Luca D. A-Barzz

🛑 “84% of vegans quit.” This number is often misinterpreted. In the Faunalytics analysis, it was not only about vegans, but vegetarians and vegans combined. When separated, the recidivism rate was 86% for vegetarians and 70% for vegans.

Still high. But not the same as saying: “84% of vegans quit.” Even more important: many quit very early. 34% of former vegetarians/vegans lasted 3 months or less. 53% lasted less than 1 year.

At the same time, 58% of current vegetarian/vegan respondents had been doing it for more than 10 years. That does not suggest that veganism “doesn’t work”. It suggests something else: the early phase matters a lot.

According to the analysis, health was not the main reason people stopped. Common issues were more about everyday life, social environment, taste, habits, lack of support and feeling like their diet made them stand out from the crowd.

It is similar to exercise. Many people sign up for the gym and quit after a few weeks. But nobody serious would conclude from that that training fundamentally does not work. Usually, what is missing is not evidence. It is structure, a realistic plan and an everyday routine people can actually stick to.

With a plant-based diet, it often seems similar. If someone only removes animal products but does not build a new structure, they make it unnecessarily difficult. This is exactly where simple meals and realistic routines matter.

Reference:
https://faunalytics.org/a-summary-of-faunalytics-study-of-current-and-former-vegetarians-and-vegans/

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🛑 “Soy milk is healthier than cow’s milk.” Yes, this is not clickbait.

Cow’s milk often seems automatically healthier because it is seen as “natural”. Soy milk, on the other hand, is often dismissed as processed. But health is not decided by which product sounds more natural. It is decided by what actually happens in the body.

A 2024 meta-analysis summarized 17 randomized trials with 504 adults. In the median comparison, 500 ml of soy milk per day was directly compared with 500 ml of cow’s milk.

The result: soy milk performed more favorably across several cardiometabolic markers. LDL and non-HDL decreased. Blood pressure and CRP decreased as well. For blood sugar and body weight, no disadvantages were found.

Important: this does not mean every soy milk is automatically perfect. As a cow’s milk replacement, it should be properly fortified, especially with calcium, vitamin B12, vitamin D and ideally iodine.

Because cow’s milk is not simply a nutrient source because of “nature”. The iodine content of cow’s milk depends strongly on feeding practices, especially iodine supplementation in animal feed. It can also be influenced by iodophor disinfectants used in milk production, meaning iodine-containing products used for cleaning and udder disinfection.

Vitamin B12 in ruminants is produced by microorganisms in the digestive system, with cobalt from the diet playing an important role. Calcium is naturally present in cow’s milk. Vitamin D is added in some countries and products.

Bottom line: cow’s milk is not automatically the healthier choice just because it sounds more natural. In direct human trials, fortified soy milk looks very strong.

Reference:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11340166/

💊 I personally get my supplements from – all their products are lab-tested, and they take a very transparent approach. Use my code LUCA for 5% off on everything sitewide. They ship across Europe, and everything they sell is 100% vegan! 💪🏻🌱

✅ For evidence-based plant-based coaching, comment “Coaching” below.

🛑 “Animal protein is better.” Better for what? If people mean protein scores, then yes, animal proteins often look strong on paper. Systems like PDCAAS and DIAAS assess how well a protein provides essential amino acids and how well those amino acids are digested. But these scores have limits. They often look at single foods or isolated proteins, not full meals, full days of eating, mixed protein sources, or real training outcomes.

And that is where the debate changes. When protein, calories and training are matched, the best direct human studies so far do not show a clear muscle-building advantage for animal protein. Muscle mass and strength develop similarly when total protein intake is high enough.

This does not mean protein quality is irrelevant. It can matter more when protein intake is low, calories are low, diets are very one-sided, or in certain older or clinical populations. But it does not prove that animal protein is automatically superior in a well-planned diet.

