Any diet other than veganism—including vegetarianism—is unhealthy. Paleo, Atkins, South Beach, The Zone, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and the Blood-Type diets cannot produce optimum health because there is no such thing as healthy meat, cheese, milk and eggs, just as there is no such thing as healthy cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains and legumes cause NO disease (with the exception of a wheat gluten allergy that causes Celiac Disease in some individuals who are gluten-intolerant). Diseases arise from the consumption of animal protein, casein, sugar, the excessive amount of fat found in all animal products and oils, artificial additives, the 2-9 percent of naturally-occurring trans-fatty acids found in meat and dairy, human-made trans fatty acids found in junk food, and the excessive amount of refined carbohydrates found in white rice, white bread, and pasta. Non-dietary factors affect health, too. Stress, a lack of sleep, smoking tobacco, chemical pollution, genetics, and a lack of exercise can wreak havoc on the body. Therefore, it is essential to eat plant-based foods exclusively, and control the non-dietary factors to the best of your ability. Check out this 2014 University of Southern California study which clearly indicts animal protein as a deadly toxin.
The advertising hustlers and shyster doctors of the fad diet industry claim that it's not the meat and cheese of a sandwich making people overweight and sick; it's only the bun! They tell people that it's not the bacon, milk and eggs of the standard American breakfast making people overweight and sick; it's the side of strawberries and cantaloupe.
Even moderate amounts of animal products are detrimental to the human body because moderate amounts of fat, trans-fatty acids, casein and animal protein are just as harmful as moderate amounts of sugar, tobacco, and heroin. If you want to avoid lung cancer and emphysema, moderately smoking five cigarettes per day would not be too bright. If you want to avoid heart diseases, most cancers, diabetes, osteoporosis and other diseases, not even a moderate amount of meat, dairy and eggs can be on the menu. From an ethical standpoint, the exploitation is wrong, and the cruelty it produces in any amount is never acceptable.
Dr. James Anderson, professor of medicine and nutrition at the University of Kentucky said, "If you wanted to find one diet to ruin your health, you couldn't find one worse than Atkins." Egregious fad diets like Atkins are exact recipes for heart diseases and cancers.
Fad diets, however, are capable of bringing about weight loss. If losing weight—and not being healthy—is the only goal, people should try some other fabulous weight-loss methods like smoking crack, bulimia, anorexia or getting AIDS. I'm not recommending those insane techniques, but I'll bet that if a few advertising hustlers, shyster doctors and pharmaceutical companies got together and decided to package crack and called it "The Low-Carb Crack Snack," everyone would be snacking on crack!
Skinniness doesn't equal healthiness. Skinny meat, dairy and egg-eaters have heart attacks and get cancer all the time. After you or someone else you know gets skinny on a fad diet—and then dies from a heart attack or cancer—I'm sure the pallbearers will be thrilled they won't have to strain too much as they carry the casket from the hearse to the grave.