Eating as if The World
DEPENDS ON IT by David L. Katz, MD, MPH
The result is a periodic argument, albeit a very civil argument, with my colleagues, not just my adversaries. When, for instance, the more ardent proponents of vegan diets among my colleagues assert that eating wild salmon is toxic, I quip back: yes, for the fish. The epidemiologic evidence shows consistently and overwhelmingly that there is net health benefit for people in eating fish, omega-3-rich, fatty fish such as salmon in particular. We do not know if that benefit extends to optimal vegan diets or is only because fish is generally displacing meat from mixed diets. There really is no evidence to support the claim that eating wild salmon is toxic for people.
This column was adapted from this article The mission of my nearly 30-year-long career in medicine has been doing all I can, with nutrition in particular, to help add years to lives and life to years. That mission has evolved over the past decade and a half for one fundamental reason: there are no healthy, vital people on a ruined planet. If we want to be healthy, vital people, we must pursue that aim on a healthy, vital planet- and in my view, all “health professionals” are now duty-bound to strive in every way possible- for that confluence.
But it is indisputably toxic for the fish. And in a world awash in adult Homo sapiens making ever more hungry baby Homo sapiens and running out of wild salmon, the disagreement is increasingly moot. When there are no wild salmon left, it will no longer matter if we would have been better off including them in, or excluding them from, our plantpredominant, whole foods diets.
A fair amount of my professional time has gone into clarifying what diet is best for health. In that effort, I am publicly pledged to favor epidemiology over ideology. In other words, I subordinate my personal preferences to the weight of evidence. I advocate for the dietary theme on the common ground of science, sense, and global expert consensus.
VEGWORLD
30
March/April 2022
