Thanks a lot! I very much agree, especially on avoiding black-and-white thinking. Nutrition education that helps people see the different goals and trade-offs, rather than just "good" or "bad" foods, seems really valuable to me.

I'd add that personally, I think changing the food environment has an even bigger impact than education. We tend to follow the path of least resistance, so regardless of what people think is best, they often end up choosing whatever is easiest, cheapest, or just the default.

And I really love your point about fun! That's one of the main points of eating in the first place, and also the path of least resistance. :)

Thanks, I really appreciate the thoughtful comment.

On the BDA guidance, I agree that nutrition associations are a valuable source of expertise. However, their primary role is to prevent deficiencies in the general population. Their vegan-specific advice is often rather superficial and leaves out a lot of relevant context. For example, on zinc, the BDA acknowledges that absorption from plant foods is lower, but doesn't explain important practical implications: vegans often have relatively low intakes when taking into account bioavailability, and supplements are typically formulated for both men and women despite men having higher zinc requirements. This is where vegan organisations can add value.

I want to emphasise that I don't argue that vegan diets are inherently "either a lot of effort or inadequate". Many of the challenges I discuss arise from the current food environment, and I think we should work on changing it so that healthy vegan diets require less knowledge and effort. That's also why I strongly agree with your point about fortification. I found the FEED study encouraging for exactly that reason, and I think it supports your point that things have improved at least in some areas. B12 is a good example of where I think the vegan movement has done very well: the need for supplementation is widely communicated, and plant-based alternatives are now commonly fortified with B12. More generally, I think plant-based milk in particular has been quite a success story in terms of fortification. A recent UK study found that in 2024, 71% of non-organic plant-based milk alternatives were fortified with B12, 84% with vitamin D and 88% with calcium. The UK food environment has also specifically incentivised calcium fortification in plant-based drinks. To me, that shows how better information and better product formulation can reduce nutritional challenges.

At the same time, these improvements are not universal. In the UK and EU, organic plant-based products are not fortified, and the food environment has adapted much less comprehensively to several other nutritional issues, such as protein, EPA/DHA, zinc, iodine and vitamin A. The broader FEED data also give a mixed picture, with vegans showing less favourable results across a number of nutrients. It is also worth noting that FEED is a separate contemporary cohort from EPIC-Oxford, recruited in part through organisations including the Vegan Society and Vegetarian Society, rather than a longitudinal follow-up of the EPIC-Oxford participants. I would therefore be cautious about interpreting the FEED findings as showing "major improvements in diet quality in vegans" in general. More research is needed.

On pregnancy, I agree that this is a sensitive topic and that individual advice should come from qualified health professionals. But I think there is an important distinction between giving individual advice and discussing at a general level what the available evidence and different nutrition authorities say, including where there is uncertainty or disagreement. This piece is not intended as a guide for individual advice, but as a commentary on movement communication strategy.

On the broader point that most people are unlikely to go vegan soon, I completely agree. I strongly support focusing on increasing the proportion of plant foods in people's diets and I agree that plant-based alternatives can make that much easier. This post focuses specifically on vegan nutrition because that is where the communication problem I'm examining arises, not because I think veganism is the only or even the main near-term pathway to reducing animal product consumption at the population level.

I also agree with much of what you say about alternatives like mycoprotein and extruded vegetable protein, and I'm actually quite excited about the potential of alternative proteins more generally. My point on UPFs is mainly that there is huge variation in nutritional quality, and most people can't easily distinguish weaker from better products. I therefore think the vegan movement should be more willing to criticise weaker products and highlight better ones based on concrete nutritional dimensions such as protein content, fortification or additives, rather than focusing primarily on countering concerns about UPFs in general.

Given that you raise the importance of clinical expertise in several places, I want to mention that I took that seriously and asked several people with relevant clinical or nutrition backgrounds to review it before publication, including Ginny Messina, who provided extensive feedback. She is a registered dietitian who has co-authored two earlier position papers on vegetarian diets for the US Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and has long advocated for more evidence-based vegan nutrition communication (for example here). At the same time, I think the discussion ultimately has to focus on the evidence and arguments themselves. Nutrition experts also disagree on many of these questions, so if you think I make any specific factual claims that are incorrect or insufficiently supported, I'd genuinely be interested to hear which ones, and whether you see them as load-bearing for the broader argument.

Thanks again for engaging so thoughtfully!

