The biggest problem with Planck's essay was that she ignored the scientific evidence that veganism, when done thougtfully, is completely healthy for babies. I know more than one vegan couple who are raising their children vegan, from birth, and their kids are happy and healthy. Planck is not a nutritionist, though she plays one on T.V.

As for your observation that, "BUT...and this is a big but...that is a minority of vegans (or even vegetarians), in my experience. Most so-called "vegan's/vegetarians" in the US are really people who just like eating a strange restricted diet, usually with the goal of weight loss in mind and little else. Add to that a certain number who are very (perhaps overly) sentimental about animals and who think of farm stock as "pets" (such as in "Babe" or "Charlotte's Web")."

What evidence do you have for any of that nonsense? Moreover, as someone who is planning a five course vegan Italian feast for this weekend, I can assure you that vegans do not have a "restricted" diet. We indulge with a wider variety of foods than the average meat & potatoes schmoe. Lastly, you are free to characterize vegans' concern for animals and opposition to cruelty as sentimental, but spare us the cliched claptrap that vegans see animals as pets. We see animas as animals, individuals with value in their own right. Most importantly, we do not see animals as "stock" (i.e., property, slaves, unfeeling things) which, tragically, accounts for their horrendous suffering in factory farms.

Talk about weird diets: eating the dead flesh of abused and miserable animals is about as weird one you can get.

Allie,

Where I live, health food stores and organic groceries seem filled with all sorts of people, many of whom look healthy. I include myself and my wife among the healthy, since we are both active athletes in our 40's. Moreover, there are definitely far fewer obese people in those places than in the general public, where people eat the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.).

Becoming a vegan does require thought, because it is not second-nature in our culture. People who jump into it without learning what is needed to adjust from S.A.D. to this far healthier diet do themselves a disservice. The fact that given this relatively new diet, some knuckleheads have harmed their children is not an indictment of veganism, but rather an affirmation that the world is filled with fools, some of whom change their diets without proper planning.

By the way, zombies eat meat.

Anonymous, if you Google "African American Vegans," you'll find that it's not as rare as you think. Here in D.C., I can think of at least three vegan/vegetarian restaurants run by African American vegans. That said, Crown Shakur's parents' were, in my opinion, guilty of fatal neglect resulting from their own ignorance. They may have had other spiritual or philosophical underpinnings which led to the tragedy.

I also would like Ms. Planck to report on the number of omnivores' babies who died as a result of parental neglect with regard to their diets. I have no doubt the figure is shockingly high. Whether or not doing so would help an opportunistic hack like Planck sell more books is another question, but baby deaths are attention-getters, so Planck would probably do it.

There is no reason that anyone, of any age, needs to eat animal products. Eating animal products is a choice, not a necessity. I personally believe that a vegan diet is the most ethical and environmentally sustainable diet there is. The American Dietetic Association also agrees that vegan and vegetarian diets are completely healthy: http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm

I've been vegan for 14 years, and my wife has been vegan for about 5 years. We, and our vegan friends, are very healthy. You're opposition to dietary supplements is misguided. You emphasize naturally available nutrients, which is fine, but you do so in the context of the 21st century. Would you also recommend that people do without ALL the other technological advances we now live with? Vaccinations, eyeglasses and contact lenses, sanitized water, and so on? How about air conditioning and electric lights and this internet we're yakking over? The fact is, human beings live their lives in conjunction with technology and scientific advances, and if that includes dietary supplements, then so what? If you are advocating that society regress to a primitive hunter-gatherer, non-technological existence, then we can debate the pros and cons of that, but I doubt that's how you really want to live.

I and all the other healthy vegans of the world are a living refutation of your assertion that people need to eat animal products.

You then wrote, "I also find it ironic that veg*ns who normally are extremely critical of the advice or recommendations of Mainstream Medicine and its apologists have no qualms with quoting it when it comes to support of their diet."

I'm no more critical of mainstream medicine than the next educated person. You posit a straw man for the sake of knocking it down. Cheap tactic.

I have no idea why you spell vegan, "veg*n." Just another quirk, I suppose.

No matter how you try to spin it, you are plain wrong about veganism, and vegans. While it may not be for everyone, veganism is a perfectly healthy diet, and definitely healthier than the typical American diet.

I don't know what groups you chat with, but the vegans I know, myself and my wife included, do not eschew medical care from mainstream physicians.

Though I've been in the animal rights/vegan movement since 1985, I've never come across the term "veg*n." I believe you when you say that other vegans and vegetarians use that term. That, however, is the only thing you've written which I believe. The rest is hooey.