Why do you need to take loads of vitamins and supplements if a vegan diet is natural?

I'm not sure who has said a vegan diet is 'natural'; it is a diet choice made mainly by those who want to minimise their contribution to animal suffering and, like vegetarian diets and diets that include meat, a vegan diet can be very healthy or very unhealthy depending on the food eaten.



There is much that is unnatural in many foods and many diets these days.



Some vegans take supplements, as do some vegetarians and some meat-eaters. Shelves in chemists, supermarkets and health food shops groan with bottles of vitamin pills, and it's a thriving online trade; there aren't that many vegans - clearly people with all kinds of diets feel that their diet is lacking and needs supplementing.



Many, if not most, vegans don't take vitamins and supplements - where did you get hold of the idea that they do?



Your friend's illness was not due simply to having a vegan diet - many people thrive on a vegan diet. It may have been due to a poor diet - as I said before, any diet can be unhealthy - or not eating enough. You can see form the number of vegans using this board that there are many healthy vegans, most of them not taking supplements.



Edit* Re brittle bone disease - I am a long term vegan; I am also a middle-aged woman (so at risk for brittle bone disease or osteoporosis) and I'm currently taking medication one of whose side effects is loss of bone mass. And bone scans STILL show I have strong bones. Don't believe everything you read.Why do you need to take loads of vitamins and supplements if a vegan diet is natural?
Where did you hear that you need to take loads of vitamins and supplements if you're a vegan? It's true, vegans need to be very careful about what they eat, to make sure they're getting all their vitamins and nutrients, but all of us do. There are plenty of sources of iron, protein, etc, in the vegan diet.Why do you need to take loads of vitamins and supplements if a vegan diet is natural?
A vegan diet is not natural. You need to take all that extra stuff to make up for the poor diet.
If your friend almost died then they didn't have a balanced diet.



Vegan diets need some planning, but it's totally possible to be a healthy vegan.



A lot of meat eaters take supplements too. Not all vegans take supplements.Why do you need to take loads of vitamins and supplements if a vegan diet is natural?
I'm in contact/know hundreds of vegans and none of us take "loads of supplements" inorder to survive. And we are all healthy and alive!



Your friend clearly didn't know how to provide well enough for herself, and therefor f-d it up for herself.



Any diet can become unhealthy if all you eat is crap.
The fact that you are supporting (**)'s nonsense means you clearly don't want a genuine answer- instead you are seeking a biased ''anti vegan'' response. Veganism is not *dangerous*- that's the most insane thing I have ever heard.



Vegans get a lot of criticism from people like you who know nothing about veganism.



It's easy to be judgemental about things you cannot comprehend yourself.Why do you need to take loads of vitamins and supplements if a vegan diet is natural?
I don't take any supplements or vitamins on my vegan diet, as long as you eat healthily there isn't a problem. Are hormones and antibiotics natural in meat? If your "friend" nearly died it wasn't because she went vegan, you can get ill on any diet if you don't eat healthily.
............. I've been a vegan for almost 10 years, and I've never taken anything........... No doctor has ever suggested I take anything either.......... My mom actually hurt her liver from taking iron pills when she was a vegetarian a few years back.......
its not the diet its how aware the person is of how to balnce the diet. This was completely your firends fault not the fact that shes eating no meat. In fact, a LOT of vegetarians and vegans are haelthier on their new diet then while they eating meat.
You DON'T need to take loads of vitamins and supplements. There is one single, solitary nutrient that is not reliably available on a vegan diet and that is B12. Even that is not evidence that veganism is unnatural; rather, it's a result of chemical agriculture that most soils no longer support the bacterium that produces B12. There is a vegan tribe of nomads in Iran that gets plenty of B12 from root vegetables they pull from untainted soil, but most of us in the developed world eat root vegetables from more sterile soil (not to mention the fact that we wash the dirt off anyway.)



I'm sorry that your friend got sick eating a vegan diet, but he was clearly not eating a varied, balanced, healthy vegan diet. If he was, he'd have found that it's a rich source of nutrients. Even the American Dietetic Association concurs that a properly planned vegan diet is appropriate and healthy for people of all life stages.
I don't take any vitamins and I am healthy.



Meat causes way more illnesses than being Vegan. What is the point of coming on here to start something. Go to the politics category.
The only vegans that take supplements are the ones that don't eat right. Do some research before you make a fool out of yourself again.