[mikepurvis]

At the same time, there is also a faction that appears to argue against overly studying or obsessing about nutrition science, saying that if you really just prioritize variety, moderation, and made-at-home, then you're already 90% of the way there.

[AndrewOMartin]

Ben Goldacre used to have a regular column against misleading health fads, amongst other things, called Bad Science.

He was a practicing GP and whenever asked to give some advice himself he said that people and lifestyles were too varied to give any advice more specific than "Eat mostly fresh fruit and vegetables, cut down on cigarettes and alcohol, and do some exercise".

[Reefersleep]

I wonder what the value is of that advice, it's so incredibly vague. What's "varied"? What's "moderated"? Feels a bit like an excuse to stay ignorant.

[mikepurvis]

I mean, I'm obviously giving the one line summary that usually leads into a significantly more detailed treatise, eg: https://openbooks.library.unt.edu/nutritionforconsumers/chap...

I think point is less to stay ignorant and more to focus on macro-level changes (water > soda/beer, vary your starches, get sugar from fruit, avoid "filling up" on purely protein) rather than obsessing over this or that micronutrient and trying to boil it all down into a perfect formulation that you consume in a sludgy pancake-batter-tasting "shake" twice a day.

[Snoozus]

In a situation where one does not know a lot it also mitigates the risk that the thing you ate a lot of turns out to be really unhealthy.