[paulpauper]

We cannot control what is in our food,

Of all the things you listed, I think this is controllable.

But I agree genes play a huge role. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger do no exercise and have famously bad diets, yet both are fully productive and healthy at 91.

[BossingAround]

I'd say what's in your food is controllable if you live on a farm.

Outside of that, it gets very difficult without scanning barcodes, looking up specific items in a database, and periodically doing lab analyses.

There's the "control your food" as in "don't eat fast food" and there's the "control your food" as in "does this fish have high mercury in it?"

[outworlder]

Sure, some food may have contaminants. Fish is a good example. You might have to choose, for instance, farmed salmon instead of wild. Pesticides may be a factor. Microplastics are going to make this a more annoying problem.

But far more important is to control _what_ you eat. A tomato is a tomato. But ketchup is not a tomato. You may get health issues from contaminants, maybe. But you _will_ have health issues due to bad diet.

[BossingAround]

Absolutely. I was more thinking about "was this tomato grown with pesticides? If so, which ones? What health impacts does it have?"

And if you think pesticides is a small issue, "was this chicken/cow/turkey/... loaded with antibiotics?"

Of course, as I said, eating less processed food is a very simple yet effective choice, but beyond that, it sadly seems to get very murky very fast.