For many years, the prevailing wisdom has been that vegetarian and vegan diets offer superior health benefits compared to diets that include animal products. This perspective is usually coupled with unfounded concerns over the health impacts of consuming meat, eggs, and animal fats and legitimate ethical considerations about animal welfare. When I inform people that I am on the carnivore diet and choose not to eat many fruits, nuts, and vegetables, the question I get asked most often is, " How do you get all of your nutrients, then?" The reality is that question should be posed to those who choose vegan and vegetarian diets because, as we will see, plant-based foods don't contain all of our required nutrients. However, animal-based diets do. This post will cover the misguided belief that plants provide complete nutrition and cover which nutrients are the most likely to be missing or deficient.

Are there people who just don’t chew enough to absorb enough nutrients to be healthy, even though they could if they wanted to? How do we know when we have safely masticated food enough to safely swallow? Are all of the recommendations to chew more based on legitimate science? Let’s find out…