Revision as of 16:15, 10 May 2021

Dr. (MD) Michael Greger is a popular medical figure in the plant-based healthful-eating community, being one of the biggest influencers for a purely whole foods plant-based diet.
Michael Greger is likely to be the most widely-known advocate for a WFPB (whole foods plant-based) diet.
The main outreach platforms he uses are his Youtube channel and his website Nutritionfacts.org.

Positive impact

Popular outreach videos

While Dr. Greger had posted videos since early 2011, it was not until mid 2012 that a video he posted really put him on the map of Youtube.
After more than a year of series of many short videos talking about specific things directly to the point, he uploaded a speech he had given, titled 'Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death' (currently 1.8M views). In the video, Greger talks for almost an hour in a well-delivering way about how the consumption of animal products significantly worsens the health outlook in almost all the most common causes of death, with a WFPB diet preventing and even, in certain cases, reversing such causes. He goes through each main cause of death systematically providing evidence and multiple studies, showing that eating animal products seriously increase all-cause mortality.
The video made a big impact in changing a lot of minds, and is used and shared even today (2021).

He followed this speech with other similar talks, like the one in 2013 'More Than an Apple a Day: Preventing Our Most Common Diseases' (400K views) and the one in 2016 'How Not To Die: The Role of Diet in Preventing, Arresting, and Reversing Our Top 15 Killers' (780K views).

Other popular videos in the beginning of his Youtube work that caused him to gain a significant outreach include 'Eggs and Diabetes' (1.3M views), 'Does Coconut Oil Clog Arteries?' (1.1M views), 'Who Shouldn't Consume Curcumin or Turmeric?' (1.6M views), and other less controversial videos such 'Canned Beans or Cooked Beans?' (1.3M views).

When it comes to videos that did not necessarily put him on the map (posted later on when he had already gained a significant following) but that still gained vast popularity, he has important and impactful work such as 'How Our Gut Bacteria Can Use Eggs to Accelerate Cancer' (1.7M views), 'Egg Industry Response to Choline and TMAO' (700K views) and 'The best diet for diabetes' (1.4M views) - three examples of many of the videos he has that make really strong cases in favor of a WFPB diet.

One think to note about Greger is that his videos are rarely redundant with previously widely-known nutritional evidence, and instead bring to the table some of the latest work and research in the medical world. This is probably one of the factors that set him ahead compared to other health-related Youtube channels.

Other popular videos include 'Chocolate and Stroke Risk' (2.4M views), 'Eat More Calories in the Morning to Lose Weight' (900K views).

Highly consistent schedule of science-based health-related informative videos

Michael Greger's Daily Dozen and other useful work

Books and charity work

Controversies and unscientific stances

No amount of processed food being acceptable, dogmatically putting whole foods on a pedestal (even when certain processed foods are better than certain whole foods)

Endorsing skepticism of the efficacy of chemotherapy for cancer treatment

Salt being categorically bad