[Ed. Note: For more validation about the benefits of being vegan, visit our Health Articles.]

By Eric Fortney on This Dish Is Veg, July, 2011

The findings which were published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association and the July issue of Food Nutrition & Science, show that vegan diets are not deficient in the vitamins and nutrients once thought to be only found in diets rich in meat and other animal products.

Even though the following statement is far from breaking news and seems ridiculously obvious to those of us who have cut out meat, a study conducted by Eastern Michigan University revealed that a vegan diet can be nutritious. Yes sound the bells and alert your neighbors.

More importantly though, the findings which were published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association and the July issue of Food Nutrition & Science, show that vegan diets are not deficient in the vitamins and nutrients once thought to be only found in diets rich in meat and other animal products.

In other words the belief that those who eat vegan diets lack protein, vitamin B12, calcium, zinc, and iron is bunk.

What might even be more surprising to our meat eating counterparts: vegan diets are more nutrient rich than animal food diets.

Using a cross-sectional analysis of a National and Nutrition Examination Survey that took place between 1999 and 2004, researchers determined that vegetarians had higher mean intake levels of fiber, vitamins A, C and E, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, calcium, magnesium, and iron when compared to non-vegetarians.

Of course we already knew that, didn't we.