“Avoid carbohydrates!” “Eat intermittently!” “Eat like a caveman!” “Increase foods that are antioxidants!” The list of recommendations is vast.
Assuming that “healthy eating” refers to a diet that will allow you to avoid disease and enhance your strength and vigor, your search is in vain. Why? Because accepting existing reports of healthy eating on a similar basis to other reports on health-promoting, or unhealthy behaviors, misses an important difference. To prove the effects of any one of the numerous published “healthy eating” proposals requires information that is not available.
Let’s review how something is proved. In medicine, the gold standard is the controlled clinical trial.
To carry out such a trial for a dietary plan would require two components: At least two groups were randomly chosen, each of which followed a different food regimen. While this sounds simple, it is not feasible for very long. Only by using populations without free will, such as the military or prisoners, could a test diet be imposed.
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It is very likely that “healthy eating” is no more complex than keeping a healthy weight. But we know that is not easy! If you want to “eat healthy,” have a balanced diet, and don’t fill your plate so full. It is less what you eat but how much!
