There is a toxin in lychee fruit that can be harmful, but is it harmful only under certain circumstances? Lychee fruits have been widely used in many cultures for the folk medicine treatment of everything from farting to testicular swelling. (Arsenic, mercury, and lead are also included in many “traditional” remedies.) Lychees have also apparently […]

Laboratory models suggest that extreme doses of heme iron may be detrimental, but what about the effects of nutritional doses in humans? In muscle meat, there is a heme protein that contributes to, well, the meaty taste of meat. There’s also a heme protein in the roots of soybean plants that can be churned out

Is heme just an innocent bystander in the link between meat intake and breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure? In an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the chair of nutrition at Harvard pointed out that many plant-based meats, such as burgers made by Beyond Meat and Impossible

The influenza virus has existed for millions of years as an innocuous intestinal virus of wild ducks. What turned a harmless waterborne duck virus into a killer? In his classic book Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM, founder of NutritionFacts.org and New York Times Best-Selling author, traces the human

Clinical trials on Quorn show that it can improve satiety and help control cholesterol, blood sugar, and insulin levels. You may have heard about meats made from wheat protein (like Field Roast sausages and Upton’s bacon seitan), meats made from soybean protein (like the Impossible Whopper and Gardein’s wings), and meats made from pea protein

There are so many ways we eat potatoes—baked, mashed, hashed, fried, scalloped, roasted, and more—but should we be eating them at all? Potatoes and Diabetes In 2006, the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, which had followed the diets and diseases of tens of thousands of women for 20 years, found that greater potato intake was associated

What are the effects of plant-based meats on premature puberty, childhood obesity, and hip fracture risk? As noted in an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association on plant-based meats, if you look only at the nutrition facts information for a conventional burger versus a Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger, as seen here

What are the different impacts of plant protein versus animal protein, and do the benefits of plant proteins translate to plant protein isolates? Are plant-based burgers healthy or not? The answer is: Compared to what? Eating is kind of a zero-sum game where every food has an opportunity cost. Each time we put something in

We had the pleasure of talking with Jenné Claiborne about her work, food, Black History Month, and her new cookbook. We hope you enjoy this interview and her recipe for her Amazing Edamame Salad. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your work. I am the vegan chef, cookbook author, and content creator

What happens when you compare the trans fats, saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol levels in plant-based meats versus animal-based burgers?  Global meat production has skyrocketed over the last half-century. As you can see below and at 0:20 in my video Are Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger Healthy?, pork and poultry meat now exceed 100