[Rhonda]: I think that's one really major strength about a plant-based diet is the fiber.
And the other thing is that if you look at vegetarians, they tend to have...There are
certain micronutrient deficiencies that are common.
You mentioned vitamin B12, which is one.
B12 is found...It's more highly concentrated in animal meat.
[Rich]: Well, I mean, it used to be...I mean, really, it's...Correct me if I'm wrong, but
isn't vitamin B12 a microorganism that propagates in the soil?
And so it used to be that even if you were just eating plants, like they weren't washed
off, they weren't as sort of sanitized as they are now, and you could get your B12 that
way, but now our soils are so depleted, so now it's kind of become a thing?
I mean, I sort of resist this contention or this argument that like a vegan diet is, by
definition, sort of a deficient diet because you have to supplement with B12.
[Rhonda]: Yeah.
Okay.
So it's not a microorganism, but it's made by microorganisms.
So microorganisms, including in our gut, make it.
And guess what?
Fiber...Actually, I've done...
[Rich]: Animals have it because they're eating...basically, their noses are in the dirt all day.
[Rhonda]: I don't know exactly why all the animals have it, but that...Yeah, that would
make sense.
Okay.
So I don't think plant-based diets or like vegan diets are like inherently micronutrient
deficiency.
In fact, if you look at the data, many different vegetarians and vegans have more of certain
micronutrients like folate, Vitamin K, magnesium.
I mean, these are all...You know, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, vegans and vegetarians have
a much higher concentration of these very important micronutrients.
Vitamin K is extremely important.
Magnesium, half the country doesn't get enough of.
You know, so I don't think by definition a plant-based or vegan or vegetarian diet is
a nutritionally deficient diet.
I think there's certain ones they have to make sure they're getting.
And there's certain ones they're getting more of than other people that aren't getting enough
of these, eating enough vegetables.
So it really just depends.
It's like, well, some people...You know, vegans do have to get a little more B12.
They have to get a little bit more iron, but you know, lentils are high in iron.
There's a lot of...If you just know and think about what you need to eat, you can get your
zinc from cashews.
Cashews are higher in iron.
Lentils are higher in iron.
I mean, you can find plant-based nuts and seeds and things that are good sources of
these micronutrients that you don't get if you're not getting the meat, but if you're
eating a lot of meat, you're not eating a lot of...if you're eating processed foods
and meat, and you're not getting enough vegetables, guess what?
You're gonna be deficient in a lot more micronutrients, to be honest.
So I think that it's just a matter of knowing which ones and making sure you're getting
dietary source of them, making sure if you're not getting a dietary source, that you are
taking a B12.
And back to the B12, our gut bacteria make it.
And there are certain gut bacteria that when you like, for example, when you take antibiotics,
which are loaded in meat, and that, we can get to that in a minute, but you kill off
a lot of your own bacteria that make B12.
So there's the whole well, you want to have your gut healthy.
Well, how do you get your gut healthy?
You give it the right components.
You give it the fiber.
The gut likes fiber.
It really likes fiber and it likes anything that's gonna allow it to make short-chain
fatty acids, which are actually essentially what fuel all the gut cells inside your intestine
that line your intestine, fuel it.
They prefer short-chain fatty acids as their source of energy over anything else.
So glucose, anything.
They want these short-chain fatty acids.
And how do they get them?
Fiber.
So there's that.
And that's one thing that vegetarians do get a lot of fiber.
And I myself make a very, you know...I make an effort to make sure I'm getting enough
fiber.
And I eat a lot of plants, a broad spectrum of them, different colors.
I make something very similar every morning, chard, spinach.
I always have the green base where it's spinach and chard and kale and a carrot, tomato, and
some berries and different variations of it.
I like the chia seeds and hemp seeds because you're also getting some of the Omega-3s.