Even more evidence that we’re eating all wrong
popsci.com
popsci.com
Our bodies can survive on vastly different allocations of the three macronutrients. What percentage of calories should come from each? Obtaining most of your calories from carbohydrates can lead to metabolic disorder/insulin resistance/diabetes in many people. Obtaining most of your calories from protein can be damaging to the kidneys.[2] The research on eating too much fat is all over the place and does not seem to have a solid conclusion. Studies like the one in this article indicate that the previously theorized risks of increased heart disease risk are overblown.
I'm sure the real answer may be much more complicated than macronutrient composition, however, it would be at least a starting place for judging if a diet is "balanced" at a high level.
[1] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/75/5/951.2.long [2] http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-he...
I see no other way than to ultimately treat this as a soft science rather than a hard one, focusing on qualitative takeaways, and sometimes taking away a "consideration" rather than a conclusion, e.g. "there's a chance eggs might ultimately be bad, best not overdo it; rice contains arsenic, it's probably best to get rice produced in low-arsenic places, and follow a soaking/rinsing procedure before eating it..."
The goal of articles like these (in my opinion) is to cast doubt in your mind about eating or not eating certain foods. The article might be "sponsored" by a large food industry who wants you to think there is no right answer, so you might as well a bit of eat anything (meat, sugar, oils, fast food).
As a rule of thumb: the higher up the food chain you eat, the more likely you are eating pollutants. Fish have been found to have like levels of heavy metals and even plastics. Also avoid eating anything processed with ingredients you can't pronounce
Also, stop dining out for the most part: such food is heavy in calories (ie unhealthy oils and cream), salt, sugar and carbs.
Fix your own food from sources you trust, eliminating many problems.
Diet is established among the most important influences on health in modern societies. Injudicious diet figures among the leading causes of premature death and chronic disease. Optimal eating is associated with increased life expectancy, dramatic reduction in lifetime risk of all chronic disease, and amelioration of gene expression.
In this context, claims abound for the competitive merits of various diets relative to one another. Whereas such claims, particularly when attached to commercial interests, emphasize distinctions, the fundamentals of virtually all eating patterns associated with meaningful evidence of health benefit overlap substantially.
There have been no rigorous, long-term studies comparing contenders for best diet laurels using methodology that precludes bias and confounding, and for many reasons such studies are unlikely.
In the absence of such direct comparisons, claims for the established superiority of any one specific diet over others are exaggerated. The weight of evidence strongly supports a theme of healthful eating while allowing for variations on that theme.
A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention and is consistent with the salient components of seemingly distinct dietary approaches.
Efforts to improve public health through diet are forestalled not for want of knowledge about the optimal feeding of Homo sapiens but for distractions associated with exaggerated claims, and our failure to convert what we reliably know into what we routinely do. Knowledge in this case is not, as of yet, power; would that it were so.