I think an important point here is that the primary goal of nutrition authorities is to prevent deficiencies in the general population. I therefore don't think vegan organisations should just reproduce official recommendations. They should of course stay aligned with them, but add context that is relevant specifically for vegans.

The Dutch protein recommendation is actually a good example: it applies a 1.3 factor for vegans because of lower protein digestibility, whereas many other national recommendations don't make such an adjustment. That's of course not because Dutch vegans have higher protein requirements. One plausible explanation for differences like this is that nutrition authorities have limited resources and may not prioritise issues that primarily affect small minorities like vegans. This is where vegan organisations can add value. So if the official recommendations in a country do not include a vegan-specific adjustment, I think it makes sense for vegan organisations to provide that additional guidance themselves. I don't see this as conflicting with official recommendations, because those tell us about the minimum intake for adequacy, not the optimal intake. For example, the interview with Don Layman that I linked at the relevant timestamp in the protein section explains this distinction quite well with regard to the 0.8 g/kg/day protein recommendation.

I agree, though, that it is important to be transparent that there is no consensus on the optimal protein intake. So I think a more precise version of my proposed narrative could be: we don't currently know the optimal protein intake, but based on the available evidence, around 1.2–1.6 g/kg/day is a plausible target range for healthy adults, with particularly strong evidence for higher intakes in groups such as older adults, people losing weight, and those doing resistance training. That's what I had earlier condensed into "vegans should ideally aim for around 1.2–1.6 g/kg/day." There is always a trade-off between nuance and accessibility, and different organisations have to decide where to strike that balance depending on their audience.

Regarding pregnancy and zinc, thanks for taking this back to your team. :)

Thanks, this is really helpful context.

I took a closer look at the NVV nutrition pages, and my impression is actually that the information there is exceptionally evidence-based and detailed compared with most vegan nutrition communication I've seen. It is also helpful that the Dutch dietary recommendations themselves are relatively nuanced in some areas, for example by applying a 1.3 factor to protein recommendations for vegans to account for lower digestibility.

I agree with your point about scientific consensus and definitely don't think vegan organisations should jump on every new study or give advice that contradicts established evidence. At the same time, I don't see a conflict between the approach I'm proposing and following the scientific consensus. On protein specifically, saying that higher intakes may be beneficial does not seem to me to conflict with established recommendations, and I'd be curious whether there are other parts of what I propose that you think depart from the scientific consensus. More generally, I think we can cite established intake recommendations while making clear that they are primarily designed to prevent deficiency, that deficiency is not the same as inadequate or suboptimal intake, and that vegans often fall short on certain nutrients. We can also be transparent where major nutrition authorities do not fully agree, since that often reflects remaining uncertainty in the evidence. On zinc, for example, the NVV follows the Dutch recommendations but does not mention that EFSA recommends substantially higher intakes for high-phytate diets, which vegan diets typically are. On pregnancy, the page highlights supportive nutrition authorities without mentioning more cautious positions from others, while also citing the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' expired 2016 position paper.

These are areas where I still see some room for improvement, but overall, I find the quality and depth of the NVV's nutrition information genuinely impressive, especially if much of the work relies on volunteers. I would probably not have written such a post if this were representative of nutrition communication in the vegan movement more broadly.

I also very much agree with your point about regularly drawing attention to nutritional challenges and to new findings on vegan diets in both directions, rather than only highlighting positive ones.

Thanks, really appreciate the thoughtful comment. :)

First of all, I don't think this is mainly an issue with informal verbal advice. When I look at the nutrition guidance of major vegan organisations, I see the same broader pattern quite consistently, even though some vegan challenges and beginner guides may be more nuanced. I'd be curious what you think if you compare the specific case studies I discuss with how different organisations communicate about these issues.

On your first point, I agree that inadequate nutrient intakes are not unique to vegans. I added a note in the Nutrition Review for exactly that reason, since standard Western diets have plenty of nutritional problems of their own. At the same time, inadequate intakes are more common among vegans for a substantial number of nutrients. For example, Table 4 in Sobiecki et al. (2016) compares the prevalence of inadequate intakes across different diet groups.

On iron and iodine, I agree that both would have been reasonable additions, and I also considered including them as well as vitamin A, selenium, choline, and several other nutrients. In the end, I decided to keep the selection relatively small because the aim was to illustrate a broader pattern rather than to provide a comprehensive review of every potentially relevant nutrient.

