Every nutrition textbook that I have ever read urges people to get their nutrients from food rather than from pills. The reasons are simple:
- The human body is adapted to a diet based on unrefined plant foods.
- Plant-based foods contain enough protein, including enough of all of the essential amino acids.
- Even low-fat plant-based foods contain enough of the essential fatty acids.
- Plants provide all but two of the vitamins. The exceptions are vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin) and vitamin B12 (which comes from bacteria). Vitamin B12 is the only supplement that is routinely recommended for people on plant-based diets.