Christopher Gardner

Christopher Gardner is an American nutrition scientist at Stanford University who runs large randomized diet trials. His work covers health, food systems and how to get people to eat more plants.

Best known for

Head-to-head trials of popular diets, such as DIETFITS (2018), in which healthy low-fat and healthy low-carb diets gave similar weight loss over a year, and a 2023 Stanford study of identical twins comparing vegan and omnivore diets.

Approach

Food quality first: more vegetables and legumes, less added sugar and refined grain, whatever the split of fat and carbohydrate. He promotes plant based eating but is not against oil or nuts, and he criticizes dogma on every side of the diet debate.

Main talking points

• The quality of the food matters more than the low-fat versus low-carb argument.
• Legumes are the most under-eaten food group.
• Whole, minimally processed foods beat processed ones, whatever the label says.
• Good taste, not lectures, is what gets people eating more plants.