Nina Plank author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why, eats “red meat, egg yolks, butter, lard, raw milk, and other taboo foods with impunity.” According to her website, she considers vegan, vegetarian, and low fat diets to be “draconian regimens.“ Plank lays the blame for the steep rise in heart disease, diabetes and cancer on industrial processed foods and hydrogenated fats. On a positive note, she is a big supporter of organics, farmers’ markets, and local food. She abhors factory farming.

Joanne Charlebois responded to Plank’s nutritional views in a feature letter in the Ottawa Citizen titled, Vegan diet is nutritional, practical choice:

“...until the 20th century, in almost all cultures, [animal foods] were eaten very sparingly, more like a garnish than a major source of calories as used by most Westerners. The only people who historically came close to eating the amount of animal products in the standard North American diet were the nobility, who suffered from many of the illnesses such as cancer and heart disease that plague people today. ... Epidemiological evidence points toward a whole-foods plant-based diet to minimize the risk of many diseases.“