So after the thread yesterday, and just perusing the sub today and reading through various threads, this whole nutrition thing seems pretty confusing. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information out there, it seems that it is easier for us to say something is unhealthy than it is for us to say that it is healthy. With that being said, it seems that I can find a study that supports anything that I want. If I wanted to eat nothing but ground beef and carrots, I fee like I could probably find a study that supports that diet. I have found a few things that everyone agrees on: Refined food is bad, avoid too much sugar, and drink water. What gives? Why is nutrition so confusing?
It’s difficult! Physiology is complex, we don’t really eat anything in isolation naturally, and it’s very difficult to do any sort of controlled double blind studies. Food and drink are also have many strong social, cultural and emotional facets to them.
Your frustration comes from a lack of real authority in the field. Our market economy encourages people to form identities based around our professions, and this results in a lot of extremism within the nutrition community; ‘the vegan guy’, the ‘carnivore guy’. Because we all eat, and we all deal with health, there’s much to be exploited here - particularly when you consider how desperate people can be. It tends to be the ones with something to sell that make really grand claims.
My advice is to take it easy. Keep up on the literature if you want, but give yourself a break, it’s not that complicated. Like you said, you can boil it down to the shit they teach in elementary health class. Focus on sleeping, hydrating, and exercising, in whichever order is preferable..they all relate closely to diet. Even the literature gets easily corrupted and skewed though. It’s such a first world problem to be able to even choose a diet at all. Conventional produce is perfectly fine for you (no ‘dirty dozen’ exists), animal products can be very nutritious, the number of supplements you need is likely fewer than 5, and your body isn’t soaked in toxins at all times like the media would have you believe. The ‘moderation’ and ‘balance’ mantras continue to ring largely true as I see it.
Lastly, it’s a very conflated issue. Broadly speaking, you can view a nutritional subject most commonly through an environmental lens, a health lens, or an ethical lens. This gets confused, and it is can be confusing. E.g. a food can be very healthy but also unethically produced, or very environmentally friendly but not actually nutritious.
Believe and trust Dietitians. Dietitians and Nutritionists are two very different things, even though the terms are thrown around interchangeable. Many people don’t know this but in the US, the term “Nutritionist” is not a protected term. You don’t need any credentials to call yourself a nutritionist. The Dietitians title is protected by law and only those who have the credentials can call themselves a Dietitian. Traditionally, they go to school for a four year degree, then must do a one year long internship (basically another year of school) and then they take an exam to become a Dietitian. By 2024, they will need masters degrees. So please please please, when someone gives you advice, ask them if they are a dietitian or not. I am not saying that those who are not dietitians don’t have accurate information, but dietitians went to years and years of schooling and have evidence based knowledge on these issues.
Nutrition is confusing because we are told from a young age about good and bad foods. You might think good foods are fruits, vegetables, whole grains. And you might think bad foods are pizza, chips, ice cream, candies, etc. Well, I can make an argument for all those foods being good and bad. Let me explain:
Foods like fruits and vegetables are great because they contain vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc right? Yes. But……they could be harmful for someone with a certain disease. For example, someone with kidney disease often has to restrict nutrients such as potassium and phosphorus…..where are these found? Bingo! Vegetables and fruits. (not every fruit and vegetable but a lot of them!) Why would we tell someone with kidney disease fruits and vegetables are good for them when they are not? This makes it difficult because….wait didn’t we learn we need to eat our fruits and vegetables as kids? This also goes for allergies! There are plenty of people who are allergic to fruits like strawberries, melons, etc. We would never tell someone to eat those if they are allergic to them!
Another example: Pizza, chips, ice cream, candy = bad right? Full of sugar and fat and…..oh wait, sugar and fat contain….energy right….and we need energy to….function….Specifically, sugar, a carbohydrate, contains 4 calories/gram…..and fat contains 9 calories/gram….If this “junk food” you’re eating contains 15 grams of sugar and 10 grams of fat that equals (15x4 + 10x9)=150 kcal. Again, we need energy to survive, and many people live in poverty, or food deserts (geographically inadequate access to fresh foods/grocery stores) where they can only access these often cheaper foods like chips, candy, fast food etc. These aren’t bad foods if they are some of your only sources of calories. They are keeping you alive.
