
Nutrition offers its resignation, and the reply - exolymph
https://meaningness.com/nutrition-resigns
======
decision_tree
See [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-
you-...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read-
about-nutrition/) for a bit more serious coverage.

OT, it's always surprised me with the diversity of pets people buy that these
animals can generally eat the same thing for every meal, while humans can't.

~~~
rjbwork
We could, but food is basically a defining characteristic of human culture.
Food comes in such an amazingly varied myriad of flavors, textures,
temperatures, methods, spices, etc. I think at this point we've evolved such
that for some 99.9...9n% of us, we literally can't eat the same thing every
day. It would suck one of the simple joys of life out of our lives.

~~~
AstralStorm
We do not even know if we feed the pets a healthy diet because nobody cares.
Some _think_ they know what constitutes a healthy diet for humans but there is
very scarce and conflicting evidence except the grandma advice of "eat your
greens". And not with big effect sizes either.

Not "be vegan or vegetarian" mind you.

The fun part is that humans are likely much more adaptable in terms of diet
than other animals.

~~~
Ma8ee
I think we know a lot more about what to feed animals. There are several
reasons for that: It is not considered unethical to do large scale
experimental studies on animals. Most domestic animals have much shorter
lifespan than humans, so it is possible to study the effect of different diets
through a full life cycle. Finally, there are strong economic incentives to
produce the meat with desired qualities, the most amount of milk or the
highest quality of fur with the most cost effective diet possible.

For example pig farmers have known forever that if you want to have fat pigs
you feed them grains, and if you desire lean meat you feed them high protein
fodder.

------
brandonmenc
The only advice that makes sense, and for the past half century or so has been
constant, albeit hiding in plain sight under whatever the fads of the day are:

Exercise regularly. Avoid extremes in diet - but eat a bit of variety. Get the
minimum recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals. Keep your calories and
your body fat low.

And if you have bad genetics, you're probably just screwed, and no amount of
exercise or diet will fix it.

~~~
drdrey
> Keep your calories and your body fat low.

This is a bit like financial advice stating "don't become poor" or health
advice stating "don't get cancer".

~~~
brandonmenc
No, it's not.

Exercise and/or don't stuff your face. Pretty simple, really.

And, unlike your finances or genetic predisposition for cancer, you have total
control over it. No one is forcing you to over eat.

------
YoyoyoPCP
My general philosophy about nutrition is simply to listen to my own body. As
in: how does this meal that I just ate or drink that I just drank make me
feel? I've noticed with certain foods, I have strange feelings after eating
them, so I'll tend to stay away from eating them regularly or even at all.

I'm not sure if there's any merit to this way of considering my diet, but it
feels like the most sensible approach towards deciding what I should or
shouldn't eat.

~~~
umanwizard
Smoking cigarettes makes me feel amazing, so I'm not convinced about your
approach.

~~~
oh_sigh
I'm sure they do in the immediate short term, but don't you cough up mucus[1],
have a reduced sense of smell[2], yellowed teeth[3] and a smaller penis[4]?

That doesn't sound too amazing to me.

[1]
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318931.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318931.php)

[2] [https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/features/is-
smoking-...](https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/features/is-smoking-
dragging-you-down#1)

[3] [https://www.dentalhealth.org/tell-me-
about/topic/sundry/smok...](https://www.dentalhealth.org/tell-me-
about/topic/sundry/smoking-and-oral-health)

[4] [http://time.com/4408977/erectile-dysfunction-quit-
smoking/](http://time.com/4408977/erectile-dysfunction-quit-smoking/)

~~~
setr
Been smoking for about 8 years

No to mucus

Maybe to reduced smell (doesn't seem significantly worse in practice than
anyone else)

Maybe to teeth, but I also drink a lot of coffee, and its not very
substantially yellow

Erectile dysfunction != smaller penis, and afaik, none of the (actually)
described effects in the article apply to me, at least enough to have noticed.

Also that last article is the only one I checked, and is citing studies
composed of 40 (2016 study), and 65 (2012), participants. The first is about
fertility, and nothing to do with ED or penis size.

And the second study compares 20 successful quitters against 40 not, with
apparently 13 people starting with ED, (distribution after the study left
unspecified), and only claims that the quitters had larger erections than the
smokers. (Not comparing before/after quitting on the same individual; just
which group had the larger dicks at the end (their state at the beginning left
unspecified).

