I don't eat any vegetables (or fruit) per se and I've never felt better. My reasoning was digestive. I simply can't tolerate sugar and fiber. Bacteria food in the small intestine = not good for me. I tolerate meat, fish, eggs, and cream very well.

I eat a lot of meat stew. I load up my stews with spices, including paprika, dried chilis and chili powder, turmeric and other curry spices, cinnamon, bay leaf, etc.. I also add bone broth, of which I always keep a supply in the fridge and freezer. I'm pretty sure I'm getting all the micronutrients I need, although the vitamin C content of my stews is certainly lower than the RDA. The paprika and chilis help. I'm not convinced the RDA has any scientific heft, anyway. I don't think I need supplements, although I take some vitamin C because I'm paranoid.

I don't make recommendations based on what works for me because I seem to be a bit of a mutant. But I'm very happy with the results. It is my personal experience that fiber is utterly unnecessary for digestive health, as are probiotics; in fact these are about the worst things I could include in my diet (except for gluten and soy, which cause me pain and grief).

I'm actually sort of perplexed at the notion that vegetables are Paleo. Don't get me wrong, I love my veggies, but they're a totally neolithic food for the most part. Most of the veggies we eat are all derivatives of the Brassica family and date from maybe 3,000 or so years ago. Asparagus and lettuce showed up with the Egyptians. Carrots show up around the 1st century CE. Okra showed up around 1200. Spinach in ancient Persia, but not widespread until the middle ages. Celery ancient Egypt and Greece. And then we have all the various new world "veggies"--your potatoes, tomatoes, squashes, eggplants, avocados, etc. And even the oldest of those only go back to 10,000 years or so (e.g. basically neolithic).

I'm looking out on this hillside by my house in Southern California and I see chaparral. I've spent a lot of time growing up hiking all around California and I'm pretty familiar with the sorts of goodies available in the chaparral and oak woodlands. And I don't see anything at all like my big bowls of salad greens, kale, chard, squashes, brussel sprouts, asparagus, etc. There's some various flowers in bloom right now that have some tender, edible green bits, and if I foraged carefully enough I could find some edible herbs, but mostly it is nasty, tough drought resistant plants that aren't really edible. What I do see up in those hills are lots and lots of rabbits (probably because there's not many coyotes and foxes anymore) and lots and lots of various rodents. If I were a Paleolithic person in SoCal I would have focused by efforts on getting those rabbits, not rummaging through bushes to gather some greens. I would go through the oak savannah and collect as many acorns as possible (which is precisely what the natives did) because they're an easy to collect, nutrient dense source of energy. Maybe, if I were down by the coast, I'd gather up some seaweed that washed up on shore. But mostly, I reckon that I'd be eating lots of rabbit, deer and acorns. I guess back in the day when we had salmon, I'd eat some that. If I were really ambitious and we still had bears around, I'd try and spear one of those. We also used to have Steller's sea cows in the waters off SoCal, so I might rig a kayak together and go out and harpoon myself a nice fat sea cow and haul that in. Point being, there's no natural salad bar around here. And that goes for a lot of regions. I've spent a lot of time in the Hill Country of Central Texas, which is a lot like SoCal. Lots of oaks and little shrubby things, lots and lots of deer, but no salad bar.

This all leads me to question just how much "veggies" Paleolithic people really ate. I know Cordain and folks like that argue that they ate a lot. But where? In the US, pretty much except for the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf Coast/Florida, you're not going to have green stuff growing year round. And the Great Plains, Rockies, and Southwest it is just too dry to support foraging on greens if you're a person. This pattern would hold for lots of places in the world that aren't tropical. There just weren't gardens laying around, we hadn't selected veggies yet, so what were all these greens and veggies people were eating at the expense of eating mammals, birds, lizards, amphibians and fish?

I don't eat vegetables, and I'm certain they are not "necessary" for optimal health. On the other hand, I don't think optimal health necessitates avoiding them either for most people, though it may be true for some, including me.

It makes sense that they are not necessary for a number of reasons:

• most vegetables, especially in their ancients forms, are simply not palatable. Spinach on it's own? Kale? Cauliflower? There's a reason almost all little kids don't like them. Add some fat and you can get them down. Apparently olives before brining are inedible. Why would our ancestors eat something that doesn't taste good?

• most ancient vegetables were far more toxic. The ancestor of lettuce was very high in opiate properties and would put you to sleep. The common ancestor of broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts was toxic. All plants have toxic defenses - they don't want to be eaten! We have simply made them a lot better through 5-10000 years of cultivating they less toxic ones. This is the same reason paleos don't eat grains - why are they accepted in veggies?

• many vegetables were simply not available in paleolithic times. Tomatoes and peppers are new world veggies. Variety compared to today's supermarket was not even close.