For long-term health, the picture shifts even more. Substitution and long-term studies consistently lean toward replacing animal protein sources, especially red and processed meat, with plant protein sources. Even +3% of energy from plant protein was linked to lower all-cause mortality.

And for climate and resources, the difference becomes clearer again. Plant protein sources usually require far less land, feed and resources. The detour through animals is simply inefficient.

So no: animal protein is not inherently superior. For muscle growth, plant protein can work very well when total protein and training are in place. For long-term health and climate, the overall evidence often leans even more toward plant protein sources.

💊 I personally get my supplements from – all their products are lab-tested, and they take a very transparent approach. Use my code LUCA for 5% off on everything sitewide. They ship across Europe, and everything they sell is 100% vegan! 💪🏻🌱

✅ For evidence-based plant-based coaching, comment “Coaching” below.

🛑 “Vegans kill more animals than meat eaters.” This claim often sounds like a clever argument on social media. But once you look closer, the calculation behind it is much weaker than many people think.
Yes, crop production is not harm-free. Animals can die through soil cultivation, harvesting, pesticides and habitat loss. That should not be denied.

The claim is often linked to Steven Davis and Mike Archer. Davis argued that large grazing animals could cost fewer animal lives than a fully plant-based diet. Archer later claimed that, in Australia, grain production kills more animals per kg of protein than pasture-raised meat. The problem: Davis counted animal deaths per hectare, but not properly how many people that land can actually feed. With Archer, another issue comes in: he relied heavily on mouse plagues in Australian grain production, even though such plagues do not affect every field every year.

And here is the part many online debates leave out: land use. Monocultures and field deaths are often used as arguments against veganism. But animal agriculture itself requires huge amounts of land for grazing and feed crops. If habitat disruption matters, that is an argument for using less agricultural land, not more animal farming.
Our World in Data estimates that a global shift to plant-based diets could reduce agricultural land use by around 75%.

Bottom line: crop production is not harm-free. But that does not mean eating animals kills fewer animals. Veganism does not mean zero harm. It means reducing avoidable exploitation and intentional killing as far as practically possible.

💊 I personally get my supplements from – all their products are lab-tested, and they take a very transparent approach. Use my code LUCA for 5% off on everything sitewide. They ship across Europe, and everything they sell is 100% vegan! 💪🏻🌱

✅ For evidence-based plant-based coaching, comment “Coaching” below.

🛑 Plant-based meat alternatives are often dismissed on social media as “full of chemicals” or automatically unhealthy. But a long ingredient list is not a health outcome.

The better question is: What happens when plant-based meat alternatives are tested directly against meat in randomized controlled trials?

The latest meta-analysis found that when meat was replaced with plant-based meat alternatives, LDL cholesterol dropped by about 12%, total cholesterol by about 6%, and body weight decreased slightly. At the same time, there were no significant downsides for blood pressure or fasting blood glucose.

Important: not all meat alternatives are the same. A soy burger, pea-protein mince, mycoprotein product, or vegan sausage can differ a lot nutritionally.

That’s why it’s worth checking the label:

✅ low in saturated fat
✅ higher in fiber
✅ enough protein
✅ not too much salt

As a rough guide: aim for under 2–3 g saturated fat per serving, at least 3–5 g fiber, around 15–25 g protein, and, if possible, not much above 1–1.25 g salt per serving. With salt, the overall daily context matters.

Bottom line: Not every meat alternative is automatically healthy. But the blanket claim that they are worse than meat because they are processed or have a longer ingredient list is way too simplistic. Better-formulated products can be a useful way to replace meat.

References:
https://onlinecjc.ca/article/S0828-282X(23)01882-2/fulltext paper by yours truly .matthewnagra
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39653176/

💊 I personally get my supplements from – all their products are lab-tested, and they take a very transparent approach. Use my code LUCA for 5% off on everything sitewide. They ship across Europe, and everything they sell is 100% vegan! 💪🏻🌱