In Search of the Optimal Human Diet gives readers a history of nutritional science that treats nutrition as a developing scientific story rather than a set of trendy rules. How has your own experience with diet influenced the conclusions in the book?

My own experience with a whole-food, plant-based diet has conformed to the findings of nutritional science. While my father, who ate an animal-centric diet died of a massive heart attack at age 51, I show no evidence of heart disease at age 73, and I still lead a physically active life. When I observe my peers who eat an animal-centric diet many of them suffer from late-stage degenerative diseases. My personal experience does not constitute scientific proof, but it has definitely reinforced my confidence that I’m on the right track.

What types of evidence—epidemiological, clinical, or mechanistic—do you find most compelling?

What I find most compelling is that in the study of nutritional science, all three of these evidence-based branches of scientific inquiry have reached the same conclusion: humans thrive on a whole-food, plant-based diet and succumb to degenerative diseases on an animal-centric diet. The fact that these three different approaches to the study of nutritional science corroborate each other makes an extremely powerful case for the efficacy of a whole-food, plant-based diet.

How should readers think about sugar, salt, and processed food within your model?

As I have demonstrated in my book, a whole-food, plant-based diet is the optimal human diet. While sugar and many processed foods are plant-based, they are not whole foods. This is important because whole plant foods contain many nutrients, including fiber, that are extracted from processed foods. In effect, processed foods supply nutrient-poor calories that replace the nutrient-rich calories found in whole plant foods. Salt is a mineral compound of sodium and chloride. Sodium and chloride are essential nutrients, but we get enough of them from whole plant foods and don’t need to supplement with table salt. Excess salt in the diet is a risk factor for high blood pressure. Most people get the essential mineral iodine from iodized salt, but seaweed is a healthier option.

What misconceptions do you hope this book helps correct?

There are many, but here are two:

1) One common misconception is that humans need lots of protein in our diet to be strong and healthy. This misconception stems from experiments conducted over a century ago on rats. Since then, interventional studies on actual humans have shown conclusively that our protein requirements are actually quite modest and easily met with a whole-food, plant-based diet; indeed, studies have shown that animal protein in the diet is a risk factor for heart disease and cancer. And yet, this high-protein myth persists to this day.

2) Another common misconception is that nutritional science is inconclusive and that the evidence from scientific studies is often contradictory. This misconception has been manufactured by the animal products and processed food industries. They have used their immense financial resources to fund research designed to produce results favorable to them. These biased studies are then fed to laypeople in expensive public relations campaigns to confuse the issue. Meanwhile, research conducted by independent, objective scientists is often suppressed in the popular media. Among truly independent researchers, the science is pointing in one direction: toward the efficacy of a whole-food, plant-based diet to treat and prevent chronic degenerative diseases.

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