These are just a few examples in the ever changing, complex world of nutrition. This is why it’s so important to approach discussing foods with understanding the individual persons needs, financial situation, demographic as well as understanding their diet and medical history.
All body’s are different is the biggest reason. What you can eat I may not be able to. Pair that with conflicting comorbidities and things get even more complex. I need meat for one thing but my gallbladder hates it for example..
Meat and fruits and vegetables have been eaten by humans for thousands of years. Our entire bodies have adapted to thrive on those.
It’s what humans are meant to eat. It’s pretty safe to eat that stuff.
8 years ago I lost 75 lbs and kept it off, i didn’t follow any one diet . There are so many conflicting methods out there that it just became too confusing and to be honest very overwhelming that I decided to become an experiment of one. I keep a log of what I eat, I track how I feel and I have slowly begun to understand what certain foods and drinks do to my body. When people ask me what I did to lose weight, I just reply with a simple and honest answer of “I ate less and moved more”.
Nutrition is more ideology than science, as Michael Pollan pointed out. I trust mostly in the pre industrial traditions, as I believe they are the result of thousands of years of adaptation and empirical research into what makes the best diet.
Do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Nothing is black and white, nutrition is much more complex than just calories. I started my journey down the rabbit hole many years ago with keto. Since then, I’ve learned so much more. The saying “you are what you eat” really rings true, especially considering how much the gut microbiome really affects our mood. Don’t eat garbage, limit processed foods, stay away from vegetable oils, eat a variety of veggies, and add a fermented food here or there and you’re already on the road to a better than average diet
Big Pharma and Big Ag have taken over the science industry, and will alter the science to support whatever will profit them.
Dr. Michael Greger does a good job in weeding out the biased scientific reports, in his book How Not to Die.
Otherwise, the Cochrane Collaboration exists solely for the purpose of publishing uncorrupted scientific reports - they can be found in PubMed.
Between the replication crisis, “studies” of 20 people for 6 weeks being common, “funded by the X growers of America”, and lobbying, the “experts” have no real scientific standing, and their advice is frequently actively bad, or simply doesn’t not work for some people.
Hence most people grab 1 book or “expert” pushing something that they like and maybe even kinda works for them and run with it. This is frequently mixed with other ideological or identity related motivation, hence Carnivore diet, veganism, Mennonites, seventh day Adventists, and people reading Ray Peat like a new prophet and so on.
And then you get the eating disorder cavalcade, who need to eat something, more than they need to eat anything in particular, and the chronic health issue folks who actually do need to eliminate gluten or whatever from their diets.
Who are you supposed to believe? General rule of thumb, the more trustworthy sources tend to be more neutral. They stick to the science, they don’t cherrypick, they acknowledge and explain opposing arguments and valid points made against them. They don’t “attack” (there are some seemingly respectable “authorities” of the nutrition field that “attack” people who spread blatant bs, which I feel is warranted, but can take away from the message).
These points apply pretty well across more fields than just nutrition. Take most information with a grain of salt. Learn how to tell (or find out) the credibility of a source. Learn their biases. Learn how to truly fact check. Learn how to question your own bias (best tool for this is to try to prove yourself wrong).
Look for nuance.
Someone saying ‘x is good, y is bad’ should be an instant red flag.
Even with refined/processed food, that’s a really huge category. Processed foods can be:
low GI, high satiety, with a balanced nutritional profile & added beneficial phytochemicals
extremely nutrient dense & nutrient diverse, for nutritional support in cancer patients or in treating starvation
dense in rapidly metabolised high GI energy, lacking in micronutrients, but useful in treating low blood sugar
mild in flavour & aroma to be more accessible to people with sensory issues
produced through biotechnology or waste upcycling, with lower environmental impact than most whole foods
Whole foods can also be any of these things. Calling food ‘bad’ is reductive and fails to acknowledge the many functions food can serve.
