I'm not, though I'm vegan and eat a wholefoods diet. I snooped around his website not long ago and read lots of his articles. Many of them made good sense. Some of them, however, struck me as absolutely nutty, particularly the ranting about how all fat is evil. He is deliberately ignoring the large body of research showing the benefits of essential fatty acids and distorting evidence to suit his own ends, which is unprofessional and does not make me trust him. He will cagily refer to evidence of where fats can be helpful (e.g. omega 3 oils for anti-inflammatory purposes), but then deny it in the next sentence, usually with no evidence whatsoever.
Example of said ranting:
Not a day goes by that I don’t hear someone say to me, “My diet is completely vegan, but I am still 40 pounds overweight.” The oily sheen on her face and hair are a clear give away that she hasn’t been willing to stop adding the half cup of extra virgin olive oil to her spaghetti sauce. from
here.
There is a difference between cutting out all nuts, seeds, avocados, cooking oils and so forth, and the other extreme of putting half a cup of oil into a serving of pasta sauce. I tried eating at 10% fat temporarily (suspected gallstones, and the GP gave me the wrong instructions by mistake) and it is incredibly restrictive, difficult, and miserable. I had to start making my porridge with half water because even that amount of soya milk was bringing the fat up, I couldn't put a small sprinkle of sesame seeds into my miso soup, I had to cut out tofu, I couldn't use my usual 1/4 tsp of oil for stir-frying a big pan of veg, I couldn't take even 2g of EFA supplements for help with pain and energy levels, and my little treats of 4g pieces of dark chocolate a few times a week were out of the question. 10% is the level where you have to start fretting about how much fat might be in the oats you're eating for breakfast. I didn't become overweight because of eating a reasonable amount of fat in a healthy vegan diet, I became overweight because I got ill, couldn't exercise and lost track of what I was eating.
I'm also not happy about the sarcastic tone of that paragraph, the unpleasant blaming of people who are overweight and treating them like idiots. Incidentally, even on a relatively low-fat diet of about 26% of calories from fat, I'm still having substantial problems with dry skin. It's also possible to have painfully dry skin and still get a shiny nose!
Also, apparently modest doses of vitamin supplements will kill you, according to this wonderful authority! Overdoses are harmful with some nutrients, yes, and usually massive overdoses that are many times the level of overdose that would cause harm from a prescription medication, but I am aware of quite a lot of research showing that normal doses are frequently beneficial. I certainly haven't found any reputable sources showing that a basic multivitamin will actually kill you.
More
bad science:
n November 2, 2004 results of an analysis of 19 studies involving 136,000 people concluded that the overall risk of dying was increased by taking vitamin E pills at commonly consumed dosages (400 IU).6 Taking this much vitamin E for 5 years could increase your risk of dying by 5%.
Funny, I thought everyone's risk of dying was 100%? 400IU is not a commonly consumed dosage. The RDA for Vitamin E is 8IU, and having just checked six popular multivitamin supplements, the amount of Vitamin E contained in those ranges from 7.5IU to 60IU. I've just had a search through separate Vitamin E supplements on the Bodykind website, and while 400IU is available here and there, it is very far from being the norm. 100IU or less seemed to be the most common amount. McDougall is implying that a mammoth overdose is what is routinely taken, which is a long way from the truth. It's like saying that paracetamol [acetominophen] is bound to kill you because commonly consumed dosages cause a slow and painful death, when by "commonly consumed" you mean "500 times the recommended dosage" (and actually, paracetamol can kill you at twenty or so times the recommended dosage).
Meanwhile, have a
random article on how vitamin supplementation is beneficial, rather than harmful, to cancer patients. There are lots of them about.
He's really not someone whose opinion I trust.