And the ED part is just bad reporting (despite being the article's title),
intentionally referring to results that are "statistically insignificant". (13
people with ED; quitters/non-quitter count unspecified; both groups saw
similar improvement during the study).

I'm assuming you didn't read the studies themselves, so I won't bother

I'm also going to assume the rest of your articles are of similar quality

In which case, you should probably improve your sources before making claims

~~~
oh_sigh
The 4th reference I provided attributed the possibility of both weaker
erections and a smaller circumference penis among active smokers. Did you read
it?

> Results underscore the possibility that cigarette use may deleteriously
> affect erectile function peripherally, in part, by disrupting cardiac
> autonomic function.

It's not the gold standard of proof, but it seems not too far fetched.

~~~
setr
>Did you read it?

Yes, the problem is _that I read it._

It indeed attributed the possibility, but at least from the article alone, the
supporting evidence is incredibly weak. at the end of the study, a group of 20
people who quit had larger erections than a group of 40 who didn't.

Were they larger _before_ the study too? Unstated.

Were they _significantly_ larger? By how much? Unstated.

Were _all_ of them larger, or did a few just skew the average? Unstated.

Was the quitting group larger _than before they quit_? Unstated.

All we have is that, in the end, the quitters had the larger, presumably
average, erections. On a sample size of 20, and 40.

And of course, knowing that the article's headline is bullshit (claimed on
results the writer himself acknowledges as statistically insignificant), it's
probably likely that _any other interpretation_ the author so freely takes is
_also bullshit_.

That article isn't the gold standard of proof; its not even bronze. It goes
very close to blatantly lying with its headline, and I think its safe to
assume that out of everyone involved in determining those results, only the
article's author would be so confident about it (at least, as much as he is).

If you're going to cite things, then use things _worth citing_. In the worst
case, read the study itself. But don't go around feeding others such low
quality summaries.

------
will_brown
An article like this is the same type of disinformation it is railing against.
Sure the government backed food pyramid and now food plates are terrible (and
there is a conflict of interest), and private studies are often no better.

But we don’t know anything about nutrition? What about the Krebs Cycle? I
think that is good science right? Cellular health and energy production aren’t
exactly controversial. How many people are arguing that inflammation in the
body is good or promotes health? Does anyone suggest insulin spikes are good?

Unfortunately you can’t name the foods that cause inflammation or insulin
spikes...because that’s when there is push back, but we all know what they are
and we don’t need to name them, because there is consensus those things are
detrimental to health, which should be the focus of nutrition.

~~~
gHosts
> What about the Krebs Cycle?

So if you look at the [Big Picture of the metabolic pathways in
humans]([http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1](http://biochemical-
pathways.com/#/map/1))... what do you have?

Fuzzily defined, extraordinarily complex tangle with feed back loops all over
the place, some going through that amazing tangle of the brain.

If you were to translate this into a mathematical model and look at it from a
purely mathematical perspective (even if you omit the parts involving the
brain).

It's a highly non-linear system of Partial Differential Equation's with many
variables and a bunch of fuzzily measured constants.

And then you compare it with a really really simple setup like, say, [3 bodies
acting under gravity]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
body_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem)). You know,
something almost as simple as it gets.

Way way way simpler than the metabolic pathways in humanity.

And we know from a purely mathematical point of view.... that except for a
very very tiny set of special cases, we haven't clue what will happen with the
3 body problem.

So yes, the article is spot on.

In terms of individual chemical reactions, we have some ideas.

In terms of dietary advice to individuals or populations... We floundering and
should admit it.

~~~
macawfish
This is spot on. These are chaotic systems we're talking about, in our very
bodies. Not only that, these systems are literally embedded in our very
senses. In many very real ways, they are the medium of our senses.

Because of this, I strongly disagree with the following statement:

 _> We’re pretty darn sure no one else knows anything about nutrition, either.
Please don’t listen to “alternative” nutrition quacks. We’ve been there, and
we know._

The reasoning goes like this: "if we can't figure this stuff out, no on can!"
That's sheer hubris. These kinds of systems are sometimes best tackled with
idiosyncratic methods.

