In this episode, I ask the question: which diet would produce more nutrient deficiencies: an all-meat diet or an all-wheat diet? Using the nutrient calculator Chronometer, I am surprised to find that an all-whole wheat bagel diet actually produces fewer nutrient deficiencies than an all-ribeye diet. SWIPE SWIPE If one was forced to choose between eating only wheat or meat, and one was aiming at the most nutritious diet, the answer is clearly to eat only wheat. Even more surprisingly, a diet consisting of 43% calories from lentils, 43% from wheat, 9% from almonds and 5% from broccoli, carrots, and sardines produces an almost perfectly nutritious diet. SWIPE So why are Paleomyths about meat being more nutrient-rich than plants so widespread, despite the actual story being much more complicated (to say the least)? My guess is that this is largely motivated by modernity anxiety. For all of human history, humans have idealized and romanticized simpler ways of life, as exemplified by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. We imagine our hunter-gatherer ancestors all ate large quantities of meat. It follows that we should eat meat. We therefore look for sciency-sounding reasons for this belief. Folks like Chris Kresser, Robb Wolf, and Mark Sisson all provide these sciency-sounding reasons. Because this is what we already believed anyway, and we are just looking for reasons to believe it, instead of critically evaluating what these bloggers write, immediately we think “ahhh so that’s why!” We are already primed to believe, not to question. And so we believe. Suffice to say, every scientific field is more complicated and richer in controversy than we think at first. Often, we first access a scientific field via a popular writer who tells a good story and appeals to pre-existing beliefs to sell that story. Yet no matter if they are a New York Times bestseller or a famous columnist or respected by large popular audiences on the Internet, we should always be skeptical of the new things we learn, especially if they resonate with what we already believe. Listen to the full episode on THE KEVIN BASS SHOW.