From Vegan To Keto: Myths About Nutrition

Q I want to eat healthy. How do I sort out the marketing hype from the science in the diet wars? — Kurt, Seattle

- Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

A: The original title of this article was going to be “The Trouble with Vegans.” It was provocative and catchy, which certainly would have prompted a lot of people to read it.

But the “trouble” with vegans isn’t confined to vegans. It’s really the trouble with nutritional politics, which have become as partisan and divided as Congress. Facts matter little, allegiance to your nutritional orthodoxy take precedence over science, and if you’re on the wrong “side” of things, you’re not only stupid and uneducated, you’re also morally bereft.

So this article is really about the marketing claims made for popular diets, misconceptions about things like “vegan” and “keto,” nutritional politics, and “know-nothing” science. I’ve been accused many times of being anti-vegan; what I really am is anti-misinformation.

Let’s see if we can sort out some of the myths, truths, and misconceptions in the diet marketing wars, and come up with some basic, non-partisan facts we can all agree on.

THE VEGAN MYTH

A vegan diet is defined by what’s not in it. As long as you don’t eat foods that once had a face, you can be a vegan. Vegans make all kinds of recommendations for foods you should eat, but the fact is, you can eat a 100 percent junk-food diet and still be a vegan as long as it meets the single requirement: no animal products.

So let’s bust myth number one: A vegan diet is not by definition healthy—it’s just a diet without animal products.