Well, that's false. The reality is that _everybody knows about nutrition_ ,
otherwise they would die. Nutrition is an evolutionary, messy, irrational art-
science.

It's just important to understand that everyone's body is a unique,
multifaceted universe of sorts. What two people have in common, nutritionally,
could be totally off for a third person.

"And we know from a purely mathematical point of view.... that except for a
very very tiny set of special cases, we haven't clue what will happen with the
3 body problem."

Yet there are dancers who perform spectacular 3 person pieces all the time. Go
figure! That should be "impossible" but it's not. Because life is infinitely
more nuanced and wondrous than closed-minded "scientists" want (you) to
believe.

~~~
AstralStorm
Obviously the quacks cannot figure things either. Otherwise they would have
actionable evidence of good statiatical quality. Scientific method (esp. RCTs)
provides actionable evidence.

Just be careful whom you call a quack... dietetics has way too many facets
that are being analysed at the time.

We also have science that works quite well on unknown systems - epidemiology
and statistics.

While it is not good enough to figure out causes, correlations are good enough
in typical cases to be actionable.

The strongest one we have is "eating plenty of greens and raw vegetables will
make you look like other healthy people". I haven't seem any contravening
evidence to this very not ground-breaking conclusion. The problem is that it
flies in the face of 70 years of dietary recommendation (which was grains) and
in the face of all the industry (because it is not shelf stable).

Exercise so far while improving health in the elderly has not been linked to
persistent weight loss.

I could be more specific about thresholds there as well. (In terms of volume.)
Butt what good does it do? These are fuzzy thresholds.

Them we have evidence that high fat diets are effective at weight loss (about
the same as low fat diets) but some that they have no other health effects
that are not really explained by weight change. Thus the diets are not
specifically recommended, one over another. Even the high fat diets resulted
in caloric restriction.

The long term analysis gives slight but existent increase in all cause
mortality that is not explained by CVD mortality nor cancer. Thus we do not
know the cause. Quacks like to tell that they know the causes.

Or other that any kind of diet is somewhat effective so the right placebo in
weight studies is regular weight monitoring. Not no diet.

And a lot of evidence that people cannot really self regulate to health with
bad substrates.

~~~
macawfish
_> Just be careful who you call quacks..._

I just really don't care for the term. It's derogatory. Since when did a
derogatory term have anything to do with science? I've studied science all my
life, and I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather be personally called a
quack pseudo-scientist than ever find myself calling other people quacks for
having the courage to stick with unconventional or marginalized ideas.

Here in the U.S., anti-fluoridation activists have been labelled "quacks" for
years. But the evidence _keeps flowing in_ that too many fluorine ions in your
body can cause trouble, especially if you're a developing embryo or child. It
even seems that the evidence has been actionable, since in 2015, the DHHS cut
the maximum recommended water fluoridation level in half. The DHHS maximum
limit is now 0.7 mg/L, but the EPA's "enforceable standard" is 4.0 mg/L. ?

But anti-fluoridation activists activists are still being called "quacks" to
this day.

------
nodja
Diet/study says that if you do X you will lose weight because of Y.

You do X and lose weight.

The error is thinking that you lost weight because of Y, and not because of a
secondary unlisted effect of doing X.

The same applies for certain diets/organisms causing conditions/diseases/etc.
i.e. the whole cholesterol back and forth.

We've learned lots from nutrition and in general informed people live
healthier lives. Just because we don't know exactly what's going on inside our
bodies doesn't mean that zero improvement has been made. We'll fuck up once in
a while and get some bad advice, but in general we've improved lots.

------
colechristensen
Is there a better version of this idea written somewhere I can share?
Something with not so much sarcasm and more reason.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I'll trade you an anecdote, for whatever it's worth: One of my earlier
memories was learning in school that your daily intake should be mostly grain.
But recently, after cutting grain out of my diet completely, I went from
240lbs to 210 with zero exercise.

It's weird to realize that pretty much no one knows what's up with nutrition.
It's the opposite of data-driven.

~~~
namelost
In the past, "nutrition" meant "getting enough calories", as in the opposite
of malnutrition. Grains are plentiful, cheap calories and so they are
"nutritious".

Of course if you cut them out of your diet and still eat the same amounts of
everything else you will lose weight, that's just thermodynamics!

~~~
SubiculumCode
Exactly. In the past, calorie intake was probably the most important aspect of
food nutrition. We live in good times.

