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This was fully covered in "In Defense of Food" - good intro read for nutrition. Read that, not Vox, which is rife with strange opinions, like "overeating" being

This was fully covered in "In Defense of Food" - good intro read for nutrition. Read that, not Vox, which is rife with strange opinions, like "overeating" being the cause of modern disease? You damn nutritional science then come up with your own solution to everyone's problem, not based in evidence? Neat. It's oversimplifying to say the only studies nutritional science can use are observational ones. There are plenty of high quality, controlled studies on specific aspects of nutrition. We learn from those. That's also not to say that observational studies are all bad. They can be useful for determining when things don't work and aligning controlled evidence. The fact that nutrition is a hard problem doesn't mean it's not a real science. TL;DR Learn who you can trust on nutrition (Vox is not a good start)

jjoonathan 11y ago
Isn't "In Defense of Food" the one that tries to alter the definition of "food" until it no longer encompasses many of the unhealthy things we eat? (EDIT: yes, yes it is.) I originally dismissed it without a second thought because I associate that sort of puerile silliness with... well, things other than science. But now you're saying it gives a solid overview of nutrition science and I can't help but wonder. > Vox is not a good start Yeah, but why is "In Defense of Food" a good start? The author is a professor of journalism and the wiki page links to an opinion piece by a professor of nutrition titled "'In Defense of Food' is short on science," which is precisely what I'd expect from a professor of journalism and from someone who tries to redefine what food means. Which puts me back in square 1 of not knowing where to start.
- stevebmark 11y ago
  It's a good start because it's an unbiased, well researched book that's not alarmist / linkbait like "Why (almost) everything you know about food is wrong."
joe_the_user 11y ago
Why is it strange to think that over-eating is could be considered problem? One might better phrase it as "today, many humans have the ability to consume as much as they wish of many kinds of foods, a situation somewhat unique to evolutionary history and many problems seem to stem from this". I think a fair portion of nutrition experts think this. I don't know if it's a majority but as the article mentions, consensus is hard to find and just about any opinion is hard to support. And you seem to recommend something closer to the cranky fringe as an alternative to a decent article whose main message seems to be "very little is uncontroversial"
- fallous 11y ago
  I don't disagree with your critique of the parent's preferred "source," but "over-eating" has a certain hand-waving component as well (IMO at least.) If you eat 10 pounds of celery, there is no doubt that the vast majority of people would consider that over-eating but the negative health effects would at best be an abundance of fiber I suspect.
  - gbog 11y ago
    > 10 pounds of celery > an abundance of fiber You seem to be misinformed. 10 pounds of celery is most probably a very bad idea. There is no such thing as "good food" if you push it to the limits and eat too much of it. Celery has a lot of active component, just smell this taste and you will know. It is mainly good but as an addition to a normal meal's main component, which is traditionally white rice or noodles in the East, bread or potato in the West. Among these I would guess the best is rice. But even rice you cannot eat 50 pounds of eat without harm. I think the main issue here is that food is not science, and should not be the subject of science. Some chemical reactions are, but not nutrition. Nutrition is a cultural thing, much more connected to health, well-being and social living than to chemical reactions, milligrams of whatever and parameters of our bodies.
    - fallous 11y ago
      10 pounds of celery would result in 40g (or thereabouts) of sugar intake, 4 liters or so of water, and round about the US RDA of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, C, E and the minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, phosophorous, potassium, sodium, and zinc. Granted, the consumption of vitamin K would be noticeably above the USRDA, although we're also not accounting for the reduction in hypertension observed in those that consume celery juice. Food and nutrition may not be a science, but that is a result of incomplete understanding rather than some special magic that culture exerts on biochemistry.
      - gbog 11y ago
        > incomplete understanding The first act of ratio (reason) is to assert its own limits. Many things are outside the scope of science, for example no science will ever explain why a novel or a painting is good, why someone love another. From the catastrophic results of nutrition-as-science (things like USRDA), I would bet that the most important part of nutrition is outside the scope of science. Eating food is only marginally the matter of pouring x or y or z into one's body. Just as reading a book is nothing like pouring one by one a long string of words in our memory. We are no robots, after all.

jjoonathan 11y ago

Isn't "In Defense of Food" the one that tries to alter the definition of "food" until it no longer encompasses many of the unhealthy things we eat? (EDIT: yes, yes it is.) I originally dismissed it without a second thought because I associate that sort of puerile silliness with... well, things other than science. But now you're saying it gives a solid overview of nutrition science and I can't help but wonder. > Vox is not a good start Yeah, but why is "In Defense of Food" a good start? The author is a professor of journalism and the wiki page links to an opinion piece by a professor of nutrition titled "'In Defense of Food' is short on science," which is precisely what I'd expect from a professor of journalism and from someone who tries to redefine what food means. Which puts me back in square 1 of not knowing where to start.

stevebmark 11y ago
It's a good start because it's an unbiased, well researched book that's not alarmist / linkbait like "Why (almost) everything you know about food is wrong."

joe_the_user 11y ago

Why is it strange to think that over-eating is could be considered problem? One might better phrase it as "today, many humans have the ability to consume as much as they wish of many kinds of foods, a situation somewhat unique to evolutionary history and many problems seem to stem from this". I think a fair portion of nutrition experts think this. I don't know if it's a majority but as the article mentions, consensus is hard to find and just about any opinion is hard to support. And you seem to recommend something closer to the cranky fringe as an alternative to a decent article whose main message seems to be "very little is uncontroversial"

fallous 11y ago
I don't disagree with your critique of the parent's preferred "source," but "over-eating" has a certain hand-waving component as well (IMO at least.) If you eat 10 pounds of celery, there is no doubt that the vast majority of people would consider that over-eating but the negative health effects would at best be an abundance of fiber I suspect.
- gbog 11y ago
  > 10 pounds of celery > an abundance of fiber You seem to be misinformed. 10 pounds of celery is most probably a very bad idea. There is no such thing as "good food" if you push it to the limits and eat too much of it. Celery has a lot of active component, just smell this taste and you will know. It is mainly good but as an addition to a normal meal's main component, which is traditionally white rice or noodles in the East, bread or potato in the West. Among these I would guess the best is rice. But even rice you cannot eat 50 pounds of eat without harm. I think the main issue here is that food is not science, and should not be the subject of science. Some chemical reactions are, but not nutrition. Nutrition is a cultural thing, much more connected to health, well-being and social living than to chemical reactions, milligrams of whatever and parameters of our bodies.
  - fallous 11y ago
    10 pounds of celery would result in 40g (or thereabouts) of sugar intake, 4 liters or so of water, and round about the US RDA of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, C, E and the minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, phosophorous, potassium, sodium, and zinc. Granted, the consumption of vitamin K would be noticeably above the USRDA, although we're also not accounting for the reduction in hypertension observed in those that consume celery juice. Food and nutrition may not be a science, but that is a result of incomplete understanding rather than some special magic that culture exerts on biochemistry.
    - gbog 11y ago
      > incomplete understanding The first act of ratio (reason) is to assert its own limits. Many things are outside the scope of science, for example no science will ever explain why a novel or a painting is good, why someone love another. From the catastrophic results of nutrition-as-science (things like USRDA), I would bet that the most important part of nutrition is outside the scope of science. Eating food is only marginally the matter of pouring x or y or z into one's body. Just as reading a book is nothing like pouring one by one a long string of words in our memory. We are no robots, after all.