(Replying to PARENT post)

From the article:

"Other [nutrients] are found in vegan foods, but only in meagre amounts; to get the minimum amount of vitamin B6 required each day (1.3 mg) from one of the richest plant sources, potatoes, you’d have to eat about five cups’ worth (equivalent to roughly 750g or 1.6lb). Delicious, but not particularly practical."

And yet when you investigate plant sources of b6,

Banana:

Vitamin B6 per 200 Calories 0.8mg (49% DV)

Beef: Vitamin B6 per 200 Calories 0.4mg (21% DV)

Interesting! Very interesting! I wonder what percentage of readers of this article are going to investigate what this authoritative science writer says for themselves? After all, why not trust the expert with a graduate degree working for the BBC?

So which is it, is the author unable to investigate in the most basic manner the actual B6 content in foods, when she apparently has a doctorate, or is this some sort of propagandist trash article with an agenda? Because I'm not sure what other options there are based on the way the quoted paragraph is written.

Moreover, what are the implications for the BBC's editorial standards that something like this was greenlit?

👤ovx99🕑5y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

You're changing units though, which in turn changes the outcome. The authors point was made about nutrients per volume, which is a rough approximation of how people actually eat food. While there are people who think "today I want 500kcal from beans and 75kcal from bananas..." they are relatively scarce.

When cast in units people actually do consider when eating (mass and volume) the authors point stands. Beef is more nutrient dense as a function of mass ~50kcal/, therefore you need a higher mass of plant matter to get equivalent nutrients.

Whether omnivores eat an equivalent mass of meat as vegetarians eat of plant matter is an interesting side question; I bet not.

👤Godel_unicode🕑5y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Even better: Chickpeas, canned, 1 cup 1.1mg of vitamin B6 55% DV Source: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB6-HealthProfession...

And let's not talk about their claim that omega3 cannot be found in plants or that vitamin D can only come from supplements...

👤gregcrv🕑5y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> is this some sort of propagandist trash article with an agenda?

I'm seriously thinking this is paid journalism.

The BBC published this article a mere 5 days earlier:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200122-are-there-health...

A much more balanced article if you ask me. Both journalists are freelancers.

👤cies🕑5y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

The BBC really needs to be listed as an unreliable source.
👤rusk🕑5y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

While this article seems to have a lot of factual errors, their core contention -- the root of the justification for the article's existence -- is that vegans have a lot of deficiencies. That is the point that needs to be questioned, and often seems like scaremongering more than reality.

And as always, it's pretty simple to take a multivitamin and call it a day, presuming one isn't so militant that an ingredient in that is objectionable.

👤endorphone🕑5y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I'm going to go with the latter
👤intothev01d🕑5y🔼0🗨️0