If you’ve spent any time on health social media, you’ve probably absorbed the gospel: meat is bad, vegetables are good, and the more plants you eat, the closer you get to immortality. Right? Well… not exactly. The real science of nutrition is a lot messier, more nuanced, and way more interesting than any Instagram infographic would have you believe.
Don’t get us wrong — vegetables are incredible. But the idea that you should eliminate meat entirely and load up exclusively on plants is based on some serious oversimplifications. Let’s bust 5 of the biggest myths about meat, vegetables, and what your body actually needs.
1. “Red Meat Is Basically Poison”
This is the big one. The narrative that red meat is a one-way ticket to heart disease and cancer has been drilled into our collective consciousness for decades. But the actual science? It’s far more nuanced than “meat = bad.”
First, the important distinction: unprocessed red meat and processed meat are completely different things. When the World Health Organization classified processed meats (bacon, sausages, hot dogs) as Group 1 carcinogens, headlines screamed “MEAT CAUSES CANCER.” But unprocessed red meat was classified as Group 2A — “probably carcinogenic” — which is the same category as working the night shift and drinking very hot beverages.
Meanwhile, unprocessed red meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. A single serving provides: complete protein with all essential amino acids, heme iron (2–3x more bioavailable than plant iron), vitamin B12 (virtually absent in plants), zinc, selenium, and creatine. A 2023 meta-analysis in Nature Medicine found that moderate red meat consumption (2–3 servings per week) showed no significant association with cardiovascular mortality.
The real villain? Ultra-processed everything — whether it’s processed meat, processed snacks, or even ultra-processed vegan products. It’s the processing, not the meat itself, that consistently shows up as harmful in research.
2. “More Vegetables = Always Healthier”
Vegetables are fantastic. They’re packed with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. But “more is always better” is not how nutrition works. There are real situations where too many vegetables can actually cause problems.
Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts) contain goitrogens — compounds that can interfere with thyroid function by blocking iodine uptake. For most people, this isn’t an issue. But if you have hypothyroidism or borderline thyroid function and you’re juicing kale every morning, you could be making things worse.
Spinach and Swiss chard are loaded with oxalates, which bind to calcium and can contribute to kidney stones in susceptible individuals. The irony? That “healthy green smoothie” packed with raw spinach might be delivering more oxalates than your kidneys want to deal with.
And here’s a fact that surprises many people: the nutrients in some vegetables are actually more bioavailable when cooked. Lycopene in tomatoes increases by up to 35% when cooked. Beta-carotene in carrots becomes significantly more absorbable when heated. Raw isn’t automatically better — sometimes cooking breaks down cell walls and unlocks nutrients your body can’t access otherwise.
3. “Plant Protein Is Just As Good As Animal Protein”
This one sounds progressive and enlightened, but biochemically, it’s misleading. Not all proteins are created equal. The quality of a protein depends on two things: its amino acid profile and its digestibility.
Animal proteins (meat, fish, eggs, dairy) are complete proteins — they contain all 9 essential amino acids in the ratios your body needs. Most plant proteins are incomplete, meaning they’re low in one or more essential amino acids. Rice is low in lysine. Beans are low in methionine. You can combine them to get a complete profile, but you need to know what you’re doing.
Then there’s bioavailability. The Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS) — the gold standard for protein quality — rates animal proteins significantly higher than plant sources. Whey protein scores ~1.09, eggs ~1.13, while wheat scores ~0.40 and kidney beans ~0.59. You’d need to eat roughly 40–50% more plant protein to match the effective amino acid delivery of animal protein.
This doesn’t mean plant protein is useless — far from it. But pretending it’s nutritionally identical to animal protein ignores basic biochemistry. If you’re plant-based, you just need to be more strategic about combining your protein sources.
4. “Vegans Are Automatically Healthier”
The health halo around veganism is powerful — and partly earned. Well-planned plant-based diets are associated with lower rates of heart disease and certain cancers. But “vegan” doesn’t automatically mean “healthy.”