------
maxander
The article is _a bit_ hyperbolic. Nutrition is complex and hard-to-study, the
research is under various distorting pressures from several industries, and
it's been gotten disastrously wrong in the past, but such is science- science
is hard. Just because we've gotten it wrong before doesn't invalidate more
recent results, and just because there are important uncertainties in our
current knowledge doesn't mean we can't quantify and manage that uncertainty.

The real issue is, and the author's real point (whether he knows it or not),
is that _non-scientists_ don't, and currently mostly can't, know anything
about nutrition. To get a decent, self-respecting nutritional fact, you need
to trace it back to the studies (to make sure it's not corporate BS,) make
sure these studies are relatively recent (so that they're not deformed by the
various assumptions and flawed conceptual frameworks that dominated the field
a couple decades ago,) and ensure that the researchers and statistics at work
are reasonably trustworthy (to make sure it's not some of the bad research
that is still being done[1].) This is not something that most people can do,
and that's simply to access the limited and uncertain facts we currently have.
To the typical highschool graduate trying to make dinner, it's worse than
useless.

([1] Which is, again, not unique to nutritional science. Bad papers are
published in _every_ field.)

More than a lack of knowledge, we have a lack of trustworthy authority. If
someone wants to know about chemistry or math, trustworthy sources are easy to
find, and their pronouncements can be taken on faith if the student doesn't
want to get bogged down in the details. If someone wants to know next week's
weather, the available answers will be uncertain and untrustworthy, but
everyone at least knows the right people to ask, and has some idea of how to
deal with "50% chance of rain." In nutrition, no one knows where to ask, and
no one knows how to deal with what information that is available (for
instance, raise your hand if you know the glycemic index of your most recent
meal.) The answer to this can't be the scientific method; it's a social
process.

Incidentally, the present nutritional wisdom is probably best summed up by
Michael Pollan's "eat food; not too much; mostly plants." From that you'll be
fine. (If you want to be really fancy, know the calories-per-serving of the
~10 most common foods you eat; by then you'll be eating healthier than about
95% of Americans, most likely. Know the glycemic index and you're past 99%.)

------
ClassAndBurn
Nutrition research is really difficult; lack on immediate reactions (digestion
and metabolism take time), highly variable results because on stimulus in
other parts of the body (including stress) and its being ethically impossible
to have a control group (locking people in a room and feed them one this isn't
realistic anyways).

On the curve of "knowing how much we don't know" we're just realizing this is
way harder than anyone expected even a few years ago.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Don't forget different gut bacteria. Different people may well respond to the
same food in different ways.

~~~
ClassAndBurn
Totally. I signed up for the Kickstarter of uBiome years ago who's market line
evolved from "We'll figure out a 'normal' biome and help you get there" to
"Turns out there is no normal, let's try grouping people" to now something
around "OMG this stuff changes constantly! We're going to go science for a few
years and get back to you latter with something".

------
kevmo
I grew up in the Deep South. Most of my family members are morbidly obese and
have diabetes. I avoided this by spending hundreds of hours reading and
thinking about nutrition. Here are my ground rules for healthy living:

1) Drink a lot of water everyday.

2) Calories are the most important baseline measure that affect your weight.

3) Walking for 20 minutes a day will give you 90% of the exercise you need. Go
for a walk after lunch with your colleagues!

4) Don't trust food scientists, including ones that work for the government.
They are paid to sell more food.

5) Putting vegetables on pizza doesn't make that pizza healthier. It may make
it "less unhealthy". Think in terms like that.

6) The more synthetic a food is (i.e. the more processed it is), the more
unhealthy it is. Human evolved to eat a certain way -- remember that. Use
olive oil, real butter, etc. Eat whole fat everything.

7) Eat a lot of vegetables. Don't eat a lot of red meat. Yogurt is really good
for your gut.

8) If you're going to eat something unhealthy, embrace it! Acknowledge that
you are treating yourself.

9) THINK about your diet. Evaluate how you feel.

10) Look at your body in the mirror more than you step on a scale.

~~~
uxcolumbo
Good list, but I'd suggest to leave out dairy, there are better alternatives
on many levels.

