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.
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