[hombre_fatal]

> more nutrient dense per calories than vegetables

I'm not sure how this meme started, but it's not actually true. You can plug foods into Cronometer.com and see for yourself. e.g. carrots (vitamin A) or kale (vitamin K1) give you the RDA with few calories. I mean, the cocoa powder I added to my smoothie this morning had 100% RDA copper and 45% RDA iron in 57 calories.

Similarly, plants and plant-based foods have full amino profiles. Once again, plug anything from soy beans or even broccoli into Cronometer.com and look at the amino acid breakdown.

These are some really ancient wives tales about vegetables.

> These beliefs come from epidemiological studies without regards for other life habits such as smoking or dietary choices such as sugar intake.

This isn't true. Tracking and multivariate adjustment are standard fare for epi studies.

[arboghast]

It's not a meme. If you look at research that look at foods rich in micronutrients, you'll see that meat covers most of them.

For example, yes Kale is rich in calcium and vitamin K than meat in general, but beef, pork or chicken covers a higher ratio of micronutrients than Kale. Obviously, one should not only eat meat. But the point was that meat itself does not make you sick (unless in excess, like anything).

> Similarly, plants and plant-based foods have full amino profiles. Once again, plug anything from soy beans or even broccoli into Cronometer.com and look at the amino acid breakdown.

Full amino acid profile doesn't mean that it contains the same amount, it just means that it's present. Moreover, nutrient absorption is often lower with vegetables than with meat.

Again, not saying one should not eat vegetables. One definitely should eat fruits and vegetables. But it's clear that lacking meat in one diet has long term consequences that reveals itself later in life.

[hombre_fatal]

Be specific about the micronutrients because aside from a few things like protein and b12, I think you will be let down by your expectations when you plug meat into Cronometer.

What are all these micronutrients that you think 100g (184cal) of chicken has? Now compare the mineral and folate contents of 100g (121cal) edamame (first vegetable I saw in my freezer). Or compare it to 530g of cooked broccoli which has the same calories as 100g chicken (if isocaloric comparison is easier) and tell me that chicken is more nutrient dense per calorie.

I don't want to sound like I'm a Cronometer affiliate, but most people can't even estimate which foods have which nutrients until they plot a few days of their diet into Cronometer. I was certainly surprised, myself.

I highly recommend you log a whole day of eating into Cronometer to get an idea of where nutrients come from.

[lkbm]

> a higher ratio of micronutrients

I'm assuming here that we're talking about "nutrient density"—the ratio of nutrients per calorie. Is that what you means? Or are you using something like "per gram"?

[arboghast]

That's what I mean yes. English isn't my first language. How should I have phrased it?

[lkbm]

I'm not sure. We don't really have a specific term for it as far as I know.

I think it's mostly confusing because we're talking about how healthy food is, and because you talked about a ratio. Since we're in a situation too many calories is more of an issue than too few, nutrition-per-calorie is used as a rough proxy for how "healthy" a food is. Pure lard has a higher nutrition-per-gram ratio than beef. (So long as you consider calories to be part of the "nutrition".)