As of Memorial Day 2025, I’m no longer vegan. I was fully vegan for about 5 months (and to be clear, by vegan in this post, I simply mean on a plant-based diet). In that time, I generally felt healthy and energetic. However, for optimal nutrition and health, and with further research, I’ve switched to a part-time whole foods pescatarian diet. This includes animal byproducts such as dairy, egg and honey, but not non-seafood animal meat such as poultry and red meat. A part-time pescatarian diet served me well for most of last year, and this time I’m ensuring all dietary intake consists of whole foods where possible.
Benefit 1: Numbers
On paper, I was getting enough of everything, but blood tests showed my B12 (which I supplemented) and ferritin (iron) steadily decreasing, and my omega 3 remaining slightly below range despite supplementation. This is likely due to non-heme iron, supplemental B12 and omega 3 supplements being harder to absorb than their more bioavailable equivalents in animal food. My numbers last year on a part-time pescatarian diet were all optimal. In the last few days of veganism I increased the B12 supplemental dose from 50 to 500 mcg, which probably would’ve stabilized the B12, but it wasn’t my preference to take that amount long-term or rotate between 3 supplements daily. In addition, I could’ve waited to find out if my high iron/saturation indicated on my last blood test would’ve eventually kicked the ferritin up, but on the other hand, it’s so easy just to eat animal products for heme iron and not play that game. Same with omega 3.
Benefit 2: Health
Studies indicate a pescatarian diet has the edge in lower all-cause mortality (including but not limited to particular cancers) even compared to vegan and vegetarian diets. Seafood may have relatively high levels of PFAS, depending on the source, but so can vegetables (even organic), and vegans generally have to eat more of everything for the same nutritional input. There are also ways to counteract PFAS including ensuring adequate fiber intake. In terms of levels of mercury and such, I am only eating seafood part-time so this should be fine.
Benefit 3: Variety
To be fair, I don’t think I missed fish, eggs or dairy when I was vegan. Some vegan cheese, including the cashew variety, was honestly among the best I’ve tasted. Vegan eggs and synthetic meat were hit or miss and more likely processed so tried to avoid those. So it’s nice to have the wider palette that comes with being able to eat these foods again.
Benefit 4: Simplicity
Was taking 3 supplements during veganism including a multivitamin, omega 3 pill, and B12 spray that I had recently added on due to steadily-declining B12. But the animal foods I have resumed eating should provide enough nutrition based on bloodwork last year. I look forward to dropping all supplements and not needing to keep track of all of that multiple times a day.
Benefit 5: Eating out
It is much less work for me to not analyze the menu or enquire with the restaurant on vegan options for non-fully-vegan restaurants. As an added benefit, it makes eating out with my girlfriend, friends and others much easier. My girlfriend, for instance, likes to eat out a lot, and I accompany her on a significant portion of these meals. She’s a typical omnivore who loves her red meat, and tries to avoid vegan restaurants and restaurants that have a lot of vegan options. In NYC, there is an okay number of decent vegan restaurants or restaurants with sufficient vegan options, but it still became a game of compromise on many weekends. Now we can easily enjoy the same restaurants together again.
How my diet works
In general, currently I eat seafood and animal byproducts (e.g. dairy, egg, honey) on weekends and holidays, and [at least mostly] plant-based on weekdays. Simple.
On the [mostly] plant days, examples of what I eat can be found here.
(As always, any updates may be reflected in subsequent blog posts.)
Updates
- 6/11/2025: Added last sentence with grocery list link.