• ancient veggies return on investment would be extremely low. Wild plants were probably half the size of today, and even today's plants provide little caloric return. They wouldn't be growing in neat rows. The cost of finding, gathering and processing would be greater than the calories expended.

• you can thrive on an all meat diet.

All signs point to veggies being anti-starvation foods that we learned to farm. Prior to grain cultivation we needed something with a lot of calories to feed our needs - meat. Why would our ancestors waste time on low returning and toxic veggies?

This is one aspect of convention I can't get over, fruit and vegetables are surely good for you and they taste lovely

I couldn't live on just meat, eggs and fat!

I think it's misguided to do so, but if you must, make sure you're eating ruminant liver every week.

I guess there is lots of speculation and discussion possible on the amount and sort of vegetables. The answer will probably be something like: 'you have to experiment for yourself'. And that is probably right. Another possible answer could be: 'make sure to vary a lot and eat all the colours of vegetables'. That is probably right too.

Just some food for thought: there is no hunter gatherer population that only ate animal foods. Even the Inuit, known for their diet heavily based on animals, eat quite a variety of plants. I know this does not necessarily mean that you cannot live without plants (although it could).

Why would you not eat vegetables? Especially for an athlete worried about cost effectiveness, I think plants are very useful.

I'll leave the technical stuff (minerals, phytochemicals, polyphenols, vitamins, macronutrient ratio brakedowns, hormetic effects, ...) to the real paleohack nerds ;-)

For years I had asthma and a weird dry feeling in my mouth that goes away after I hadn't eaten in a while. I lost 34 pounds on an organic vegan diet. I even tried raw vegan. I felt great and full of energy. I never missed a beat to exercise on top of that. My mental focus was excellent---until i developed severe respiratory issues and dark rash on my face. I came to a point I was dependent on my long acting and short acting inhalers. I first suspected citric acid allergy because after eating oranges for one weak, I developed symptoms of allergies. However, then it became mushroom, kiwi, eggplant. On top of that, I have gastritis. I developed a small tumor in my pituiatary gland (that is in the brain) while eating this organic all-vegetable vegan diet. I always suspected I would get a tumor or cancer because I always didn't feel well. Plus, I have insulin resistance and polycystic ovarian. I developed uterine fibroid while on a very healthy diet. My stomach wouldn't stop blowing up and I was negative for celiac disease. I have a fluid in my gut that doesn't get obsorbed. I think there is fluid all over my body that is not getting absorbed. It occurred to me gastritis means you cannot eat ANY plant products. Fruits have citric acid and it is inflammatory. Vegetables have fiber and I can't tolerate it. My asthma disappeared, but I do better on a meat and rice diet. I read online histamine causes the prolactin level in the blood to go up, which is what the tumor does. Well, histamine comes from fruits and vegetables for me. Elevated prolactin can cause tumors in other organs too. Never had I felt better. But my intolerance includes chocolate, tea, and coffee, because they are plant products too. I also read inflammation is what causes tumors and cancers and allergies is a form of inflammation. I found an organic milk that is unhomogenized and unfortified to drink and now I don't retain fluid anymore. Fortification of foods come from vegetables.

There is an article about a Crossfit athlete who has done this, https://games.crossfit.com/features/leonid-soubbotine-lion-chaser

This is an interesting question... I honestly don't know, but my thought is that the only way you could pull off a healthy no-veg diet (by healthy, I guess mean that you're getting sufficient micronutrients) would be by eating exclusively pastured meat and wild-caught seafood. If you're eating conventional meats, you'd probably be in trouble.

@Pieter -- I actually have heard of some tribes who exclusively eat meat and blood and are perfectly healthy. Again, though, they aren't eating grain-fed animals.

yes vegetables are needed for the average person. You can live without vegetables: yes! but most likely a long term diet without carrots, squash, spinach, broccoli, potatoes, or fruits will not be optimal: your cholesterol might be too high, your risk of cancer too, etc. I would not do that!

A good place for information and discussion on a meat only diet is http://zeroinginonhealth.com

I do this most days. I think it's a good idea to eat some offal. I could certainly eat more, but I generally try to eat some liver with my bacon and eggs on weekends.

Taking fruit and vegetables out of a standard neolithic diet is probably not a good idea. Adding vegetables to an all meat diet, however, strikes me as rather pointless. The meat has all the nutrition you need in denser, more satiating packages. There may be good reasons for eating vegetables, but health is not one of them (I'm thinking texture, variety, colour, flavour).

I do eat vegetables if they happen to be there, but most of the time they're not and I'm happier not to bother with them.

I think those who don't tolerate veggies very well have gut flora issues... and honestly I think veggies are actually crucial in trying to restore a healthy gut flora so it's a bit tough really.