Check out this talk by Dr Neil Barnard
[https://youtu.be/v_ONFix_e4k](https://youtu.be/v_ONFix_e4k)

~~~
KozmoNau7
All of the alternatives to milk, cheese, yoghurt and so on are woefully
inadequate in nutrients. Primarily protein (although soy is decent there), but
also in vitamins and minerals. Yes, even enriched varieties.

11) Don't trust _anything_ you hear in a TEDx talk.

------
AstralStorm
Indeed the really important question that is slowly being dug in (too slowly
in my books) is how a quite strictly testable thing as nutrition science has
failed to produce truly actionable results. With at least decently described
applicability.

Maybe it is because of outside influence, maybe it is due to much to broadly
asked question and/or premature generalization. Or following leads without
actually testing their veracity, which probably has another cause.

Maybe partly ethics preventing us from experimenting on ourselves as a species
in a rational way. (Unlike the random uncontrolled irrational experiments we
run every second of our life.)

Glory, finding or requirement to prescribe action even if we do not know what
should be done. Also known as leadership in some circles...

~~~
drdrey
It is strictly testable in principle, but not really in practice. You can't
exactly lock up people in a metabolic ward for years to collect long term
data.

------
purplezooey
No, the problem is we don't fund enough nutrition research because the only
people who benefit are non-corporations. Your liver does not have a lobbyist.
For God's sake the director of the CDC had to resign because she didn't want
to jettison her tobacco investments. There's only one political party
responsible, and before the right-wing moderators here ban this comment, let's
just say we need to pay attention to who we put in charge in this area.

------
arionhardison
I think the problem here is a lack of tools. PG often says that the smarter
people must build tools for the dumber ones. I have never met a smart RDN.
They have no tools to do the research into our diet and its impact that is
really needed to create a meaningful impact.

Full Disclosure: I am currently building these tools.

------
xupybd
The annoying thing is we seem to be getting fatter and no one seems to be able
to nail it down.

~~~
pixl97
No, that is nailed down. We eat more calories and we do less. We eat out more
and restaurants are economically motivated to sell larger portions because
people feel it is a better value. There are more high calorie snack products
available in more places for lower prices than ever.

Education mostly doesn't work. Most people can consume huge amounts of
sweet/fat/salty food, far beyond there caloric needs, even when they know it
is bad for them. Maybe the small portion of humanity that can execute portion
control inherits the Earth. Maybe we lock down businesses freedom to pettle
crap foods to addicts. I'm not sure what the answer is.

------
macawfish
I'm all the way over zealous rationalism.

------
hn_throwaway_99
I just think it's kind of amusing that a large number of comments on this post
are (unironic) personal anecdotes arguing as to why their particular diet plan
is the best.

------
antisthenes
A bit too late for April fools, no?

Otherwise it's just shameless praise to ignorance. (The good ol' fallacy that
if you can't get it 100% correct for everyone, then might as well not even
try)

The weightlifting crowd seems to have figured out nutrition for themselves
just fine. So have millions of fit, active people.

Nutritionists may be quackery as a job/profession, but nutrition is still a
valid part of biology and a science.

------
alfor
Look at [https://nutritionfacts.org](https://nutritionfacts.org) it's a doctor
that does the digging through research paper and try to find a place to draw
the line. Spoiler: The best diet is complete avoidance of process food _and_
animals products. It also correlate highly with the blue zones findings.

edit: wow! I was expecting some pushback, but this is still a surprize. Please
take a bit of time to look at the actual content before being to critic. Also
it's made to be a bit entertaining and simple so it can reach a larger
audience.

~~~
Endama
My problem is that I don't know what exactly constitutes "processed food".
Like, isn't cooking a steak on a pan constitute a "process" on a food? If
processed foods don't consider my steak example, how much process on a food
causes it to fall into the unhealthy category you are describing?

I'm not trying to be nit-picky, this seriously is confusing for me (probably
no small-part due to marketing).

~~~
emmanuel_1234
My personal rule of thumb: if it wasn't available for pre-agricultural human,
it doesn't have to be part of your diet (doesn't mean you _can 't_ eat it at
all, but you surely shouldn't make it the foundation of your diet).

Dead animal and the fire are definitely part of _Homo_ , especially _Homo
Sapiens_.

You can call that a Paleo diet if you will, I don't, as the term as been
tainted by quackery (see also: Superfood).

