, by Jack
Norris
- Homocysteine in health and disease, ed. Ralph
Carmel and Donald W. Jacobsen, Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN
0-521-65319-3
Endorsers include:
EVA Ethisch Vegetarisch Alternatief, Belgium, www.vegetarisme.be
Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM), www.farmusa.org
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,
www.peta.com
Vegan Action, US, www.vegan.org
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