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Comment by yfdrea | Hacker News Reader

I switched to a plant based diet last year after reading similar articles on climate change and was surprised to see an additional set of benefits. I feel a lot healthier, my skin is clearer (struggled with frequent untamable breakouts), I save money, etc. Diet is a very individualized thing, so don't dramatically overhaul your entire lifestyle based off what a random stranger says on the Internet but if you haven't tried a plant-based diet you may be pleasantly surprised like I was. I'll still eat meat if it's served to me but when I am eating out and cooking I go veggie.

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I first tried eating vegetarian to deal with some digestion issues. It made it worse. Especially spinach, broccoli and other high fiber foods. I switched to a 90% carnivore diet and everything cleared up digestion wise, and I also felt much better, healthier, and my skin cleared up. As you say, diet is very individualized.

What was your diet before? Anecdotally, most people I know who felt better after going keto-ish had horrible diets to begin with. Dramatic reduction in processed foods, beer, HFCS, etc.

Simply preparing food at home with fresher ingredients and being conscious of what you're taking in can account for much of the gains they experienced.

The vast majority of people on the planet don't eat 90% meat diets, but if we did it would be a disaster! I'm not saying it isn't the case with you, but anyone who experienced amazing gains shifting their diet to mostly meat should consider survivorship bias, and that the benefits are from cutting other things out, not adding tons of animal protein in.

> I feel a lot healthier

This was the clincher for me. I listened to the audiobook "How Not to Die" by Dr. Greger and was convinced of the common sense that eating plant based whole foods is the way to be healthier. The lowered cost and lowered impact on the environment are just icing on the cake. If eating meat was better for me, I'd still do it. The science done so far seems to suggest that a whole food plant based diet is the healthiest diet.

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