No it doesn't. B12, K2 and DHA based Omega-3s that your brain runs on are non existent in plant foods. Cholesterol, Choline, calcium, Vitamin D are difficult to come by in plant based diets. Finally, the plant based form of Vitamin A (beta carotene) is only bioavailable to humans in 0-8% of the quantities consumed depending on your individual genetics. And women can convert this better than men.
Plainly false, read my comment (search for ssijak on the page) in this thread about b12, k2, vit D and dha so I dont repeat myself.
Regarding cholesterol, why would I need any additional cholesterol? Liver and cells make enough for what the body needs. Choline RDA is questionable and European food agencies are lowering RDA for Choline. But anyhow when I track my food intake through apps like Cronometer I consume RDA levels of choline from plants only.
As for the Retinol/Beta carotene, RDA for retinol is about 3000IU/day, just one sweet potato has about 30 000IU of beta carotene, so even with a low conversion rate it is very easy to go over RDA for Retinol.
Calcium is abundand in whole food plant based diets too. And osteoporosis is not a simple issue as the amount of calcium, D and K2 vitamins are very important for this issue too, for example Japanese vegan woman who eat Natto (k2) and low (what is concidered low) calcium do not have problem with osteoporosis.
Point is that you can have crap diet being vegan or not but you can also have very healthy one if you are smart with the food.
And again, if vegans miss on some very essential nutrient (except maybe b12 which should be suplemented), why are vegan populations living longer on average?
To your above point about Vitamin A, some people can't convert vegetable forms of caratanoids to a useable AT ALL. It is entirely genetic in the same way that roughly half the world is lactose intolerant.
Natto does have K2, but that is not the common form that Westerners consume at all. Meanwhile soy has quite a lot of lectins and phytic acid that inhibits uptake of nutrients.
The thing is with a vegan diet it requires this carefully balanced cocktail of complex foods that require fermentation, sprouting, etc to get around the many trade offs in the diet. And people just pitch it as some cure all approach to human health.
Hong Kong eats 50% more beef per capita on average than Americans do and they're the 3rd longest living population in the world. The Sami (an indigenous group of carnivore reindeer herders in Northern Scandinavia) and Swedish people (mostly omnivorous) have comparable life expectancies, but the Sami suffer from lower rates of heart disease.
India has a very large population of vegetarians, and their life expectancy is less than 69 years.
People in India eat very processed food and add a lot of refined oils and live in very bad conditions overall with no proper medical care.
And phytic acid and lectins are not some vilans, they have also many positive effects. You can google that easily.
And I did not say 100% of people should go vegan, I responded to say that an average human CAN trive on vegan diet, but it is not the one diet to rule them all in every situation.
