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Summing Up The Science Of Nutrition In 7 Words
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” — Michael Pollan
When you spend as much time as I do poking around medical journals, healthcare articles, and all the latest research on nutrition, you come to understand that this so-called “science,” is just about anything but.
Now don’t get me wrong — I place an extremely high value on scientific study; In fact, I believe there are very few subjects as worthwhile of our time and thorough understanding as science.
The difficulty when it comes to science, however, is that the more you know, the more you really become aware of how much there is that you don’t know, and that no-body really knows.
Nutrition is a perfect example of this.
For every 100 research studies published on the harmful effects of drinking coffee or kombucha, there are 100 that have concluded the opposite. For every nutritionist that swears by the benefits of x, y, and z, there will be another who advocates for a different practice, a different procedure, or an altogether different size plate.
At any rate, it can be incredibly hard to discern what’s left from right and what’s right from wrong. We are, for the most part, left to figure out what’s best for ourselves, by ourselves.
So, somewhere between eating intuitively and intermittently, either two times per day or five, it can be helpful to recognize that there are a few core ideas that form the basis of all nutritional science.
These are the philosophies that appear time and time again throughout the research, substantiated not only by just about every medical publication and healthcare professional in existence, but also the experience of self-proclaimed “very healthy people” all over the world.
These are 7 words for 3 different guidelines that comprise the foundation for everything we know to be 100% true in the field of nutrition.
These are the simple premises that are most helpful to hold onto in a world of the far too complicated, controversial, and nutrionally complex:
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” — Michael Pollan
