The Supplement Contradiction

Hello

Serhad here, founder and co-owner of Raw Animal.

Today, I want to address a special topic. It’s about general dietary supplements...

You all probably know Bryan Johnson, right? He is the most famous man in the world when it comes to longevity.

This guy doesn’t just want to be healthy. He wants to dominate aging. Measure everything. Control everything. Optimize everything. On his current Blueprint page, he sells, among other things, Omega-3, Essential Capsules with Ubiquinol, the active form of CoQ10, and a Longevity Mix that, according to the site, is supposed to simplify his previous supplement stack. This mix is even described there as a replacement for the time when he took over 100 pills a day.

And that’s where it gets interesting.

Because Bryan lives plant-based, while his routine at the same time acts like a showcase of which nutrients the body absolutely wants: Omega-3, CoQ10, magnesium, vitamin D, B vitamins, zinc, selenium, and so on. His system screams for maximum control, maximum supplementation, and maximum correction.

My provocative thesis is therefore quite simple:

If you first remove everything from your diet only to rebuild it later with capsules, powders, and drinks, then that’s not superior. That’s a detour.

This is exactly where the animal-based perspective comes into play.

Because if you look at which foods rank particularly high in critical micronutrients, animal foods repeatedly appear. And not by chance. A large analysis in Frontiers in Nutrition concludes that organs, small fish, shellfish, beef, eggs, and dairy products are among the top sources for several priority micronutrients. Organs are at the very top.

This is not a romantic “things were better in the past” story.

This is simply nutrient reality.

Liver is not sexy.

Capsules with futuristic branding are.

But your body doesn’t care about branding.

It cares whether it gets what it needs.

And one more thing is important: It’s not just about a nutrient being present somewhere. It’s also about how well you absorb it. A scoping review describes that animal muscle tissue in studies was able to increase the absorption of iron and zinc from plant-based meals (the so-called “meat factor”). At the same time, a recent review on micronutrient bioavailability points out that vitamins from animal sources are generally better bioavailable than from plant sources and that phytates, polyphenols, and fiber can inhibit the absorption of some minerals from plants.

And suddenly the vegan debate becomes much less moral and much more biological.

Because in practice, the literature shows quite clearly: Vegan diets can work, but they more often struggle with critical nutrients. A systematic review found lower intakes in vegan diets of vitamin B12, vitamin D, iodine, zinc, calcium, and selenium, among others. The authors explicitly state that possible deficiencies in vitamin B12, zinc, calcium, and selenium should not be ignored.

Vitamin B12 is the most obvious example. The NIH clearly states that vitamin B12 occurs in foods of animal origin, is not naturally found in plant foods, and that people following vegetarian or vegan diets have a higher risk of deficiency. Fortified foods or supplements reduce this risk. By the way: 90 grams of cooked beef liver provide 70.7 micrograms of vitamin B12 according to the NIH. And freeze-dried even much more!

And that’s exactly why this wellness fairy tale of “clean” vegan superiority bothers me.

If you need a lab, a shopping list full of specialty products, and a pill organizer for perfect health, then that’s not automatically progress. Maybe it’s just a very expensive repair system.

Animal-based doesn’t mean for me: eat all animal products indiscriminately and ignore the rest.

Animal-based means: stop treating humans like a chemistry set.

Build your diet on real foods.

On high-quality animal protein.

On eggs. On red meat. On organs if you’re serious. On fruits. On honey if you tolerate it. On well-chosen, low-problem plants instead of a diet concept that is artificially kept alive by constant correction.

And lifestyle is just as important.

You don’t become healthy by swallowing CoQ10 and going to bed late every night.

You don’t become vital by buying Omega-3 and being chronically stressed at the same time.

You also don’t become long-lived by “biohacking” but never seeing the sun, never standing barefoot on the ground, never training properly, and ruining your metabolism with protein bars.

Real health is usually much less sexy than the internet sells it:

sleep earlier, morning light, strength training, steps, enough protein, stable blood sugar, real nutrients, less junk.

Maybe that’s the uncomfortable truth behind all the longevity hype:

The body doesn’t want 100 tricks.

It wants the basics.

And if even the most famous anti-aging man in the world has to back up his plant-based strategy with a supplement tower, then at least the question should be allowed:

Is this really the best diet for humans? Or just the best excuse to replace real foods with expensive substitutes?

Best regards and have a great weekend

Serhad