Today I had the deep pleasure of meeting Dr Georgia Ede, another Boston area psychiatrist, creator of a fascinating website entitled Diagnosis: Diet, that I recommend to all of my readers. It is unfortunately exceedingly rare for me to meet a like minded psychiatrist, one who shares my conviction about the centrality of nutrition’s power to support or undermine mental health. One of Dr. Ede’s many admirable qualities is that she questions commonly held beliefs about nutrition, in order to determine if there is data to support them.
Recently she took on vegetables. Now that is daring and outside the box kind of thinking. Most of us unquestioningly hold vegetables in high regard as a health promoting food. I have certainly been guilty of this prejudice, at the dinner table routinely imploring my reluctant 12 year old son to eat them. He absolutely despises vegetables. Now since reading Dr. Ede’s research, I am going to give it a rest. The jury is out.
Dr. Ede looked at all the data and concluded that good studies have simply not been done to support our conviction that vegetables are unequivocally a health food. Clinically there are many patients who have adverse reactions to particular vegetables and some who feel much better on a very low fiber diet. At the end of this post, you can watch a video of her thoughtful entertaining presentation from the August 2012 Ancestral Health Symposium in Boston, where she discusses this topic.
There are so many uncritical, erroneous and passionately held beliefs regarding nutrition: cholesterol causes heart disease, a low fat diet rich in whole grains is healthful, a vegan diet is most beneficial, red meat is bad for you, saturated fat is bad for you, fiber is recommended for all those suffering from constipation. The list is endless. And now thanks to Dr. Ede, at least the question has been raised, are vegetables really good for everyone?
To generalize that all vegetables are good for you is as misleading that they are all not healthy for us…this presentation does not conclude anything. She said that studies are not conclusive, and from there she extends that vegetables are not necessarily healthy! That is a quite stretch…
Overall, it is all about being better educated about vegetable diet and not making generalisations…thus, telling our 12 year old they were right all along not to eat veggies is also quite a stretch 🙂
Another misleading matter in the study, she defines vegetables as the body of the plant. Then she addresses peppers and nightshades…when in fact peppers are not the body of the plant because they are in fact fruits! She is mixing fruits and vegetables > the very thing she spoke against.
Thanks for writing, David. What I like is that Dr Ede simply says is that the studies have not been done that conclusively support our conviction that vegetables are a health food. They may be healthy for some, and not for others. The research is simply not there. That is why I decided to stop pressuring my son to eat them. There is so much we do not know and I always like it when someone challenges unwarranted assumptions. Clinically it is clear that some people feel much better when they get them out of their diet. Now this means that they are replaced with other healthful foods, not refined or processed foods.
Hi David
Thanks for sitting through the video and taking the time to post this excellent feedback. I agree with you 100% that I didn’t come to any conclusions–I couldn’t, because we don’t have enough information. My goal was to raise awareness about the lack of evidence supporting veggies and health and to put forward a new hypothesis about plant foods.
You are absolutely right that I mixed fruits and vegetables into my section on nightshades, and I agree this was confusing. In fact, an audience member asked me about that at the end of the talk. Due to the 20 min time limit, I didn’t point out that one slide in the talk highlights the difference in levels and toxicities of glycoalkaloids in potato skins (veg) vs tomatoes and eggplants (fruits).
My hypothesis is not that all fruits are good and all vegetables are bad, but rather that vegetables don’t want to be eaten and some (but not all) fruits want to be eaten, and by specific creatures. The chili pepper is a good example of a fruit that does not want to be eaten by humans; it prefers birds. This weekend I’m writing about the cranberry, which I learned is bitter bc it doesn’t need animals to disperse its seeds–it uses water! I also just posted about squashes and pumpkins (fruits) and found that their natural defense compounds seem to be harmless to us.
I find plants fascinating and do not pretend to know all the answers, but yes I can see how parts of my talk may have been confusing and that my take on things may seem like a stretch. I appreciate the skepticism and will work towards making my talks clearer. Thank you!