Legumes – optimal intake

Executive summary

* Legumes are increasingly being promoted as the food group we should be consuming instead of animal foods.

* The EAT Lancet diet recommended 100g/day of legumes, with a detailed breakdown of how to obtain these.

* The Global Burden of Disease (2019) study set a minimum risk exposure level of 90-100g/day, meaning consume less than this and one's health is at risk.

* The meat and dairy life expectancy paper from last week proposed that 200g/day is the optimal intake.

* This week's note shares an exchange I had with the lead author of the life expectancy paper, which confirmed that there is no evidence for this 200g/day recommendation. This figure will become embedded in nutritional folklore despite this absence of evidence.

* This note also compares lentils with chicken liver for macro and micronutrients. There is one clear winner, and it isn't the lentils.

 

The rest of this article is available to site subscribers, who get access to all articles plus a weekly newsletter.
To continue reading, please login below or sign up for a subscription. Thank you.