
Ask HN: Is there an ultimate guide to healthy food diet? - the_rock_says
I grew up on eating a balanced diet (at least that&#x27;s what I think) until I moved from home for college and jobs. Like many of us, I occasionally cook at home due to ease of restaurants or food delivery services like Freshly etc. here in the Bay Area. Now that I have started getting shoulder and back pain, mostly due to poor sitting habits, I&#x27;m thinking to change my habits and learn to live and eat better. I found some good exercises online but didn’t find any curated list of food that is good for the body.
What I&#x27;m more interested in is how to have a balanced diet. For example, in one of the YouTube videos on shoulder pain, the doctor linked it with a possible dysfunction of the liver&#x2F;gallbladder and recommends eating beetroot tops and other cruciferous leaves. I was wondering if there&#x27;s this ultimate guide which talks about good eating habits and links it with the improvements of the body organs. Does anyone know about this kind of guide or like an app?
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smt88
Very little is known to be good, general advice about food. The science is
very difficult and expensive:

[https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10760622/nutrition-science-
com...](https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10760622/nutrition-science-complicated)

Michael Pollan has some good advice, though. His book, The Eater's Manual, is
not "a diet", but rather an expansion on his rules for eating:

[https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-
for...](https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating)

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risto1
This is false. There's plenty we know about nutrition. Special interest groups
introduce doubt

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smt88
Can you cite anything? I cited something that demonstrates the uncertainty and
explains why it exists (difficulty of studying it, extreme variation among
individuals).

There is no single, hard rule for nutrition yet. We don't even know how
healthy milk and fish oil are. Vitamin D supplements were just shown to have
no benefit for bone health. Exercise and amount of food play a huge role in
whether a diet works.

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risto1
You cited a magazine article. Just look at the recommendations that nutrition
organizations give, WHO, etc, people that are experts in the field. If you
think it's bs then there's not much I can do about that

[https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dietetic-
associations](https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dietetic-associations)

My 2c to your response: there is _some_ variation among individuals, I think
it's intentionally exaggerated. Milk isn't a health product, but it's
nutritious and useful for those that don't have much appetite to eat. Agree
about fish oil unless you're deficient in omega 3. The amount of calories you
can eat plays a huge preventative role in having any deficiencies. Most people
have some kind of deficiency. Most people don't, or can't due to age or health
issue, exercise so much that their metabolic rate is high enough (1.5-2x
higher) to see those gains, which is why nutrition advice matters. If you
ignore everything about nutrition, you can get the most benefit by avoiding
added sugar and oils. It goes a very very long way

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risto1
If you're getting shoulder and back pain from poor sitting habits, you should
address that directly. Fix your posture, your spine should be slightly curved
when you sit with your shoulders upright. You can also get a standing desk,
and start weight training or doing calisthenics

The general dietary advice these days is:

\- avoid added sugars and oils

\- eat a (primarily or complete) plant-based whole foods diet

\- people are also experiencing some benefits from fasting, which can be
divided into 3 categories:

    
    
      1. intermittent fasting
      2. a water fasting session, usually 1-3 days long
      3. going into ketosis for prolonged period of time

