Vegan influencer reportedly died of starvation after living on fruit diet

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Vegan blogger Zhanna Samsonova, a 39-year-old self-described food stylist and raw plant-based chef whose videos on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have received tens of millions of views, has allegedly died of starvation.

The Russian influencer, who went by Zhanna D'Art online, died on July 21 in Malaysia, where she had been living, reported the Evening Kazan.

The New York Post indicated that she had subsisted exclusively on a diet of exotic fruit.

One friend explained that for the past seven years, Samsonova only consumed jackfruit and durian, a meaty fruit that comes in hundreds of different varieties in Malaysia.

One of Samsonova's friends reportedly told Newsflash, "A few months ago, in Sri Lanka, she already looked exhausted, with swollen legs oozing lymph. ... They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified."

The influencer's friend recalled living one floor above her and every day fearing "finding her lifeless body in the morning. I convinced her to seek treatment, but she didn't make it."

Vera Samsonova, the decedent's mother, told reporters that she suspects her daughter's vegan diet had exhausted her body, leaving it susceptible to a "cholera-like infection."

"Zhanna's idle stagnation was causing her to melt before our eyes, but she believed everything was fine," her mother speculated. "Only her eyes, merry eyes, and gorgeous hair compensated for the dreadful sight of a body tortured by idiocy. Forgive me if it sounds harsh."

Samsonova long promoted her diet and lifestyle online, suggesting last year that though leaves and vegetable matter "will be easy to acquire, most will not offer much in terms of calories and satisfaction. When it comes to meat from any animals, while this source may offer a high amount of calories, it will not offer much satisfaction when raw and unflavored, and it is the hardest and most costly food source to acquire."

Instead, she claimed that "[f]rom an efficiency and sustainability perspective ... fruits have been the perfect human food for millennia, similar to that of many of our closest primate ancestors."

The Post indicated that Samsonova hyped her restrictive eating regimen, saying, "I see my body and mind transform every day. ... I love my new me and never move on to the habits that I used to use."

The blogger pushed for others to follow suit, writing, "I eat simple food, although I have a lot of experience as a raw food chef. I love creating my own recipes and inspiring people to eat healthier."

In May 2022, she posted a condemnation of "misinformation and contradictory information" in the field of nutrition, writing, "We have greatly lost sight of what healthy eating truly means. ... We have a subset of people who try to convince others that fruits are 'risky' to eat and a subset of people who believe this, and in turn fear eating fruits. Ridiculous, isn't it?"

Endocrinologist Dr. Shira Eytan told Health in December that vegan diets can result in various vitamin deficiencies, including iron, zinc, calcium and B12.

"Omega-3 fatty acids may also be deficient in a vegan diet," added Eytan.

A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal found that vegetarians "had higher rates of haemorrhagic and total stroke" than meat eaters.

TheBlaze recently reported that self-described "diehard vegan" Kai-Lee Worsley nearly died after embracing a restrictive diet upon moving to California.

Like Samsonova, Worsley told Wales Online she ended up exhausted and unable to get out of bed.

"I didn't feel strong, like, honestly, I felt so weak. It was like a really slow process until one day I was in bed and I was like I don't think could ever get up again," she recalled. "I came to the point where I was like I might die right now. I might die right here in this tiny apartment in this random city that I moved to."

Survivalist Bear Grylls also learned the hard way that the vegan diet does not live up to the hype, going so far as to apologize for ever having promoted it.

Grylls told the Telegraph, "I was vegan quite a few years ago — in fact, I wrote a vegan cookbook — and I feel a bit embarrassed because I really promoted that. ... I thought that was good for the environment and I thought it was good for my health. And through time and experience and knowledge and study, I realised I was wrong on both counts."

Despite scientific and anecdotal evidence that vegan diets may have downsides, the Post reported that many of Samsonova's fans refuse to believe her eating choices got her killed, maintaining instead that chemicals in the fruits were responsible.

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New York City's vegan mayor issues decree requiring city to eat less meat as a means of combating the specter of climate change

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New York City's Democratic mayor reportedly went vegan in 2016 after temporarily losing his eyesight to Type 2 diabetes. With his restored vision, Eric Adams has focused on another reason to avoid meat: the specter of anthropogenic climate change.

However, this time around, Adams wants New Yorkers to suffer a vegetarian diet along with him.

Adams said in a statement Monday, "What we put on our plate doesn't just affect us. We now know food is the third largest source of emissions in New York City, so what we eat is impacting our entire planet. That's why today I'm announcing that by 2030, the City will reduce our food-related emissions by 33%."

In 2021, the city of New York spent $297.59 million on food, which allegedly resulted in the production of 123.72K tons of carbon dioxide emissions — emissions the plants Adams consumes happen to thrive on.

According to the city's food policy page, the "Carbon Footprint of the City's food purchases is equivalent to the annual emission of more than 70,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles."
While dairy and grain products account for the bulk of the total emissions according to the city's data, the Adams administration has instead targeted meat, just over a year after the vegan mayor suggested, "I've got to get New Yorkers to eat a plant-based centered life."

Noting that the New York City Health System defaulted to plant-based meals for patients and allegedly cut its food emissions by 36%, Adams said, "The rest of our government will do the same."

The following agencies will be impacted by this decree: the New York City Department of Education, the Department of Homeless Services, the Department for the Aging, the Department of Correction, the Human Resources Administration, Health and Hospitals, and the Administration for Children's Services.

