Why I avoid vegetables

• Biology studies coincide with avoiding vegetables for health reasons; friends questioned this for hours, while carnivore diets have grown popular.
• RFK Jr. eats mainly meat and fermented foods, including yogurt, and JD Vance adopted a similar diet in February after speaking with him.
• JD Vance initially planned to quit sugar and social media; Kennedy advised a more intense high-protein diet for weight loss.
• Vegetables do more harm than good for many people. The evidence supporting vegetable consumption is examined first.

Epidemiological evidence for vegetables

• Epidemiological studies group people by their vegetable intake and follow their health for years; higher intake is generally associated with better outcomes.
• Lower vegetable consumption commonly coincides with greater ultra-processed food intake, complicating the comparison between intake groups.
• The “5 Plus a Day” study used dietary questionnaires every two to four years, followed around 67,000 people for 30 years, and found 13% lower mortality with five daily servings versus two or fewer. [1]
• The lower-vegetable group had over twice as many smokers, nearly 50% less exercise, lower diet-quality scores, and a 25% greater likelihood of high blood pressure.
• Healthy user bias and other confounding variables prevent these associations from establishing vegetables as the healthiest foods.

Intervention studies and longevity

• Interventional studies change participants’ diets and measure blood markers; higher costs generally make them shorter than epidemiological studies.
• The 1997 DASH trial assigned 459 adults to dietary patterns for eight weeks and found lower blood pressure in the higher-fruit-and-vegetable group. [2]
• The control diet contained 4.1 daily servings of processed snacks and sweets versus 1.4 in the fruit-and-vegetable diet; processed-food intake therefore differed. [2]
• No study conclusively establishes a net health benefit from vegetables because dietary and lifestyle differences cannot be separated from vegetable consumption.
• Human genetics permit lifespans beyond 120 years, yet populations with high vegetable intake, minimal processed food, and healthier lifestyles still average under 85 years.

Plant defenses, lectins, and oxalates

• Animals use physical defenses, while plants use chemical defenses, producing hundreds or thousands of compounds harmful to organisms that consume them.
• Avocado, onion, and corn can harm dogs; human size and digestive differences do not eliminate potential effects from plant chemicals.
• Lectins in tomatoes, potatoes, and peanuts bind carbohydrates on gut-cell glycoproteins, damage or irritate the intestinal lining, activate immunity, and can travel elsewhere in the body.
• Oxalates in spinach, Swiss chard, and potatoes bind calcium into crystals associated with joint pain, mood problems, mineral deficiencies, and roughly 80% of kidney stones.
• A March 2026 German hospital case involved a 59-year-old woman who ate about 500 g of cooked Swiss chard, developed severe nausea, vomiting, and kidney pain, and had kidney function 87% below normal with oxalate crystals on biopsy. [3]
• Bruce Ames’s 1990 PNAS paper identified dozens of natural defensive compounds per plant, listed 49 in cabbage, and estimated that 99.99% of pesticides in the American diet originate within plants. [4]
• Of roughly 390,000 plant species worldwide, about 7,000 are edible without immediate severe harm, yet even those can have long-term effects.
• Bitter taste functions as a warning of toxins, much as unpleasant smell signals spoiled food; bitterness in vegetables signals potentially harmful compounds.

What cooking and fermentation change

• Soaking kidney beans for at least five hours and boiling them for at least ten minutes can destroy about 95% of lectins, but other plant compounds respond differently.
• A 2005 cooking study measured spinach oxalates falling from 1,145 to 460 mg per 100 g after cooking, leaving a substantial amount. [5]
• Fermentation can break down some plant compounds, and fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut are included in some otherwise carnivore diets.
• In fermented cabbage, glucosinolates disappeared within two weeks. [6]
• In lentils fermented for three days, lectin levels fell by 98%. [7]
• In fermented kale, phytate stayed essentially unchanged, and in fermented mustard greens only 7% of oxalates were broken down. [8][9]
• Swiss chard kimchi fermented for five days lost around 38% of its oxalates but retained 375 mg per 100 g, over seven times a 40-50 mg daily limit used for kidney-stone risk. [10]
• Fermentation reduces some compounds without eliminating them all; fermented vegetables are preferable to raw ones, while remaining bitterness signals potential harm.

