About vegwars
Who runs it
vegwars is built by Chris Pennington, in the UK. I am not a doctor or a dietitian, and nothing here is medical advice.
I eat steak, eggs and fish. Most people I eat with don't, and the conversation at the table tends to end with me being told I'll get scurvy and that I need plants for fiber and vitamins. I wanted to know what is actually on each plate, with numbers neither side could argue with. So I built a calculator that shows them, with the source behind every figure.
Whose side it's on
Nobody's. The "war" in the name is the plant's chemistry against your body, not one diet against another.
Plants make defense chemicals because they can't run away. Some of that chemistry matters at the amounts people eat and much of it doesn't; the site shows which, compound by compound. Plants also deliver nutrients that meat lacks or has little of, such as vitamin C, vitamin K1 and fiber. The site shows those wins as plainly as the defense chemistry. Where a figure supports the person eating the vegetables, it says so.
Where the figures come from
Every number on the site links to its source. The main ones are:
- Nutrients: USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy)
- Sugar and starch split: UK Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID) 2021
- Safety limits: the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)
- Daily amounts: the US National Academies, UK, EFSA, Australia/New Zealand (NHMRC) and FAO/WHO reference values
- Plant names and families: Kew's Plants of the World Online; for mushrooms, Species Fungorum
- Plant chemistry: peer-reviewed papers, each linked beside its figure
How figures are checked
- Key figures are read by eye in the original paper, table or database page, not taken from a summary.
- A figure that hasn't been checked against its source stays off the site until it has.
- Numbers are rounded to 3 significant figures, as the USDA site does, so you can check them there.
- Zero has three meanings, and the site keeps them apart: measured zero, assumed zero by USDA (never measured), and not reported.
- Each compound stands on its own against its own limit. The site never adds different compounds into one "toxin" total and never gives a food a single score.
How strong the evidence is
Every compound carries a grade, so you can see what kind of evidence sits behind it:
- Measured composition: the amount was measured in the food.
- Human trial or study: the effect was seen in people.
- Animal study: the effect was seen in animals, not people.
- Cell study: the effect was seen in cells in a lab.
- Traditional use: recorded use only. Never presented as evidence.
What this site is not
It is information only. It doesn't diagnose, treat or advise anyone on what to eat, and it doesn't identify anyone's personal food triggers. If you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor.