We can't find evidence that holds up here. Proponents are reasoning from mechanism or analogy rather than direct human data, and the most credible skeptics raise objections we can't dismiss.
The term "phytonutrient" is made-up and misleading. Most "phytonutrients" do nothing "nutrient-like..." "Phytochemical" is a better term. Most "phytonutrients" have zero roles in survival, growth or reproduction and are often plant defense chemicals with highly questionable net benefit in humans.
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I think that correcting this idea that phytonutrients even exist is really important so I like that it's brought up but I would strongly disagree with Chris here and I think we have to call these phytochemicals or just fight out toxins in this case
phytonutrients which I would argue are sort of a myth right in my talk about I talked about phytonutrients today being like the tooth fairy Sasquatch and unicorn farts you know I really don't believe there's such thing as phytonutrients as you highlight I am not convinced by any of the literature that there are unique nutrients and plants that we need or that make us any better
many of these chemicals are what we think of as phytochemicals these are the magical chemicals that we're told are so good for us when people say you can't do a carnivore diet what about the phytochemicals final chemicals are magical right phytochemicals are unicorns and fairy dust they are magical right I would argue you know because let's look at this real quickly
but what i want to raise the public awareness about is that these phytochemicals are actually usually defense chemicals they're usually built by the plan to dissuade people from eating them and the benefits or the purported benefits of these plant chemicals are often redundant you can get them in other ways
many in the nutrition space believe for some reason that these defense chemicals are good for humans but i think we need to take a different perspective and make sure that they are not bad for humans because though we can attribute some physiologic benefits or i should say physiologic effects of these plant chemicals in our bodies these supposed defense chemicals what we must always do is weigh the risks and the benefits and i think that case after case after case will show us that the risks outweigh the benefits and these plant chemicals are net negative
these plant chemicals are net negative which is why i don't believe you need plant defense chemicals why i don't believe these quote phytonutrients are even a nutrient at all they're just defense chemicals
so many of the chemicals in plants that we consider to be phytochemicals wrongly termed phytonutrients i don't think they're actually nutrients because they don't serve any indispensable role in the human body they don't serve any necessary role in human biochemistry like vitamins or minerals do or proteins or peptides or hormones do in the human body these are not nutrients these are phytochemicals
so many of the chemicals in plants that we consider to be phytochemicals wrongly termed phytonutrients i don't think they're actually nutrients because they don't serve any indispensable role in the human body they don't serve any necessary role in human biochemistry like vitamins or minerals do or proteins or peptides or hormones do in the human body these are not nutrients these are phytochemicals