New PNAS study fraudulently trashing plant based diet

For those questions and discussions on the McDougall program that don’t seem to fit in any other forum.

Moderators: JeffN, f1jim, John McDougall, carolve, Heather McDougall

New PNAS study fraudulently trashing plant based diet

Postby barryoilbegone » Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:24 pm

A new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that "compared with systems with animals, diets formulated for the US population in the plants-only systems had greater excess of dietary energy and resulted in a greater number of deficiencies in essential nutrients":

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/ ... uthor-info


You have to dig deep into the article to find out how they try and pull this one off - here it is:

"Despite attempts to meet nutrient needs from foods alone within a daily intake of less than 2 kg of food, certain requirements could not be met from available foods. In all simulated diets, vitamins D, E, and K were deficient. Choline was deficient in all scenarios except the system with animals that used domestic currently consumed and exported production. In the plants-only diets, a greater number of nutrients were deficient, including Ca, vitamins A and B12, and EPA, DHA, and arachidonic acid.

The challenges in meeting essential vitamin, mineral, and fatty acid requirements in plant-based diets are supported by previous works. It is entirely possible to meet the nutrient requirements of individual humans with carefully crafted, unsupplemented plant-based rations, but this can be a challenge to achieve in practice for an entire population. Based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007–2010), Cifelli et al. (29) found that plant-based rations were associated with greater deficiencies in Ca, protein, vitamin A, and vitamin D. In a review of the literature on environmental impacts of different diets, Payne et al. (30) also found that plant-based diets with reduced GHGs were also often high in sugar and low in essential micronutrients and concluded that plant-based diets with low GHGs may not result in improved nutritional quality or health outcomes. Although not accounted for in this study, it is also important to consider that animal-to-plant ratio is significantly correlated with bioavailability of many nutrients such as Fe, Zn, protein, and vitamin A (31)".


The major issues with these paragraphs (aside from the reference studies they cite also having major methodological problems, if you look at these papers, and limiting people's food intake always to below 2kg) is that the requirements for these nutrients - calcium, protein, vit A, E, D, K; EPA, DHA, and arachidonic acid are all falsely inflated. Choline has never been of any prominence whatsoever n plant based diet deficiency arguments. They're based on data from omnivore desired intake studies, not WFPB eater intakes. One look at the China Study data from Campbell, or blood results from the McDougall Ornish or Esselstyn programs, should conclude deficiencies ordinarily do not occur.

But I had to giggle when looking at the authorship and info:

Robin R. White
Department of Animal and Poultry Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061;

Mary Beth Hall

US Dairy Forage Research Center, US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, Madison, WI 53706

"The authors declare no conflict of interest".

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Keep it carb baby, as they say on a certain YouTube channel!

Barry
"All people are made alike - of bones and flesh and dinner. Only the dinners are different.”

Gertrude Louise Cheney
User avatar
barryoilbegone
 
Posts: 255
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:28 am
Location: Kent, UK

Re: New PNAS study fraudulently trashing plant based diet

Postby moonlight » Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:15 pm

Thank you for sharing this study and providing an analysis. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the deception in the food industry. We must continue spreading the word on living a healthy lifestyle on a WFPB diet. It will save our health as well as our planet. Change will come to the masses the more we lead by example.
moonlight
 
Posts: 1525
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 6:23 pm

Re: New PNAS study fraudulently trashing plant based diet

Postby Lyndzie » Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:20 am

Why on earth would they limit the weight of the food? I thought we were suppose to eat based on energy needs.

(That being said, 4.4 lbs of food seems like a lot. Isn’t that roughly 2000 calories of potatoes?)
Lindsey
My food journal: Adventures in Eating
My pregnancy journal: Maybe a Baby 2017
www.lindseyhead.coach
User avatar
Lyndzie
 
Posts: 2709
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:24 pm
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana USA

Re: New PNAS study fraudulently trashing plant based diet

Postby AlwaysAgnes » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:15 pm

Lyndzie wrote:Why on earth would they limit the weight of the food? I thought we were suppose to eat based on energy needs.

(That being said, 4.4 lbs of food seems like a lot. Isn’t that roughly 2000 calories of potatoes?)


I think it's around 1800 calories for 4.5 pounds of potatoes.

People tend to eat the same weight amount of food daily, between 3 to 5 pounds on average, but some eat more and some eat less. There are always folks at the extreme ends of things, but using 4 pounds for a model general population guesstimate seems reasonable.
https://www.precisionnutrition.com/what-are-your-4-lbs

In the 167-day Kon potato diet experiment, they ate about 2 to 3 pounds of potatoes daily along with 120-150 g (4-5 ounces) of animal fat and a few apples/pears. Sometimes they had black tea or coffee with sugar. They were measuring nitrogen balance in this experiment. I don't know how the other nutrient numbers come out, but the weight of the food is probably around 4 pounds. Wouldn't you say? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 0-0284.pdf
You don't have to wait to be happy.
AlwaysAgnes
 
Posts: 3436
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:45 pm

Re: New PNAS study fraudulently trashing plant based diet

Postby barryoilbegone » Sat Nov 25, 2017 7:01 am

Some great takedowns from Happy Healthy Vegan, and Mic the Vegan on other aspects of this study that were unsatisfactory as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miImGmUy1g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFgGFDahdv0

I don't know what to say on these authors, the journal, and the media reaction. It's kinda depressing on the one hand with how low they're prepared to stoop, but I guess there's also a plus, in that the animal industry seems to be getting more and more desperate in response to the real world results people are getting from going plant based. Hopefully, these people will be able to see this article for the shrill/academic troll piece it really is.

So we've had poor articles recently in PNAS, and in the Lancet... I'm thankful for the continued efforts of Dr McDougall, Prof Campbell, Prof Barnard, Prof Ornish, and Dr Esselstyn etc - and that I came across them - for trying to take on even the most "credible" journals, if these journals have now sold themselves out too. Start an integrity based journal yourselves guys, making up the editorial board, I'm thinking is the way to go. I think many of us in the WFPB would subscribe... and we definitely need one!
"All people are made alike - of bones and flesh and dinner. Only the dinners are different.”

Gertrude Louise Cheney
User avatar
barryoilbegone
 
Posts: 255
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:28 am
Location: Kent, UK


Return to The Lounge

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests



Welcome!

Sign up to receive our regular articles, recipes, and news about upcoming events.