We humans have a great survival strategy, biologically speaking: We are omnivores, meaning we eat everything. Our teeth are, as mammal teeth go, small and unspecialized: No stabbing fangs, no carnassial meat-slicers, no rugged chomping molars for grinding up rough plant material. Our esophaguses lack the keratinized layer found in some mammals to protect against rough, fibrous foods. Our digestive tracts are basically garbage disposals; in between the short gut of an obligate carnivore like a cat, and the long, complex fermentation tank of a grazer, like a cow or a bison.
It's great, biologically speaking. Overly specialized dietary requirements aren't the best for long-term survival of a species. But we, well, we can eat anything from animal fats, bone marrow, and meat to fruits, nuts, grains, tubers; almost anything except the very roughest plants, like woody plants and grasses. Cooking our food makes us able to exploit even more food sources.
But even the most generalized dietary requirements come with some necessary elements. "Vegans," for a variety of reasons, claim to eat only plant materials, and in so doing, they are taking some serious health risks. It's possible to eat a vegan diet and remain healthy, but it requires careful supplementation to provide certain vitamins and nutrients that most of us get from animal products. One of those vitamins is B12, and a deficiency of that vitamin can be serious; as we see in the recent case of a British college student, it can even lead to suicide.
A university student who was concerned about the environment killed herself amidst an onset of 'delusions' that stemmed from her vegan diet, an inquest has found.
Georgina Owen, 21, of Saffron Walden in Essex, had been following a plant-based diet since 2016 'stemming from her environmental concerns', but was suffering from a B12 deficiency in the latter months of her life.
The University of Swansea student - described as 'vibrant, [and] full of enthusiasm' - took her own life in September 2019, a month after her family noticed that she had not been taking her vitamin B12 supplements for at least half a year.
A small amount of dairy and eggs, common among people who call themselves "lacto-ovo vegetarians" (So, not vegetarians, but we'll get into that another time) could have headed this problem off.
Shellfish, meat, dairy and eggs are all rich in the nutrient, which is essential for the production of red blood cells and the maintenance of the nervous system and DNA.
But it is hard to obtain via an exclusively vegan diet, and vegans must obtain it via supplements or fortified foods. A deficiency can lead to anaemia and both neurological and psychological issues.
The psychological issues seemed to really come into play with Miss Owen, and what's worse, there seems to have been some quackery involved, too.
Miss Owen told her family she had 'forgotten' to take her supplements but had bought an 'organic' Methyl-cobalamin B12 spray from Canada to top herself up. But a coroner's court heard that post-mortem blood tests showed she was B12 deficient.
Elizabeth Gray, area coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, reported that Miss Owen had demonstrated 'unusually erratic behaviour' in the period leading up to her death, and that her personal diaries showed a 'deterioration' in her mental health.
This tragedy could have very easily been averted had Miss Owen either stayed on her presumably adequate B12 supplements, or if she had just forgone the vegan tomfoolery and eaten the diet her body chemistry and digestive tract is suited for: A diet with a certain amount of animal products, the diet that humans have been thriving on for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years.
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The 2026 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, published by the United States Department of Agriculture, states in part:
Prioritize high-quality, nutrient-dense protein foods as part of a healthy dietary pattern. + Consume a variety of protein foods from animal sources, including eggs, poultry, seafood, and red meat, as well as a variety of plant-sourced protein foods, including beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and soy.
That's good advice. Our bodies, our digestive tracts, and our biochemistry are all attuned to a variety of foods, and it takes a variety of foods to keep us healthy. It's sad that Miss Owen, who appears in photos in the Daily Mail article, was a happy, healthy young woman, but she was drawn into the near-religious observation of veganism. People are, of course, free to eat what they please, as long as they mind their own business and don't pester other people about it. But they should be aware of some of the basics of human biology, and if they decide to live on lettuce and fruit, fine, but they should make sure their B12 levels are topped off.
It would seem to be much easier to simply eat the diet that our bodies are so superbly adapted to. That would be a diet including a portion of animal-based foods.
Personally, forgoing my traditional Saturday cheeseburger at the lodge would cause me some psychological stress, and that's for sure and for certain; although I admit that distress wouldn't be due to a lack of a vitamin.
