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Why plant based diets are not able to support human health over the long term and why most adherents go back to eating meat and other animal foods within a few short years.
Sources of conventional health information seem to be trumpeting the catchphrase plant based diet. Notice the word “vegetarian” or “vegan” is not used perhaps because the vast majority of people find such a diet and its common, associative terms unappealing.
Estimates on the number of people who never eat meat varies somewhere between a paltry 3% and 6%.
Even more telling, the vast majority (75%) who identify as vegetarian end up omnivores again within a few years.
Surprisingly, the Vegetarian Resource Group estimates that only 20-30% of people are good candidates for vegetarianism. (1)
Perhaps this is the reason for this new semantic trend which attempts to repackage vegetarianism simply as “a healthy plant based diet”. Note even cow milk substitutes are now called plant based milk instead of simply dairy-free.
The best selling success of the error-ridden book Blue Zones is one commercial example fueling this semantic change.
There is no doubt that an increase in the number of folks eating a “plant based diet” would result in quite a profit boost for Big Ag and Big Food companies that deal in the various stages of production of textured vegetable soy protein (TVP) and other frankenfood substitutes for meat, dairy, and eggs.
Aside from the big profits to be had should more people embrace this manner of eating, could a “plant based diet” even be healthy?
The 2017 documentary What The Health claims plant based diets to be healthy despite being unable to name a single successful vegan population group that ever existed outside of a few small religious sects that did not reproduce.
Little to No Variety in Modern Food Plants
The reality is that the world today depends on a variety of only 150 food plants. Twenty of these account for 90% of our food. And, of these twenty, only three account for half! What are the Big Three? Rice, corn, and wheat – difficult to digest, grain based carbs that ninety percent of the people who ever lived never even ate!
Considering that there are between 30,000-80,000 edible plants in the world and that traditional cultures such as the American Indian regularly consumed about 1,100 of these, it seems virtually impossible that a “plant based diet” of today would contain enough variety to ensure health.
Surely, a modern “plant based diet” could only lead to nutritional deficiencies and ill health in the long run given these statistics. This especially if a primary source of all those veggies is a daily green smoothie.
Despite the American Indian’s consumption of a wide variety of nutritious food plants from soil that was arguably much richer and more fertile than the monocrop farms of today, guess what? They still ate meat!
What about the hunter-gatherers? They sampled between 3,000 and 5,000 plants and still consumed animal foods as well.
“Healthy Plant Based Diet” is an Oxymoron
A “healthy plant based diet” on only 150 food plants at best and less than 20 at worst? That simply doesn’t add up to anything remotely resembling health according to my logic. Not enough variety by a longshot.
Compare this to a person who consumes foods from wild and/or pastured animals. The plant variety these animals sample throughout the year is enormous, which the person eating the meat benefits from indirectly.
Another salient point is that much of the fresh produce plant based fans are eating is hydroponically grown. Hydroponics is much lower in nutrients than plants grown in rich organic soil.
This is why organizations like the Cornucopia Institute are so against the hydroponic invasion of the USDA Organic label over the past decade.
It seems that the term “healthy plant based diet” is nothing more than a semantic marketing ploy contrived for television personalities beholden to their corporate advertising sponsors to pawn off to an unsuspecting public.
Next time you hear the term “plant based diet” and “healthy” used in the same sentence, feel free to roll your eyes and press “off” on the TV remote.
References
Seeds of Change, Kenny Ausubel
Vegetarian Journal
Cornucopia Institute: Why Organics Needs to Be Rooted in Healthy Soil (NOT hydroponics)
More Information
Vegetarians Suffer from More Cavities than Meat Eaters
All Plant-based Diets a High Risk for Fractures
There has actually never been a diagnosed case of protein deficiency in anyone who eats enough. Protein is not hard to get on a plant based diet when you are not starving yourself. Please stop posting such claims when you have a name for yourself! It is hurting people’s health.
Your answer indicates that you don’t understand protein very well! Protein is made up of amino acids, and NO SINGLE PLANT FOOD contains all the essential amino acids in amounts that a human can realistically eat on a daily basis to get them all. Hence, vegans must resort to PERFECT plant protein combining to get all the essential amino acids in proper quantities to maintain their health. Few manage to do this correctly.
In your response to Sarah July 5, 2018 1237pm you said, “as eating lots of plants is very good for detoxing.” Am I correct in understanding your statement to mean that plants do not contribute to, but do remove, the toxins in a person’s body? For the purpose of this article and the discussion following there are only two sources of food, Plants and Animals, correct? Please explain what toxins plants are removing, and please explain where these toxins come from so I can avoid them in my diet.
Thank you
I agree with Michael. Unfortunately, processed foods have become a bone of contention, over which many people want to argue. The “China Study”, was supposed to negate that, but Colin Campbell has been accused by some, of misinterpreting the results, to favor is own point of view.
Like I said, I agree with Michael, but if you’re at a crossroads here, read pages 105 thru 107, of “The China Study”, as a way of helping to decide for yourself.
