What if I have food allergies, or iron mal-absorption, or some other medical issue that would make it impossible to eat plant-based?
My first question is: Have you tried eating whole foods plant-based before? Or have you just tried to live on salads and vegan junk food?
I get so many meat-eaters defending their current diet because they say the vegan diet "just didn't work for them" and it's usually because:
(A) They never tried it all. They're completely lying to me to make themselves feel better.
or
(B) They tried it, but they ate only salads or vegan junk food and wondered why they felt exhausted or crappy all the time, when they should have been eating unprocessed vegan foods that give energy: bananas/potatoes/rice/beans/melons/etc.
Let's get into some facts about how "common" food allergies are:
According to the Peanut Institute's own website, only 4% of adults and 4% of children have actual food allergies. So why does it feel like 80% are always complaining to me about allergies?
Their website also states that about 90% of allergies are caused by only Six Foods: nuts, milk, eggs, fish, wheat, or soy. SO why do I have so many people telling me they are allergic to a wide variety of plant foods and therefore they need meat to survive?
The answer is simple. They're full of bullshit and looking for an excuse to not change their diet to something healthier.
You'll also notice that half of the allergies listed (milk, eggs, fish) are animal products!!
I personally rarely eat nuts, wheat, or soy just because I love eating bananas/potatoes/beans/rice/melons/etc. I don't avoid those foods on purpose, they just aren't a main staple of my diet because they aren't needed and because bananas/potatoes/beans/rice are the cheapest foods on earth!
A lot of allergies or food sensitives are over-exaggerated by most people in order to have an excuse to avoid eating healthy. They claim because they are sensitive to bananas, they could never go vegan. Even tho I constantly remind them, bananas is only one food, they can still eat potatoes/beans/rice/melons/etc.
The question also remains how many of these "issues" people are having are actually caused by a poor diet high in processed foods or animal foods. There are so many people who report full recovery, or at least vastly improved symptoms, when they start eating only whole, unprocessed, plant foods.
I've met other people who like to hide behind other medical issues such as iron malabsorption. They claim they cannot absorb non-heme iron well enough and that they need meat to absorb heme iron. Therefore, they won't even bother to try a vegan diet to see if they can improve their issues. Despite the fact that all research shows that heme iron is very dangerous and can promote disease in the body: The Safety of Heme vs. Non-Heme Iron
When I try to look up other rare diseases people claim to have, like being allergic to "vitamin c", I can't find any scientific studies or evidence it exists! I mostly get people complaining vitamin c pills caused a bad reaction. And I'm left thinking: "Uh yeah! You were eating a pill! Not a whole food!" And we already discussed that 90% of allergies are caused by the Big Six (nuts, milk, eggs, fish, wheat, or soy), so really even if these extremely rare issues actually exist, they must be in like 0.1% of the population or less. What are the chances that all these people I talk to actually have a rare issue like this? They're having issues from eating an unhealthy animal-based diet and are just blaming something else like vitamin c as the root of their problems.
I mean seriously, the internet is a wide place, do your research and figure out the best plant foods to eat for your "special condition". There is always a vegan out there on the internet that had the same issues and posts about how they solved them on a whole foods vegan diet. (If you're overly-paranoid about the internet, then find a plant-based doctor or plant-based nutritionist and ask for advice.) So many people won't even try a whole foods vegan diet because they were just looking for an excuse to not even start.
If I ever find a medical condition that makes it hard or impossible for someone to be vegan, I would be the first to post about it. I don't want anyone going on a diet that isn't healthy for them. But no matter how hard I search, no matter how many different types of people I talk to, no one can give me a valid excuse about why a vegan diet would never work for them. And none of the plant-based doctors in the vegan community have ever highlighted a group of people or issue that would make it impossible to go vegan. All of the plant-based doctors say a whole foods vegan diet works for EVERYONE. If meat-eaters could ever find such an issue that would render a vegan diet impossible, they would tout it as the "holy grail" of finds. They would sing it from the heavens as the "perfect excuse" and award the nobel prize to whoever discovered it, even if said issue was only in 0.1% of the population. The meat-eaters desperately want an excuse for eating meat. But so far they've never managed to find one, even with all of the bizarre medical conditions in our world today... that are directly caused by eating animal-based foods.