Two of my current favourite science communicators in the nutrition space are:
Food Science Babe, who busts myths on Instagram, TikTok, & Twitter
Alan Flanagan, who breaks down studies, discussing study quality and how to interpret them in context of other research on Instagram & also runs a subscription educational platform for health professionals called Alinea Nutrition
Because it’s hard. I’ve studied nutrition in multiple college classes and found it to be the most fascinating puzzle. For instance calculating a diet requires math, a lot of math. Also, food is the largest placebo I’ve ever seen. What one person believes is the best food, another person will vow is poison. And some people want to weigh less, but eat a diet that might cut off the pounds, but also might limit their own mortality. I enjoy the Mayo Clinics youtube nutrition videos as they are discussions between nutrition healthcare professionals. And then there are people who mistake empiricism for what is really happening. I started a degree course in Chemisty, but found nutrition can be much harder to understand. One underlying factor of many patients do not fully detail drug or alcohol use. So some factors like cocaine use can destroy a stomach lining or rott the illium, this can create a condition that is similar to Chrones. But without basic honesty with a doctor or dietitian the cause of a problem might be obscured to a diagnosing professional.
Dietitians are your best bet. We are trained to interpret studies! There are plenty of studies with positive results that were executed poorly or have little applicability to real life humans. Not only do dietitians take into account the biochemical aspect of food, they are realistic about nutrition by taking into account social economic status, culture, eating disorders, environment, etc.
There are so many conflicting statements out there because people are trying to fit everyone into the same box. Instead of realising that nutrition is prescriptive.
The healthiest diet is one that supports you and your body. Which will likely be different to the one that best supports me.
Lots of vegetables is also fairly established good practice. Stay away from processed foods and refined/added sugar, eat lots of veggies, drink lots of water & its hard to go wrong with that foundation.
Humans can eat a wide variety of plants and animals. That’s the simple take, but it seems like it’s safe to add a few more items to the list OP included.
In addition to drinking water and avoiding refined foods, almost everyone agrees on the following: Eat a wide variety of vegetables daily, especially those that are dark green and orange. Eat lean proteins such as legumes, beans, eggs, fish, lean meat (or drop the meat if you choose and replace with complete plant proteins).
I’m part if this sub bur mostly lurk. I don’t find mass social media particularly helpful in parsing nutrition advice bc very few of us on here are actually MDs, very few people have actually studied nutrition clinically, and most of us have been raised with different cultural norms (which does impact what we believe). In addition, when people get super concerned about nutrition, it’s usually to achieve personal goals (lose weight, gain weight, involved in a particular athletic activity, are predisposed to a genetic condition or a biological one) SOOOOO
You’re never going to find consistent information regarding nutrition on this sub. Also, we each have unique biologies and preferences and there are 1000s of permutations re how to eat well based on your unique biology and because there are so many varieties of foods.
In general, stay away from refined sugar but STILL, some is OK! What does some mean? It depends on your biology and physiology. I can eat 2 squares of a dark chocolate bar and have my sweet tooth satisfied. I don’t do it bc I think dark chocolate is healthier. I just prefer the flavor and also it’s JUST two squares so even if it were milk chocolate, it wouldn’t really matter. My body type prefers lean protein versus white rice and starchy foods. That doesn’t mean white rice is bad for you. It’s pretty healthy as a staple for an entire continent. It just doesn’t have a ton of nutrients. BUT it doesn’t have much fat and if your body needs calories, it’s a good choice.
Water is always going to be better than any other drink. It’s pure, it’s very easy on your system, it’s necessary for biological functions like regularity and even blood sugar regulation.
Anything processed is going to be harder on your body than what you could pick from a tree, a vine, a root, or hunt in the woods. Eating a fresh peach is always going to be better for your body than eating a can of peaches, right? Why does it have to be more complicated than that? Past that, people get all hung up on is it organic or not. NOTHING is truly organic unless you grow it in your own garden or MAYBE get it from a local farming collective (but even in those circumstances you can’t guarantee pesticides haven’t seeped into the soil). So just buy the cheaper stuff.
White bread or wheat bread or whole grain? I mean, look at the labels. There’s really not that much difference when you consider you’re probably not eating half a loaf of bread a day, right? It all comes down to what you’re going to eat the most of. Sometimes I get on a kick where I’ll finish off a whole box of frozen taquitos in a day and that’s all I’ll eat. That’s not good. If you’re having like 4 once a week, it doesn’t matter what’s in them if the rest of your diet is fairly healthy.