Herbivores, human digestion, and ancestral diets

• Cows and other ruminants use a four-chambered digestive system; microbes in the rumen ferment plants and break down many defensive compounds before absorption.
• A 2020 paper in Toxins details how rumen microorganisms metabolize plant toxins, making microbial activity central to detoxification. [11]
• Gorillas, elephants, and rhinos ferment plant fiber in their enlarged colons, producing fatty acids and neutralizing plant chemicals.
• Around 77% of a gorilla’s intestinal length is large intestine, while 67-80% of human intestinal length is small intestine, limiting human fermentation capacity.
• Ancient-bone chemistry and archaeological evidence indicate that humans were among the most carnivorous animals until about 10,000 years ago. [12]
• Lion intestines are also about 80% small intestine and 20% large intestine; enzymes including trypsin and chymotrypsin aid meat digestion, while herbivores rely on microbial fermentation.
• Humans have acidic stomachs, small ceca, and relatively small guts, reflecting carnivore-like physiology and limited capacity to detoxify plants.

Nutrient absorption and meat-only diets

• Vegetables contain vitamins and minerals, but their nutritional value depends on absorption and utilization.
• A study in Blood measured iron absorption of 20.3% from meat versus 1.7% from spinach. [13]
• A separate study found calcium absorption of 27.6% from milk versus 5.1% from spinach. [14]
• Plant antinutrients, including oxalates, interfere with mineral absorption, creating differences between nutrient content and availability.
• Vitamin B12 is essential for red blood cells, nerves, and DNA but is absent from plant foods, so vegans need supplements.
• Twelve essential nutrients are absent from plants or difficult to obtain in meaningful amounts, including several important to brain function.
• Meat supplies every necessary nutrient; millions of people consume carnivore diets without deficiencies, although some nutrients fall below recommended daily amounts.
• Vitamin C and glucose have similar structures and compete at GLUT4 receptors; low-carbohydrate diets reduce vitamin C requirements, and meat provides enough to avoid scurvy.
• Carnivore eating has no documented scurvy cases, and long-term carnivores typically have high vitamin C blood levels; ancestral survival is consistent with sufficient nutrients from meat.

Red meat compared with vegetables

• Studies linking red meat to disease have healthy user bias because higher meat intake coincides with obesity, processed food, smoking, and alcohol use.
• In the 1960s, the sugar industry paid scientists to blame red meat for heart disease and divert attention from sugar, influencing decades of dietary advice. [15]
• Vegetables contain harmful defense compounds and have lower nutrient availability, while meat lacks those toxins and supplies all necessary nutrients.
• Vegetables are healthier than ultra-processed foods, while a meat-based diet is superior to a plant-based diet.

Vegetables as human creations

• Every vegetable is a product of human cultivation; broccoli was created about 2,000 years ago and carrots about 1,000 years ago.
• Wild broccoli does not grow naturally because these vegetables require human intervention.

References

1. [02:47] Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mortality: Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies of US Men and Women and a Meta-Analysis of 26 Cohort Studies — https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.048996
2. [05:21] A Clinical Trial of the Effects of Dietary Patterns on Blood Pressure — https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199704173361601
3. [10:33] Acute renal failure after dietary change – a case report — https://doi.org/10.1186/s12882-026-04906-0
4. [11:17] Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural) — https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.87.19.7777
5. [13:23] Effect of Different Cooking Methods on Vegetable Oxalate Content — https://doi.org/10.1021/jf048128d
6. [14:22] Plant-Derived Biomolecules in Fermented Cabbage — https://doi.org/10.1021/jf0109017
7. [14:24] Effect of Natural Fermentation on the Lectin of Lentils Measured by Immunological Methods — https://doi.org/10.1080/09540100220137655
8. [14:42] Fermenting kale (Brassica oleracea L.) enhances its functional food properties by increasing accessibility of key phytochemicals and reducing antinutritional factors — https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.4195
9. [14:49] Degradation of anti-nutrients in processing of Vietnamese pickled mustard greens (Brassica juncea) — https://doi.org/10.5958/0974-4576.2025.00128.2
10. [15:01] Effect of Kimchi Fermentation on Oxalate Levels in Silver Beet (Beta vulgaris var. cicla) — https://doi.org/10.3390/foods3020269
11. [16:38] Toxin Degradation by Rumen Microorganisms: A Review — https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins12100664
12. [18:06] The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene — https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24247
13. [19:47] Food Iron Absorption: A Comparison of Vegetable and Animal Foods — https://doi.org/10.1182/blood.V33.3.430.430
14. [19:59] Calcium absorbability from spinach — https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/47.4.707
15. [23:07] Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents — https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5394