August 3, 2023

"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."

Said Zhanna Samsonova, known on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram as Zhanna D’Art, quoted in "Vegan raw food diet influencer Zhanna D’Art dies of suspected starvation: report" (NY Post).
A proponent of uncooked herbivorous fare, [Samsonova] claimed she ate a “completely raw vegan diet” for the last four years, consuming just “fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies, and juices.”Meanwhile, a friend claimed that for the last seven years, Samsonova had only eaten the giant, sweet jackfruit and durian, a spiky, mace-like fruit known for its custardy meat and noxious odor....
She used social media to spread her raw diet doctrine, describing: “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.”

41 comments:

Enigma said...

Crazy radical tilting at windmills on a doomed, dysfunctional mission: Post #1 of the day

Dave Begley said...

Her body was transformed. Into a corpse.

tim maguire said...

Look at the pictures. She was anorexic, and it (apparently) went undetected because, instead of openly pining to be dangerously thin, she used the language of new-age health fads.

Another old lawyer said...

I wonder what her doctor, if any, had been telling her. From the pictures I've seen, she looked anorexic but convinced herself otherwise with her diet theory.

EdwdLny said...

Heh, another lunatic self selects to leave the gene pool. Now, what are the idiots who were following her going to do ? Get a good hard dose of reality, or, follow her example ?

Ann Althouse said...

This idea that an all-fruit diet could be the best... where does it come from?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism

"Some fruitarians wish, like Jains, to avoid killing anything, including plants, and refer to ahimsa fruitarianism. For some fruitarians, the motivation comes from a fixation on a utopian past, their hope being to return to a past that pre-dates an agrarian society to when humans were simply gatherers. Another common motivation is the desire to eliminate perceived toxicity from within the body. For others, the appeal of a fruitarian diet comes from the challenge that the restrictive nature of this diet provides. According to nutritionists, adults must be careful not to follow a fruit-only diet for too long A fruitarian diet is wholly unsuitable for children (including teens), nursing mothers and their babies. Death can result from malnutrition.

"Fruitarianism is more restrictive than veganism or raw veganism, as a subset of both. Maintaining this diet over a long period can result in dangerous deficiencies.... The Health Promotion Program at Columbia University reports that a fruitarian diet can cause deficiencies in calcium, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin D, most B vitamins (especially B12), and essential fatty acids. Although fruit provides a source of carbohydrates, they have very little protein, and because protein cannot be stored in the body as fat and carbohydrates can, fruitarians need to be careful that they consume enough protein each day...."

Temujin said...

You need only look at the vegan or vegetarian friends and relatives that you may have. This is not a new thing. I noticed this years ago in college, looking at the people who worked in the 1 or 2 vegetarian restaurants that existed in East Lansing back them. Those people looked like they had grayish skin, expressionless hollowed out eyes. But they did smile broadly when telling you how great the curried broccoli was today.

Moving ahead to today, not much has changed. If my wife drags me into one of our many vegan or vegetarian restaurants in my town today, the look is pretty similar. There's a serious problem with nutrition going on there. Just no one seems to want to actually say it out loud and break up the party.

I think it's safer to do the veggie thing from time to time. But humans need protein, minerals, vitamins from animals, too. That's how we evolved, how we grew and got stronger (and smarter).

Aggie said...

Teeth: Not just for salad, anymore.

Ernest said...

During the time I lived in Southeast Asia I was introduced to durian fruit. No one is neutral about it: you either love it or hate it. I hated it. To me it smelled like rotted onions soaked in diesel fuel. But to each their own. Just do not bring that stuff into my house. In many places in SE Asia there are signs forbidding you bringing durian into their facility.

Marcus Bressler said...

"Another common motivation is the desire to eliminate perceived toxicity from within the body."

When people (almost always women) tell me that they are "doing a cleanse" or "getting the toxins out" of their body, I merely smile and don't offer a comment. Belief in these things is similar to those who profess a belief in the healing power of crystals.

Having a fellow cowboy suck the venom out of your snake bite is the only example of "getting the toxins out" that I can think of.

MarcusB. THEOLDMAN

tommyesq said...

She died doing what she loved...

Alexander said...

If you want to have things like brains and eyes, then you have to eat fats and proteins.

That the brains and eyes came with meat-ripping teeth, arms and torsos capable of making powerful swings and throws, a not insignificant bodymass in relations to most other species on the planet, and a gastro-intestinal tract capable of desiring and digesting the prey are a couple of clues as to what we are as a species, intented to aim for.

Some individuals who choose to deviate from that, may well have a decent person health or ideological reason for doing so. That's fine, that's their business.

Anyone advocating it as part of a mass-movement should be dismissed as a crazy utterly divorced from reality.

holdfast said...

Human =/= Rabbits

Ficta said...

"You need only look at the vegan or vegetarian friends and relatives that you may have." Not really. I grew up Adventist. Most of them are vegetarian and they look fine. Healthy, even. No smoking or alcohol is generally good for you. Of course, they eat eggs and dairy products. And of course, there were usually a couple of families in any given church who were pursuing some novel nutritional theory who had that undernourished look.

