[ademup]

I call this the "Everything in Moderation" fallacy. From what I've heard people who say it, they emphasize the everything part of it. In other words almost everything is bad for you so just eat a little bit of everything and you won't get too much of the bad stuff. It's maddening.

[StackRanker3000]

The way I understand it (and my understanding is certainly poor, so I welcome well-supported pushback on it), is that few, if any, components in the food that we in developed countries eat today are actively harmful in themselves (with the caveat outlined below)

The main issue is overconsumption leading to overweight and obesity. Food that’s high in refined sugars and/or saturated fats tend to contribute to this, because it’s palatable and calorie-dense

So in that sense, yes - I believe that as long as your diet is varied enough that you get sufficient intake of all, or at least most, of the essential nutrients, and you don’t eat too much (i.e. in moderation), the ratio of macronutrients doesn’t make a big difference to your health outcome

The crux is that moderation is hard when the food is jam-packed with calories, and it’s so delicious you just want to keep stuffing your face

[paulryanrogers]

By volume most of the food in modern western grocery stores is unnaturally sugary or otherwise calorie dense.

You have to restrict yourself to produce and a few scant other options to escape with balanced nutritional products.

They even advertise cereals as a "part of a healthy breakfast". Which is a lie under any circumstances, because it's never a healthy part if you eat it long term. (Yes it could keep you from starving to death in a famine, still not 'healthy'.) Imagine if they could only say "it will keep you from starving, and may significantly contribute to diabetes"

[darth_avocado]

I don’t think “Everything in Moderation” means you won’t get too much of the bad stuff. The philosophy alludes to the fact that in the modern world, trying to have the ideal diet is exhausting and near impossible. Lack of choice, money, time, education, self control etc. all contribute to you intentionally or unintentionally eating stuff that’s going to do irreparable harm to you. You could be eating salads and somehow poisoning yourself with pesticides and high sugar/fat/sodium salad dressings. Which is why this philosophy focuses on, do everything in moderation and you’ll maybe avoid CVD and other diseases for longer. It is meant for people who cannot meet the idealistic standards of what you are supposed to do.

[overgard]

Is it really that exhausting though? I've been on a zero-carb diet for two months (other than thanksgiving or christmas), and it really hasn't been hard at all. If I eat at a restaurant there's some things I can't avoid (seed oils), but otherwise it's not too hard to look at a menu and see things I can eat. The only hard part is to be optimally healthy I need to cook for myself, but that's always been true.

In a lot of ways, it's actually been easier. Because my blood sugar isn't crashing every few hours, I can easily skip a meal and feel perfectly fine. Fasting is very easy for me now, which it wasn't at all on an unhealthy diet.

[prmph]

Yet you are unavoidably eating micro-plastics too, which have been linked to adverse CV events.

Also:

- If you are eating more fish (as opposed to eating meat), you are likely consuming more mercury.

- If you are eating more fresh veggies you are probably ingesting more pesticides.

- If you are easting dark chocolate for its health benefits, you are also ingesting cadmium and other heavy metals.

So all the above should be done in moderation. Even things that seem like unalloyed good can be dangerous. A burst of exercise beyond your conditioning can lead to a CV event. Too much water can be poisonous. Some people get constipation for too much veggies in their diet.

For example, instead to sticking to a narrow faddish supposedly healthy diet, you can enjoy a wide range of foods, which will make it more likely you are getting all the nutrients that will do you good (of course clearly unhealthy food should be avoided).

The body is more complex than we can ever know. There are some general principles for good health (including CV health) that should be followed, but to me it is clear that good health does not arise from a slavish devotion to very detailed set of rules.

[mcmoor]

Funnily I've heard that one reason why obesity is prevalent is that we have too many variations of food. Seems like our hunger controller suspends satiety when we eat a food too much, but when we eat few of lots of different foods, it's broken.

It'd be funny if lots of fad diets actually works because people are forced to eat a single type of food and that's entirely enough for it.

[snicky]

It could also explain why most of us can eat like pigs in all-you-can-eat buffets.

[overgard]

Your post sounds like "bad things can happen so why bother". Having a good diet isn't "slavish devotion", it's more like "don't eat something obviously terrible"

[prmph]

Way to totally miss the gist of my comment:

> "don't eat something obviously terrible"

This is an exact thought in the comment.

> "bad things can happen so why bother"

The exact thing I was arguing against.

Jeez, why bother responding if you can't be bothered to read the actual comment I wrote.

[darth_avocado]

People who don’t make money, have to take care of childcare while working 2-3 jobs, probably aren’t able to cook themselves. Nor are the people who live in food deserts that only have limited options able to optimize around a specific diet that’s not restricted by availability.

I cook my own food and optimize around eating healthy. I wouldn’t be able to do it if I made less money or had a more demanding job or didn’t have great grocery stores in a 10 mile radius or had to spend time in childcare or any of the other completely valid reasons people have.

Besides, you yourself just described “do things in moderation” yourself: holidays, Christmas, restaurants etc. That’s really what the philosophy is.

[bluGill]

What is moderation? The volume (or mass) of a single apple of alcohol is going to make you very drunk (most alcohol is mixed with water: an apple's worth of beer is very little, that much Everclear is a problem).

That is what I hate about the everything in moderation. We need to do better since some things should be in much larger amounts than others.

I think we all would agree that any amount of rat poison is a bad thing, thought perhaps this is too much of a strawman.