Varner, Gary E.
"In Defense of the Vegan Ideal: Rhetoric and Bias in the Nutrition Literature," Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 7 (1994): pp. 29-40.
Much of the scientific literature on vegetarian nutrition leaves one
with the impression that vegan diets are significantly more risky than
omnivorous ones, especially for individuals with high metabolic demands
(such as pregnant or lactating women and children). But nutrition
researchers have tended to skew their study populations toward "new
vegetarians", members of religious sects with especially restrictive
diets and tendencies to eschew fortified foods and medical care, and
these are arguably the last people we would expect to thrive on vegan
diets. Researchers also have some tendency to play up weakly confirmed
risks of vegan diets "vis-a-vis" equally weakly confirmed benefits.
And, in spite of these methodological and rhetorical biases, for every
nutrient which vegans are warned to be cognizant of, there is reason to
believe that they are "not" at significantly greater risk of nutritional
deficiency than omnivores.