What To Eat

Eat your vegetables and avoid fat and cholesterol. Wait — fat and cholesterol are OK. Fine, get plenty of protein. But not animal protein. Well, maybe, but just in small quantities. The basic concepts of healthy eating are little-changed from your great-grandmother’s time: Consume a variety of foods, maintain ideal weight and avoid too much salt, sugar and alcohol. Nutrition wars rage over the details, however, and scientists keep changing their advice. Why isn’t it simpler figuring out how to eat healthily? For one thing, nutrition science is relatively young and inherently unreliable. For another, there’s lots of money at stake, leading businesses to argue that what they offer is good for consumers, even if it isn’t.

A massive international study published in 2017 added to evidence undermining concerns about fat consumption. It found that people with the highest intake of total fat had the lowest risk for premature death. The previous year, in its twice-a-decade dietary guidelines, the U.S. government made two notable reversals, dropping its previous advice to restrict dietary cholesterol and total fat consumption. The panel of scientists that drafted the guidelines wrote that a healthy diet is “lower in red and processed meat,” which have been associated with elevated death rates from cancer and heart disease. After strong objections from the meat industry, that caution was dropped. In the final document, men and teenage boys were advised to eat less protein by decreasing consumption of meat, poultry and eggs.