In Defense of Common Sense

Post title inspired by one of the best diet/nutrition/food related books I’ve read, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Definitely recommend it if you have any interest in food and nutrition.

This book also has his famous 8 word quote, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It sounds so simple! And really, it is and isn’t at the same time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about common sense lately as my news feed is flooded with new articles every day:

“One KFC item dietitian wouldn’t touch” Umm, any of them?

“Dieting? A new study found fasting at this hour was more powerful for blood sugar and weight loss than cutting calories” Not eating one specific hour of the day will save us all? Really?

“Is oatmeal good for you?” Seriously?

“Why eating leftover pasta and rice could reduce your risk of diabetes” I honestly don’t even think I have a response to this one.

“What’s the best diet to lose weight?” This one actually inspired this post, or maybe it was a similarly titled article I saw yesterday. Or that other “best diet” I read about last week…

This was literally just a sample from the “Nutrition” section of my Apple News feed that I pulled up just now. Every day, I, like others, are flooded with these headlines and so many more, promising to tell you the best food to eat at the best time and the best exercise to do in order to lose weight, lower blood pressure, reduce diabetes risk, etc.

So what are we supposed to do? These all can’t be right, can they? 

I get it. Online outlets are looking for clicks and putting just an insane amount of clickbait out there. Scientific studies are misrepresented every day in order to create attention grabbing headlines for the millions of Americans who have struggled with their weight and health for years (not to say this doesn’t happen in other countries as well). One journalist even taught us all a lesson in media coverage of scientific studies in 2015 to get media outlets to cover a flawed scientific study claiming chocolate can help you lose weight. 

So how do we sift through all of this information to find out what’s really going to help us lose weight/be healthy/reduce risk of chronic disease?

I have a thought.

Common sense.

Now, I will start out by saying that health and nutrition education for the average American is nothing short of awful. Kids in school get less than 8 hours per year, on average, of nutrition education. That’s just terrible and we need to do better, especially with the amount of garbage science on the internet these days.

That being said, we could make a lot of progress by just employing some common sense. Let’s take the keto diet, for example. A diet that was designed for a very specific clinical use in treatment for children with epilepsy. Do you really think that eating bacon at every meal is going to help you lose weight? That avoiding fruit, whole grains, and legumes is good for your health? Do you really think that eating plants is bad? That you need to pee on a stick every morning and test your ketones? [Side note, google “keto pee sticks” and you’ll see hundreds of sponsored ads trying to sell you this nonsense; clearly plenty of people are profiting off this garbage.] I think if you honestly ask yourself these questions, you will quickly realize that maybe eating only fat isn’t a great thing. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and that’s no less true when it comes to our diet. 

I get it though. Trust me, I do. As someone who has tried every diet out there (ok, with the exception of keto - even I knew that was too good to be true), I understand the desperation that comes with wanting to find the silver bullet. The thing that I could do and have everything just fall into place. The thing I was clearly missing.

It turns out, though, that the thing is to just eat real foods. That’s it. And wow, does that just make sense. Humanity didn’t make it this far by fasting at a specific hour or only eating specific foods or food groups. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, meat, eggs, dairy, fish - these things are all found in nature, are all things we’ve been eating for centuries, and I think if we’re all honest with ourselves, the things we know we should be eating.

Sure, there’s some nuance in there that you can refine over time - eating produce that’s regeneratively grown to get more nutrients, eating pasture-raised eggs and chickens, eating wild, line caught seafood. But I think the most important thing we can remember is just having a little common sense. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Sure, the ice cream diet sounds great, but realistically I know I probably need to just eat more fruits and vegetables. 

Ignore the noise in your news feed, the neighbor who lost 25 pounds by eating cabbage soup, the cookies and cream flavored protein bar pretending to be a health food. And remember the wise words from Michael Pollan - “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. Words we can all live by.