What do onions, beets, tomatoes, and kale have in common? According to “Veggie Smarts: A Doctor and Farmer Grows and Savors Eight Families of Vegetables” (Hardcover, April 22, 2025), they’re all part of an edible botanical puzzle that holds the key to how we eat – and why we should eat better.
Written by Dr. Michael T. Compton, a public health physician turned organic farmer, “Veggie Smarts” is a joyful, nerdy, and nourishing exploration of the eight families of vegetables that make up most of our plant-based plates: brassicas, alliums, legumes, chenopods, aster greens, umbellifers, cucurbits, and nightshades.
Part nutrition guide, part farm memoir, and part scientific curiosity cabinet, “Veggie Smarts” is already popular on Amazon. Compton pairs his medical expertise with the dirt-under-his-fingernails perspective of a small-scale organic farmer in New York’s scenic Hudson Valley, where he traded in city life for a field full of carrots, tomatoes, and possibility.
“Eight on my plate” is Compton’s mantra – an invitation to explore the incredible variety, nutrition, and stories rooted in these eight plant families. From why onions make us cry to how beets can turn your pee pink, he breaks down food facts with humor and heart, while offering a deeper look at the land’s agricultural history and his own journey reclaiming old farmland.
“Vegetables are more than side dishes,” says Compton. “They’re science, sustenance, and soul. This book is about learning to love them more – and maybe even growing a few yourself.”
With vivid farm life anecdotes, bite-sized botanical facts, and a deeply personal voice, “Veggie Smarts” is a timely and tasty read for gardeners, food lovers, health seekers, and anyone curious about where their vegetables come from – and how to enjoy them more fully.
“This endearingly quirky book describes Compton’s love affair with eight families of vegetables for their growing habits, diversity, nutritional value, flavor, texture, and deliciousness, and he offers science, experience, charm, and recipes to prove it. His dietary advice? Eat your veggies!” shares Marion Nestle, Ph.D., Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, New York University.
Dr. Michael T. Compton is board-certified in psychiatry, preventive medicine, and lifestyle medicine—a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, and a Member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. As a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, he has a deep understanding of what makes people feel secure, content, and happy; he also happens to have expertise in healthy lifestyle behaviors and nutrition. Having grown up on a dairy-farm-turned-beef-farm in rural southwestern Virginia, embracing a whole-foods, plant-predominant eating pattern might not have been in his genes. But creating a garden with his two green thumbs from Granny definitely was. Attending college at Mary Washington, medical school at the University of Virginia, and specialty training in psychiatry and preventive medicine at Emory University took this proverbial boy off the farm, but as all who know the old saying might suspect, the farm had not been taken out of him. In a mid-life burst of productivity, he built a compact, organic-certified vegetable farm and got smart about growing and savoring vegetables.
To learn more about Dr. Compton visit: drcompton.health.
