"Taking something for "insurance" doesn't make any sense. If you don't have deficiencies, why would you take a supplement for it?"
Obviously, it is up to OP to decide what to do, but here are my reason why I take things for "insurance". (1)Coming out of a long fast, one is bound to be low on *something.* (2)If a fast was necessary in the first place, we can assume that very probably, going into the fast, the situation diet-wise was not perfect either (not saying this is the case, just that it is likely to be the case). (3) It would be awesome to postulate nutrient-rich food, but this is not always the case in our days of soil depletion and corporate farming. Whether organic food is better and how much better it is is also up for debate. (4) Different bodies have differently efficient metabolisms - the same amount of micronutrients may be much better absorbed by you than by someone else. You may meet your nutritional requirements eating a certain way, someone else may or may not - we have no way to know.
(1) - (4) have one thing in common: we're uncertain. We don't know and can't know. Add to this (5) the placebo effect.
In this set-up, the drawbacks of taking things for insurance are, (1)you're eating rocks and it does nothing, this stuff is not bioavailable anyway, therefore (2) you waste money and (3) if your supplements are low-quality and it is quite possible that they are given how the industry is regulated, you could be taking in trace amounts of harmful stuff in your not-so-pure supplement.
The benefits of supplementing for "insurance" while coming out of a fast, in my opinion, are:
- placebo effect. Coming out of a fast, the brain spins all kinds of shit on you, including but not limited to a freakout that you may have harmed yourself by fasting and that you have nutritional deficiencies. If eating rocks makes it easier not to give in to overeating at that stage, I say go for it.
- If one really is deficient, supplementing, in case it may happen to work, may help with food cravings. What would you rather have: spend 10 bucks unnecessarily on centrum and have three trace molecules of harmful aluminum something, or risk jeopardising your fast gains?
- Would you recover from the fast sooner or later? We all have real life demands; the sooner one is up-and-running again, the better.
- Testing yourself for deficiencies and addressing what is there takes time, money, depending on your country referrals, insurance, etc. etc. People may not have time or money, or the life skill to navigate the health system and get themselves properly tested at 18.
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Also, on a different note:
I suggested iron supplements not because OP is choosing to eat vegetarian but because some women menstruate more heavily than others and are more efficient at absorbing iron from food than others. Iron-deficiency anemia in women is common regardless of whether you eat meat or not. Read me again: I suggested the OP considers iron supplementation if this is something she knows is a weak zone for herself.
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tl:dr; -- very glad you have found a way to eat that works for you, but it may not work for everyone at every stage of fasting. Good arguments can be made for approaching refeeding differently -- which does not mean either approach is "wrong." Cheers~