You can eat a junk food vegan diet but it won't do you much good. Better that you eat healthily so that you can enjoy yourself and put your energy to good use saving the planet, the animals and making yourself and everyone around you happy.

Basically you don't have to worry too much about protein, fibre or trace elements if you eat a varied diet- more details below.

Being vegan is no bar to good health and this has been proven now in numerous studies. In fact you may actually be less likely to be obese, have lower cholesterol levels and less risk of heart disease than your omnivorous family and friends.

So a varied diet involves a minimum of processed foods. You want to eat at least half a kilo of brightly coloured fruit and veg daily.

You should choose to eat regular small amounts of nuts and oils such as almonds, cashews, hazels, olives.

A small amount of omega 3 oils could be helpful and you can find this in flaxseed, rapeseed or hemp oil.

It may well be sensible to eat 10 brazil nuts a week for selenium, and in the winter a vitamin D fortified food or supplement (its added to lots of vegan marg or soya products). Iodine can be obtained from kelp or a supplement.

So in general you can get everything you need from food without having to take loads of supplements.

The big BUT is B12. You need a daily source of B12. This is really, really important especially for infants. Don't mess around with this. Its important not only for your neural(nerve) system but also to keep your levels of homocysteine low. Elevated homocysteine can leave you at risk of heart disease, stroke and pregnancy complications.

The Vegan Society have a great supplement available that covers you for all of the above; VEG 1. Its kind of a no brainer.

Go to the Vegan Society link and read all the stuff by Stephen Walsh on nutrition. He's done all the hard work checking out the research on vegan nutrition so that you don't have to. Then go to the famous vegans section and see just how fit, healthy, vibrant and active all those celebs on a vegan diet are.

I wish I could persuade my Mum of all of the above. The worst side effect of my vegan diet is my Mum worrying that I am about to keel over despite all the evidence of my extremely robust good health… Eventually she's going to have to admit that I am robust good heatlh despite my weird diet.