GDI said...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/ashton-kutcher-steve-jobs-fruit-diet-health-effects.html

rehajm said...

Fruit is sugar…

The latest thing in our house is that fast fast thing. Have dinner then nothing to eat until tomorrow noon. I usually outlast the spouse’s trendy diets so I was quickly and was board with this one expecting it to fizzle. Easy peasy this one- never even felt like crap for a few days….not sure if its doing anything but the grocery bill is smaller…

Iman said...

Say, didn’t Euell Gibbons prescribe the inclusion of tree bark in our diet?

Iman said...

Now that was just mean, Tommyesq.

But true…

iowan2 said...

Another influencer taking one step too close to cliff to get the great selfie, ends their life.

Sorry, I'm short on empathy for those exercising their freedom.

Ice Nine said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mark said...

Being genuinely overweight and trying to lose some unneeded/harmful pounds (down 20, 10-15 more to go), there is something to be said for shrinking your stomach and finally getting past the point of feeling hungry and being satisfied with small portions. But all things in moderation....even moderation.

On a related note and what constitutes being "overweight" -- so according to the NIH/CDC/FDA, brilliant experts that they are, I would need to go down to the weight I was in 6th-7th grade before I was underweight. That is, lose 1/3 of the weight I am now. Be close to a skeleton.

Point being, our brilliant medical overlords ENCOURAGE this kind of emaciation of the human body.

Mason G said...

"the motivation comes from a fixation on a utopian past, their hope being to return to a past that pre-dates an agrarian society to when humans were simply gatherers."

Unless they were gathering roadkill, I'm pretty sure there was some hunting going on, too.

Rhetorical question- Who's willing to admit they're foolish enough to take advice from idiots who think like this?

Anthony said...

Mental illness: What is it?

Dude1394 said...

Hell of a plan.

JK Brown said...

She was living her truth.

Not seeing the problem. She lived her truth to the end, apparently. Good on her for not changing her mind as the facts became apparent.

Narr said...

I recall an NPR segment fully thirty years ago or more, an interview with a guy who claimed not to need food ("poison" was his word) at all.

He, and all of us, only needed sunlight and fresh air to thrive.

A few weeks later they reported his death.

If overpopulation is a problem, then let's thank these loons for their service.

GRW3 said...

Eat a sandwich Karen...

This was just another delusion fed example of anorexia nervosa. Not every crazy person ends up on a San Francisco sidewalk.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Ficta: Are those just cadential ficta, or other kinds, like avoiding intervallic clashes? I ask b/c I once gave Tony Newcomb a Tallis Scholars disc of Clemens Non Papa, and he returned it saying that it was great, but he only wished he had a fistful of sharps to go with it.

Of course, OTOH, you might have no clue what I'm talking about. In that case, forget you ever read this.

Gospace said...

Like the instapundit comment section, the Althouse comment section is both entertaining and educational. For example, durian fruit, which I had never ever heard even rumors of until just now, exists. Either that of a huge internet conspiracy exists to make us believe it exists. Seems it's nuttricious also.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/durian-fruit#uses

Nonetheless, based on most links to it, I think I'll leave it unexplored. Just as I left balut unexplored when I had my chance to obtain it easily from street vendors.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"Look at the pictures. She was anorexic"

Exactly. She suffered from body dysmorphia.

And as we all know the solution to body dysmorphia is to help the dysmorphic achieve the body they believe is right for them. So in this woman's case, the solution would have been eating less, diet pills, and laxatives.

Anna Keppa said...

Anyone remember when health guru J. Rodale bragged "I’ve decided to live to be a hundred" on a taping of the Dick Cavett show in 1971 ---and dying of stroke just a few moments afterwards?

It was an especially vivid example of the expression, "God laughs at your plans".

farmgirl said...

Holy shit, Michelle- I wish I could!
(I have not a clue lol)

JaimeRoberto said...

A casualty of hunger affirming care.

Kevin said...

Body positivity claims another victim.

MikeM said...

Sad. Undiagnosed anorexia nervosa, a form of psychosis. Denial level in these persons is out of sight. AN is a valid cause of death on certificates.

Big Mike said...

I love my new me

Loved herself to death, it seems.

Big Mike said...

The Health Promotion Program at Columbia University reports that a fruitarian diet can cause deficiencies in calcium, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin D, most B vitamins (especially B12), and essential fatty acids.

@Althouse, thank you for the research. Don’t young women need extra iron in their diets due to menstruation?

Tomcc said...

A victim of her own delusions. I'd be very curious to know the response to her death by those folks for whom she was an "influencer".

Mikey NTH said...

Based on teeth alone humans are omnivores. Fish, fowl, flesh, grains, nuts, vegetables, fruits - all are grist to our dental mill.

wildswan said...

Michelle, just curious and you don't have to answer but why does the discussion of anorexia make you think of "musical ficta?" Is 14C music too thin without them?

TaeJohnDo said...

Now that was just mean, Tommyesq.

But true…

And sadly funny. Well done!