"Plant foods are vastly more nutritious than animal sources." Well, the question I responded to was about inexpensive nutrient-dense foods. Based on this organ

"Plant foods are vastly more nutritious than animal sources." Well, the question I responded to was about inexpensive nutrient-dense foods. Based on this organ meats, eggs and fish/shellfish beats plant foods all to hell. "Where is the fiber..." Fiber is nutrient-dense? Nope, it's not. It's not even digestible by the body. Why start out a criticism by leading with your worst card? Let's move on to the rest of your hand... "Or the vast array of phytochemicals, polyphenols/flavonoids" What value do these supply? Serious question. I know there is a lot of interest in them as an area of study, but they sound like the hope/hype behind anti-oxidants, for which the science has not panned-out favorably. "the WHO has recently pointed out that processed/red meat is carcinogenic." Their recommendation is based on epidemiological surveys, not randomized control trials. I could just as easily point to studies showing higher cancer rates of vegetarians [0] versus meat eaters. But it doesn't matter, because virtually all nutrition studies are based on questionnaires where they ask "How much steak did you eat last week?" or "What percentage of your total diet was leafy greens last month?" which is about as reliable as you might expect. It is extremely difficult to arrive at meaningful conclusions from epidemiological studies, because there are so many built-in confounders and biases. Even then, the associations are extremely weak (For comparison, the p-value of relative risk for smoking causing lung cancer is: 8.96. The p-value of meat causing cancer is... 1.5. [1] Values under 2.0 are typically considered tenuous/weak.). It's fairly ridiculous to believe that animal flesh, something that has been a major component of our diet since pre-human times (2 million years +) is detrimental to our health. By contrast, humans incorporated more plants and grains in the last 12k years-- relatively recent, about 350 generations ago from an evolutionary perspective. "I don't think you understand what "nutrient density" means." Sure I do. I _also_ bothered to read the definition put forward by the poster I was responding to [2]. Thanks for the link to your preferred nutrition expert, Dr. Furhman, but I'll pass-- by all appearances the guy is an alt-science (veggies cure cancer!!) anti-vaxx detoxification quack [3]. Look, I replied to a post about cheap (but healthy) nutrient-dense foods. I wasn't trying to trigger the plant-based religious fanatics. I never told anyone not to eat plants, and I think everyone should experiment and keep pushing to find what works for their personal health. Over the last 6-8 years I've done mediterranean (DASH), vegetarian, keto, and paleo/carnivore. I'm happy to continue the conversation but I think you're the one who could benefit from a bit more homework, particularly on the specific question I was replying to. 0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19279082 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19279082 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20663065 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20663065 2. https://chriskresser.com/what-is-nutrient-density-and-why-is-it-important/ https://chriskresser.com/what-is-nutrient-density-and-why-is... 3. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Joel_Fuhrman https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Joel_Fuhrman