The current food movement’s focus on encouraging people to eat more organic plants and less protein, when taken to the extreme, can compromise a person’s ability to consume the proper amount of essential nutrients, said clinical nutritionist Joannie Dobbs, who works with patients at University Health Services Manoa on the University of Hawaii campus.

Dobbs attended Mark Bittman’s lecture Thursday and listened keenly because “I hear Bittman’s name over and over and over again from these patients.”

She took issue with much of what Bittman said.

Dobbs is also an assistant specialist for food composition and health education in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences at UH’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. She’s been in the nutrition field for nearly 50 years, writes a nutrition column for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and provides nutritional analyses for recipes every week.

“Essential nutrients are the most basic concept in nutrition and critical to health,” said Dobbs. “Most of the people I see are following the sustainability concept that assumes eating fruits, vegetables and grains and less meat are adequate for meeting essential nutritional needs. These individuals, however, are malnourished.”

The patients — both students and faculty — are most often deficient in iron, zinc and protein.

“Many of these patients are over-consuming fruits and vegetables, and I am decreasing the fruits especially and adding back protein,” she said. “Many are so afraid to eat anything but organic that sometimes they won’t eat, rather than eat something they fear. It used to be that I never gave out dietary supplements, but now almost everyone gets one to assure all the essential nutrients are there.”

The key, she says, is balance. Too often, plant eaters go heavy on fruits and eat less vegetables, enjoying the sweetness and thinking there’s no limit to what they should consume. But Dobbs says that kind of eating is far too high in sugar — “the body does not distinguish where the sugar came from.” Likewise, she said, “Can you eat an Oreo? Yes. The key is AN Oreo.”

“It’s about a little bit of everything and not too much of anything.”

Bittman’s message to his audience was to gradually increase their plant intake and decrease their meat consumption, though he did not advocate a meatless diet.

Bittman said Dobbs is “going counter with what most research is saying today.”

“There is a ton of evidence that people can eat diets high in fruits and vegetables healthfully,” he said.

But Dobbs says a fundamental concern is the kind of scientists doing the research.

Most of the current research is provided by public health epidemiologists, who study correlations between food intake and disease via one or two “snapshots” rather than controlled studies that extend over a period of time, she said. Social scientists and economists are providing research as well. Underrepresented from the pool are nutrition scientists.

For food systems to move forward successfully, “we need everyone to work together,” Dobbs said.