Dr. Greger on Flexitarians

Do “Flexitarians” Live Longer?

In a report of health effects of a Mediterranean-style diet published in 2009, the most important component was the high consumption of plant foods. In contrast, seafood consumption, the only animal foods promoted in the Mediterranean diet, did not seem to help.

The longest-living populations in the so-called Blue Zones have several things in common: social support and engagement, daily exercise and centering their diets around plant foods, reserving meat mostly for special occasions.

In fact, the population with perhaps the highest life-expectancy in the world, the California Adventist vegetarians, doesn’t eat any meat at all.

We know vegetarians live longer, but since a pure vegetarian diet might not be easily embraced by many people, maybe it would be easier if we just tell them to increase plant-based foods and decrease animal-based foods.

Researchers thought of this food pattern as a “gentle approach” to vegetarianism, figuring that if it improved survival, it would be an easily understandable message for health promotion: more plant foods, fewer animal foods.

On this provegetarian scoring system, you get points for eating fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains, beans, olive oil and potatoes, and docked points for any animal fats, eggs, fish, dairy or any type of meat or meat products.

That means you get a higher score the more potato chips and French fries

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His latest books: How Not to Die, the How Not to Die Cookbook, and How Not to Diet all became instant New York Times Best Sellers. 100% of all proceeds he has ever received from his books, DVDs and speaking engagements have always and will always be donated to charity.

Dr. Michael Greger

M.D. FACLM

you eat. That’s why I prefer the term “whole-food, plant-based diet”, since it’s defined by what you eat, not by what you don’t eat. When I taught at Cornell, I had “vegan” students who apparently were trying to live off French fries and beer; vegan does not necessarily mean health-promoting.

The maximum provegetarian score is 60, but scoring 40+ was associated with a 40 percent drop in mortality. This is evidence that simple advice to increase the consumption of plant-derived foods with reductions in the consumption of animal-based foods confers a survival advantage.

A 41 percent drop in mortality rates would mean saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people every year.