On EPA/DHA, I agree that the evidence does not establish that every healthy vegan needs to supplement it. At the same time, the evidence base is still developing, and there are already several indications of potential long-term health benefits from direct EPA/DHA intake. I therefore think a precautionary approach is reasonable, since we may only find out much later whether relying on ALA alone is sufficient. Given that direct EPA/DHA intake from microalgae is relatively easy, I think there is a strong case for avoiding that risk. I could have made these complexities more explicit, though, so I appreciate you raising it.

I hope this is helpful! :)

Thanks for writing this! This really resonated with me, and I agree that we would benefit a lot from using the V-word much less in many, if not most, contexts.

There are a few contexts, though, where I would still want to use it. One is when eating out, where saying that you are vegan or want a vegan meal communicates a clear dietary requirement very efficiently. Another is in the context of nutrition science, where vegan diets can be a relevant and distinct category, although that is admittedly a more niche use case.

More generally, I think the word is much more likely to be problematic when it is used to categorise a person than when it describes a food, meal, restaurant, etc.

But overall, I agree that tabooing the word in many of the contexts you describe could help create a much more welcoming. :)

Thanks for your comment! Yes, helping vegans be more tolerant of non-vegan allies is certainly one of the intentions behind this post. :)

I also think you raise an important point and I do touch on this to some extent in the following footnote:

For example, many people see veganism not merely as a way of eating, but as an ethical principle according to which animals should not be viewed as resources. The resulting identity and strong commitment to this principle can make veganism appear meaningful and aspirational to some, while making it appear isolating and restrictive to others. Whether these influences ultimately encourage or discourage others depends on how they are perceived, which varies substantially across individuals and socio-cultural contexts.

A clear principle like "don't eat animals" can be a useful heuristic that guides behaviour and makes the underlying moral values more salient. This could be described as reducing speciesism, or more broadly as increasing moral concern for animals. At the same time, because such a principle asks for all or nothing, it may also push some people away.

That said, my impression is that a meaningful proportion of non-vegans genuinely care about farmed animals having good lives, even if they don't question the norm of eating animals itself. At the same time, I agree it does seem comparatively rare for that concern to translate into activism without a vegan identity.

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that any such graphic inevitably risks conveying more confidence than is warranted. At the same time, I felt it was important to visualise the framework, as I think it becomes much less intuitive if left purely abstract. That was a trade-off I consciously made. As I mention in the footnote:

Although the curves could be aggregated into a single curve once relative weights have been assigned to the different objectives, this is deliberately omitted because doing so could inadvertently endorse one particular weighting and imply a level of quantitative precision the model is not intended to convey. Accordingly, each curve should be interpreted on its own scale in the vertical dimension, so their relative heights do not imply any particular weighting between the objectives.

I'm not sure there's a perfect solution here, but this felt like the best compromise to me.

Thanks for sharing this! The Balluch curve is very much aligned with how I think about effort, and I like that he explores in depth how advocacy can reshape the landscape over time, thereby effectively changing our empirical assumptions. I especially like the visual intuition of people "rolling" towards the local minimum. A very elegant way of thinking about the curves. :)

The only point I'd qualify is the assumption that a balanced mixed diet and a vegan diet are roughly equally healthy. I discuss this in a bit more detail in the section on health risk:

More generally, there is greater uncertainty about the health outcomes of dietary patterns that substantially restrict or eliminate food groups that have formed part of the human diet throughout evolution, particularly with regard to long-term health and critical life stages such as pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. This reflects both the limited evidence base for comparatively novel and rare dietary patterns and the broader methodological limitations of nutrition science. A greater health risk is therefore assigned to dietary patterns at either extreme of the spectrum.

For that reason, I think health risk may be just as decisive as effort, depending on how people weight the different objectives.

Thanks! I actually intended culinary enjoyment to be incorporated into the model already. As I write in the Effort section:

The more a diet deviates from the norm in a given context, the greater the associated costs tend to be in terms of time, money, attention, as well as psychological and social costs related to factors such as culinary enjoyment, culture, community, or identity.

So the idea is that giving up culinary enjoyment makes a diet more costly, i.e. more effortful. I decided to include it this way because, like the other factors grouped under effort, I think it tends to have a U-shaped relationship with the proportion of animal-based foods in the diet, making it natural to combine them into a single curve. It also makes the optimisation framework mathematically more elegant by treating all of these as costs to be minimised.