Accordingly, schoolchildren, prisoners, hospital patients, and elderly dependents will be precluded from putting their canine teeth to work on protein and mineral-rich meats, at least on certain days.

Although scientists have long held that meat is a vital part of child's diet, New York City K-8 school children will instead have to throw back chickpeas on Mondays. While dairy is linked to the greatest emissions on the menu, they'll enjoy mozzarella sticks rather than meat on Wednesday. On Friday, April 21, they'll have to choke back potato gumbo or once again become complicit in dairy and grain emissions by snacking on grilled cheese sandwiches. After being spoiled with country chicken on April 27, students' palates will be mocked with a BBQ veggie burger and more dairy products the following day.

At all times, pork is verboten.

The Democratic mayor also challenged private sector partners to cut their food emissions by 25%, prompting them to take part in the so-called "Plant Powered Carbon Challenge," in hopes of satisfying Paris climate agreement goals.
\u201cLast year, @NYCHealthSystem defaulted to plant-based meals for patients and cut their food emissions by 36%. The rest of our government will do the same.\n\nWe're also challenging private sector partners to cut their food emissions 25% by 2030: https://t.co/hcDlH41LWy\u201d
— Mayor Eric Adams (@Mayor Eric Adams) 1681753307

The New York Times reported that when issuing his decree, the vegan mayor said, "It is easy to talk about emissions that are coming from vehicles and how it impacts our carbon footprint, it is easy to talk about the emissions that’s coming from buildings and how it impacts our environment. ... But we now have to talk about beef. And I don’t know if people are really ready for this conversation."

Richard Larrick, a professor of management at Duke University, told the Times, "If you really want to make a difference, there are two main things you do for food, one of which is you try to reduce the amount of beef."

"To have 20 grams of protein from beef — that’s kind of a meal’s serving of protein — is like burning a gallon of gasoline,” added Larrick. “Everything else is less than a fifth of a gallon, essentially."

While seeking to go light on gasoline, Adams is apparently happy to waste water on his allegedly green diet.

Adams' cookbook "Healthy at Last" details how to make "Forest Bowls with Earthy Vegetables and Turmeric Cashew Sauce." While nary a cow is slaughtered to make this particular dish, clean water is sacrificed by the barrelful.

It takes roughly 1,704 gallons of water to produce one pound of the cashews needed for the vegan mayor's recipe at a time when so-called "climate crisis" is creating water shortages around the world — caused, according to the city of New York, disproportionately by the dairy and grains still on the menu.

In his announcement, Adams claimed, "We have two mothers: One gave birth to us, the other sustains us, and we have been destroying the one that sustains us based on the food that we have been consuming."

Adams' clampdown on meat consumption may ultimately mean real mothers will get less protein and figurative mothers will be spared the lesser of several emitters among the food groups on offer in New York City facilities.

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13 Reasons Most People Will Never Go Vegan

I’m a ‘live-and-let-live’ kind of guy, but many of the vegans I have known aren’t.

Study finds people who eat meat are less anxious and depressed



A new examination published in the journal of Food Science and Nutrition has found that people who consume meat have lower levels of anxiety and depression compared to vegans and vegetarians.

What are the details?

The broad analysis surveyed 20 studies associated with meat consumption and mental health and, in the end, found an undeniable association between vegetarianism or veganism and poorer mental health outcomes, Business Insider reported.

The collection of studies — which spanned from 2001 to mid-2020 and represented nearly 172,000 people from across four continents — primarily "relied on questionnaires in which respondents self-reported whether they ate meat or not, then answered prompts about whether they experienced anxiety and depression," Insider noted.

Of the 172,000 represented, about 158,000 people reported eating meat while 13,000 did not.

After examining the respondents' feedback, researchers conclusively determined that "meat abstention is clearly associated with poorer mental health."

That thesis was true regardless of a person's biological sex, though researchers were not able to review whether other demographic factors — such as age, socioeconomic status, or health history — also played a part.

Is that the whole story?

Researchers, however, were careful to note that the study didn't prove that meat avoidance in and of itself directly causes mental health decline or that meat consumption causes mental health healing.

Urska Dobersek, a psychologist at the University of Southern Indiana who co-authored the study, told Insider that "meat avoidance may be both the 'chicken' and the 'egg' when it comes to mental illness."

"How many people have you met that are both happy and diet all the time?" Dobersek explained. "Probably very few — and there is a strong, scientific reason for that — restrictive diets make people unhealthy and unhappy in the long term."

What can be concluded with clarity, Dobersek suggested, is that simple elimination diets, especially as it relates to meat consumption, don't work.

"The idea that we can become healthier, or happier, by eliminating foods and beverages is simplistic, unscientific, and not supported by valid evidence," she stated.

Anything else?

The analysis comes as growing numbers within progressive circles seek to restrict meat consumption as a means to combat climate change and contribute to healthier lifestyles.

Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates infamously suggested in February that wealthy nations around the globe stop eating beef and instead switch to lab-grown or plant-based alternative "meats" to avoid a climate disaster.

"You can get used to the taste difference," he argued at the time.

During the 2020 Democratic primary, Vice President Kamala Harris, too, said that "government can and should" regulate meat consumption in order to bolster healthy eating as well as climate consciousness.

Change your DNA if You Love the Planet

Change your DNA if You Love the Planet