Necessary? No. Desirable? Yes.

I know this is an ancient question, but I thought it might be worthwhile to post this interesting study in response. Essentially, the researchers assumed that a fruit-and-vegetable "depleted" diet would result in an increase in oxidative damage, and so administered green tea extract (GTE) in meat patties to their study group of 16 people (8 smokers, 8 non-smokers) as an intervention. The GTE showed no effects one way or another in their blinded study, and the punch line from the abstract reads:

Since no long-term effects of GTE were observed, the study essentially served as a fruit and vegetables depletion study. The overall effect of the 10-week period without dietary fruits and vegetables was a decrease in oxidative damage to DNA, blood proteins, and plasma lipids, concomitantly with marked changes in antioxidative defence.

LOL. I certainly respond very well to being "deprived" of fruits and vegetables: No more joint pain, significantly reduced fat mass, and I haven't had a single cold or other sickness since dropping fruits and veggies back in Sept. 2009.

(This study is also notable for its reporting of negative results, the relative rarity of which is a hot issue among sciencey thinkers these days.)

Not necessary in that you can live for a long time without them, but the better question is are they necessary to promote ideal health and longevity. I think the answer to that question is that they are indeed necessary.

Vegetables are completely unnecessary, period. Here is nothing to talk about really.

If we evolved without them (99% of time without vegetables) why would anyone like to eat them these days? That makes no sense.

Of course there is answer to that question. Government and food industry produced propaganda (even Cordain is fooled by it!).

Vegetables are emergency food at best. They are toxic, low in energy, full of indigestible nutrients and expensive.

Of course one can adapt pretty well to vegetables. We humans can eat almost everything and thrive. However, diet without meat and animal fat is a poor diet.

I personally would not eat green salads and all that stuff because it makes me full of gas (even after adaptation period). When I switched to mainly animal food diet (and some fruit) my abdomen get much smaller in one week (without body fat change). With vegetables and starch it was like 104cm and after about one week on 99% animal diet went down to 94cm. Plus I feel much better since that change (and have more money for good meat and fat).

There is probably just one use for vegetables. And it's juicing while on Gerson anti cancer therapy. And this therapy is one of the best out there and it really works. Why? There is many reasons. However, toxic compounds in vegetable juices are known to kill cancer cells very effectively (or to be more precise they block spread of cancer).

But the Gerson diet (therapy) isn't for everyday use. I know because I have asked them and they told me to not use it as everyday diet. It's purely anticancer therapy (which is based on juicing).

Anyway, vegetables at they are (in their natural form) are useless.

I eat a limited amount of vegetables. My digestion is miserable, so if I eat too much, I WILL KNOW. If you feel good eating vegetables, then by all means, chow down (well to an extent, lol), but if you're like me where eating even one cherry tomato causes your stomach to turn in knots, you may want to back away... The only veggies that seem to be okay with me have to be cooked and they include winter squash, spinach and green beans! (maybe asparagus on a good day!)

Vegetables are somewhere between necessary and really-make-your-life-simpler, and I am kind of perplexed by all of the baseless and upvoted answers that they aren't. You didn't mention fruits but I'm assuming you meant both fruits and vegetables, and other things like herbs?

To start with, humans can't synthesize vitamin C like some carnivores, in fact only a few mammals have this problem, they need some external source. You can get it from animals but primarily from the organs, and vitamin C is damaged by cooking, so that would be primarily raw organs. I doubt that many of the meat enthusiasts here are eating raw organs on the regular. Vitamin C is obviously widely available in fruits and vegetables.

I have heard that the adrenal gland of some animals is high in vitamin C, but let me know the next time you see one for sale at Whole Foods.

Many Paleo diets that include vegetables are low in magnesium and manganese because those minerals are not widely available from animals (primarily from certain shellfish) and are in foods that are avoided or limited (grains, nuts). Eating no vegetables exacerbates this. You can get enough of these if you work at it but you're not going to get it from steak. Ditto folates.

If you don't eat fruits or vegetables, type everything you eat into fitday.com and see if you are getting a rounded diet. If you are eating raw organs, shellfish and eggs on the regular you are probably doing better. But isn't it just easier to have a salad every now and then?

I don't think that the fiber in vegetables is essential and think that the need for fiber is a bit overblown.

I eat them because I enjoy them. I've found that the best vegtables to consume are green veggies, ALWAYS cooked, slathered in coconut oil... Adding fats is the far best way to consume them without affecting insulin/gluclose...

Also I would argue that SUPPLEMENTS are more necessary than vegtables - Gedgaudas points this out in 'Primal Body Primal Mind' - because we are being assulted with far more environmental toxins than Grok ever had to deal with...