words in scarlet ink

I forget how I stumbled across How Not to Die, but the title interested me. I am rather invested in not dying.

The author, Michael Greger, is an MD whose argument is that most disease in the United States are preventable with simple diet changes – basically that people should adopt a plant based diet. This book presents a lot of good information and overall I liked it and found it valuable, however, I’m also rather torn over it.

Greger advocates for people to switch to a plant based diet and while he claims that he doesn’t support any particular diet, it basically sounds like his recommendation is veganism, but he never says veganism, probably because veganism is “controversial” in the United States, but also because veganism has some drawbacks. Vegans frequently require supplements – because vegan diets frequently lack critical nutrients like B12 and iodine.

Some of the research is cherrypicked. You can read more about that here.

But overall, Greger is not wrong. People, particularly Americans, should be eating more fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds than they currently are. They shouldn’t be consuming the vast amounts of meat (particularly red meat), sugar, and unhealthy fats that they do.

That said, Greger also discusses some of the more systemic problems with “Big Agriculture” in the United States – the chemicals that Big Ag is allowed to add to our foods, particularly meat, that are banned in the rest of the world.

I definitely recommend this book – it will, at the very least, help you make some easy, for-the-better diet changes – I try to eat more berries now! And seeds, which I wasn’t eating much before. Just make sure you investigate the claims in the book and make sure you do what works for you.