Tip: Are you a non-native English speaker? I have just finished creating a 
Web AppThe other day, I saw the following comment under an article about vegan nutrition:
I am not a vegan, so let’s put aside the question whether a vegan diet can be healthy without nutritional supplements for now (and why on Earth you would you hate someone for not looking healthy). The real question is: Is there any reason why taking or having to take nutritional supplements would make your diet somehow wrong or inadequate?
I ate a few pieces of fudge yesterday, and it was delicious. The list of ingredients reads: Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Milk, Butter, Emulsifier, Salt, Flavouring. Was it healthy? Surely not. Is it okay to eat something like that a few times a week? Of course, it’s not going to hurt you. No-one would say my whole diet is bad just because I ate some fudge.
But imagine the horror when instead of eating sweets, I would eat something that contains fewer chemicals and actually makes me healthier! Terrible. Apparently, eating small pieces of processed food is only natural as long as it isn’t too healthy.
I never understood this sentiment. The ultimate goal is being healthy, after all. A vegan diet with proper supplementation can be healthier than the diet of those omnivores who mock vegans for having to take supplements, and even many people who eat meat would benefit from proper supplementation.
I think the reason why people think that nutritional supplements equal bad diet is that if you have to take supplements to make your diet good, that makes your diet somehow lacking. But supplements are part of your diet. It makes no sense whatsoever to consider your diet good just because you could be healthy if you ate the same things in different amounts (but you don’t). Everything you swallow is your diet; everything you don’t is potentially a nutritional deficiency.
The problem is when someone thinks “all right, I don’t have to eat fruits and vegetables, because I take a multivitamin”. That’s not how nutrition works. Nutrition is not only about separate nutrients but also about their form, possible interactions, absorption, and timing. Some nutrients work great even in isolation in the form of supplements, e.g. vitamins B12 and D, but others do not. If your diet is healthy to start with and you take supplements which are known to be beneficial in addition to it, then it is a great diet; the supplements make it better, not worse.