Sarah, I come from a heavy meat eating family and both my parents have health issues. They go to the doctor where they are put on medication (because there is no money in healthy people) and are sent home. My mothers biggest issue was acid re-flux. The minute she cut meat out of her diet, she no longer needed any medication. I have been a vegetarian for about 15 years and a vegan for 2, I can count on my hands the amount of times I have been to the doctor. I look at my meat-eating friends and often hear how they complain about discomforts and issues.
The problem with meat today is factory farms. They are injected with enormous amounts of antibiotics, they eject puss from sick pigs and add to cheese to make it more creamy. We will eventually become immune to antibiotics and that is a world upside down. Factory farming is also one of the top contributors to global warming.
It all boils down to money. Pharmaceutical companies and doctors thrive off sick people and that is why they give medication that simply maintains the illness. Have you ever heard a doctor say, “I’m not giving you any medication because your disease can be cured with a plant-based diet” Probably not because there is no money in that.
You are the one who is buying into big Corporate America. They want you to believe meat is good for you so you can eat it, get sick, go to the doctor and be given medication that costs thousands of dollars. Plant-based eaters don’t get sick, we don’t pay thousands of dollars in healthcare costs. In the end, it should be each individuals choice how they eat and you can deal with the consequences either now or in the long run.
As I have said several times in this comment thread, WHY do plant based diet fans always ASSUME that those who eat meat choose it from conventional farms??? I NEVER eat conventional meat … always from a small, grassfed farm where the animals receive no antibiotics or other drug based assaults. They graze on grass and don’t get pesticide laced GMO grain. This type of meat is not going to make you ill … look to the dozens of ancestral cultures that ate meat and had NO chronic disease. You can’t find a single plant eating population (aka vegan) that involved a LARGE population group and survived multiple generations to compare … plant based eating is not historically supported! I prefer to stick with what is known to work for humans in the past … a balanced CLEAN omnivore diet. Plant based eating is notoriously UNBALANCED.
Former vegetarian and vegan here. I’ve no scientific facts to back up my opinion, it’s just anecdotal based on my own experience. Caveat: Yes, I ate a 100% perfect vegetarian diet, vegan with a few cheats, plus some high quality supplements. So please don’t tell me that my health issues were because “You didn’t do it right.”
What happened to me on my 5 year meat free diets? I was exhausted most of the time, came down with everything that was going around, and had digestive issues, high cholesterol, high blood sugar. I felt horrible most of the time.
Fast forward a few years and I’m now eating about 95% organic, gluten free, mostly grain and sugar-free foods, tons of veggies and moderate good fats.
Guess what? No more exhaustion, my health is great (I’m a senior)
So my opinion is: everyone has to do what’s right for them, and there is no one-size fits-all diet for everyone on the planet. I respect everyone’s right to make their own choices, but it seems like when someone dares to criticize a vegan diet, people get awfully cranky and insist that vegan or vegetarian is the ONLY way to eat. Why not just respectfully agree to disagree?
“Surprisingly, the Vegetarian Resource Group estimates that 30-40% of people are good candidates for vegetarianism.”
Can you please provide a link to this statement?
Thanks,
Greg
Here’s the source. https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj97sep/979poll.htm
So, your main argument is the lack of variety? Chicken, pork, beef, fish. That’s your meat variety. Even if we add in stuff like bison, deer….there’s still far less variety in the meat market than there is in the produce isle. Hot dogs aside, there’s as much cholesterol, antibiotics, mercury, bacteria, etc. in ‘healthy’ meats like chicken and fish as there is in beef. Cow milk is meant for baby cows. Not humans. You like puss? Good, because it’s all up in your 1% that you get in your ‘skinny’ Starbucks every morning.
Humans are not meant to consume meat. That’s evident by our teeth straight through to our digestive track. Some of the most powerful animals that roam the Earth are herbivores – not meat eaters. To each their own, but you do not find the disease in vegetarians and vegans that you do in meat eaters. I’d rather take my chances with vegetables than the pig down in North Carolina that destroys the environment, makes people sick and feeds the pockets of Corporate America.
“Humans are not meant to consume meat.” If that is your belief despite those 4 pearly canines staring back at you in the mirror that provide indisputable visual proof that humans are supposed to eat some meat (we have omnivore teeth, not herbivore nor carnivore) nothing anyone has to say will make any difference whatsoever to you! Sadly it seems you are bought in 100% to the vegan propaganda.
No, it’s the reverse. Meat and dairy eaters are killing themselves. The data is overwhelming. The risks of a whole natural plant-based diet are minimal compared to the chronic illnesses engendered by animal products, and which kill us more than anything else on Earth.
There is no controversy about the benevolence of fruit and vegetables. There is a lot with animal products. It’s worth not shrugging off blithely.
Put simply, this article makes COMMON SENSE. Vegetarians need to wake up and smell the beef. ????
Why would people believe you if you provide no evidence for your claims? I’m not saying that you are incorrect, but it’s hard to blindly trust somebody, especially when there are plenty of information that contradicts yours.
Ummm … evidence provided in the post. I guess you didn’t click through to investigate it with an open mind.