The most commonly deficient nutrients in vegan diets are: Vitamin B12 (essentially absent in plants — deficiency causes nerve damage and anemia), heme iron (plant iron is 5–12% bioavailable vs. 15–35% for heme iron), zinc (plant phytates reduce absorption by up to 50%), omega-3 DHA/EPA (your body converts only 5–10% of plant ALA to DHA), and vitamin D3.
A 2024 study in BMC Medicine found that while vegans had lower BMI and cholesterol on average, they also had 43% higher fracture risk compared to meat eaters — largely due to lower calcium, protein, and B12 intake. The UK Biobank data showed that vegans had the lowest bone mineral density of any dietary group.
And let’s be honest: vegan junk food is booming. Oreos are vegan. So are many chips, sodas, and ultra-processed fake meats loaded with sodium and additives. A diet of vegan processed food is not healthier than a balanced diet with moderate animal products. The label doesn’t determine health — the actual food choices do.
5. “Our Ancestors Were Mostly Vegetarian”
This is a popular claim used to argue that humans are “designed” for plant-based eating. But the archaeological and anthropological evidence tells a very different story. Meat consumption was central to human evolution.
A landmark 2021 study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology analyzed isotope data from hundreds of archaeological sites and concluded that for roughly 2 million years, Homo species occupied the top of the food chain as hypercarnivores — meaning animal foods made up the majority of their diet. The shift toward more plant foods happened relatively recently in evolutionary terms, around 10,000–12,000 years ago with the agricultural revolution.
Our large, energy-hungry brains — which consume 20% of our total calories despite being 2% of body weight — likely co-evolved with meat eating. The caloric density and nutrient concentration of animal foods (especially brain-building nutrients like DHA, B12, and choline) may have been a key driver of the brain expansion that makes us human.
This doesn’t mean we must eat like cavemen. But arguing that humans are “natural herbivores” is simply not supported by the evidence. We’re omnivores — built to thrive on both animal and plant foods.
🌟 Bonus Facts
- The longest-lived populations on Earth (Blue Zones) all eat some animal products. Okinawans eat pork, Sardinians eat sheep dairy, Ikarians eat goat milk and fish. None are fully vegan.
- Your body absorbs iron from plants 5–12% of the time, but 15–35% from meat. Adding vitamin C to plant meals boosts absorption, but it still doesn’t match heme iron.
- The “China Study”, often cited as proof that plant diets cure disease, has been heavily criticized by statisticians for cherry-picking data and confusing correlation with causation. The raw data actually shows several regions where meat consumption correlated with LESS disease.
The Bottom Line
The optimal human diet isn’t “meat only” or “plants only” — it’s both, in balance. The demonization of meat and the unconditional worship of vegetables are both oversimplifications that ignore how human nutrition actually works.
Here’s what the science consistently supports: eat a variety of whole, minimally processed foods from both animal and plant sources. Include quality protein (whether from meat, fish, eggs, or well-combined plant sources). Eat plenty of vegetables — but don’t treat them as a magic cure-all. And above all, avoid ultra-processed foods regardless of whether they carry a “vegan” or “organic” label.
Your body doesn’t care about dietary tribes. It cares about nutrients. Give it what it needs, and skip the ideology.
📚 Sources
- Zeraatkar, D., et al. “Effect of lower versus higher red meat intake on cardiometabolic and cancer outcomes.” Annals of Internal Medicine, 2019.
- Buettner, D. “The Blue Zones.” National Geographic, 2012.
- Leroy, F., & Cofnas, N. “Should dietary guidelines recommend low red meat intake?” Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 2020.
- Ben-Dor, M., et al. “The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2021.
- Neufingerl, N., & Eilander, A. “Nutrient intake and status in adults consuming plant-based diets.” Nutrients, 2022.