Eat eggs, avocados, other fresh fruit and veggies, lean meats, fish, a variety of colors and types of everything. Drink 2 litres of water a day. Eat nuts and cheeses as garnish. And anything else you add to that won’t really harm or hurt you.
And if you’re curious about nutrition, I would say ignore this sub and study it academically. Ignore this post too 😝 good luck!
There are some basic truths within nutrition, but in the end it comes down to how your body responds to various foods, and that is different for everyone. That is why you see so much conflicting advice in terms of whether X is good or bad for you (even within whole foods, like eggs). Because the same food can be ideal for one person, and not so ideal for another. The key is to track what you are eating and pay attention to what it does for/to you and go from there.
It’s confusing because nutrition has a lot to do with our hormonal states, and also our genetics. And because some people benefit from making it confusing. Prior, in human history, we didn’t have to worry about whether X was good for us, we ate what was available where we lived, and over many eons that was what our bodies had adapted to and what was optimal for us. Ie what was optimal for Nordic people 300 years ago isn’t the same as what was optimal for Amazonian people in the same time frame. And then on top of that, we are marketed to 24/7.
In the end, if you focus on whole foods and limit processed foods, you will be doing better than most. But there can be a lot of variation in terms of how your body deals with something compared to someone else. Just because one-meal-a-day works great for your friend doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Being vegan might be terrific for your spouse but not for you. For some people counting calories alone works perfectly. Yet for others, it doesn’t work. Because the quality of the calories matters as well as the quantity. The metabolic state of your body, matters, too. One person’s 2,000 calories can look very different from another’s, and so the impact on their bodies will also be different. 2000 calories of whole foods is not managed at all the same in the body as 2000 calories of fast food. There are also benefits to foods that are not tracked on nutritional labels, like phytonutrients and antioxidants. The more variety of whole foods (and colors of foods- which offer clues as to the nutrient content) you eat, the better.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional in any related capacity. It is just what I have learned over 30 years of doing my own reading and tracking my own diet. Eat whole foods. Limit processed foods (including diet drinks and alcohol). It’s pretty hard to go wrong. Simple, but not easy. Fruits, veggies, well-sourced meat and dairy, and true whole grains (not white bread that tells you it is whole grain because it’s pretty much a lie).
I get that it can be confusing at times, the thing is everything that you consume is toxic in one way or the other, even water and oxygen. There is no “healthiest diet” out there, if there were, don’t you think everyone would be eating it? Do not suffer paralysis by analysis, yes minimize sugar and processed foods but even they can be enjoyed in moderation, especially if you have an active lifestyle. Try to get a balanced nutrition of carbs, fats and proteins, do not exclude stuff, you need them all. As for micronutrients, try to eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can and as various as you can. Don’t buy into fruits having sugar in them BS, nobody is fat from eating too many apples.
Honestly, nutrition really isn’t that complicated, but can seem that way when anyone can publish a paper saying anything they want.
Proteins and fats are essential to building body tissue, so have your primary sources of calories from those and fill in the rest with high fiber carbs. From that point forward, (broadly speaking) it’s a matter of calories in and calories out. Make sure to get some physical exercise in everyday and you will live fairly well.
Look at the overlaps between popular diets and you’ll find what’s most relevant. Between Mediterranean, Paleo, Whole30 and others, they advocate for a) complex carbs like vegetables and fruit, b) very low added sugar and ultra-processed foods like flour, PUFAs, or cured meats, and by extension c) meeting nutritional targets primarily from whole foods.
You can quibble about the rest, but those are the most important. That’s why it’s possible to be healthy on a vegan diet or a paleo diet, or with different macro composition. But you also have to pay attention to your own body. Whether you want to go high fat, low carb, high protein or whatever, ultimately you will require all 3 by some minimum amount. They all play a role, and that includes fat. Fats can help absorb vitamins, and help cognitive function (omega 3 is ideal).
In the first place most people would see an improvement with most popular diets today because they are foremost elimination diets; they eliminate junk. The simplest approach is to just do that. This is thought to be why people jumping from a standard American diet to “carnivore” feel better.
The mediterranean diet is kind of middle-of-the-road and happens to be the most extensively researched. For that matter, the impact of vegetables and legumes on health is extremely highly documented.