What is the healthiest diet if everything is both good and bad for you?

It’s almost impossible these days to research nutrition and diets when absolutely everyone is preaching opposing diet plans and warning against others. How is someone able to land on what’s healthy for them when they’re told by everyone that everything is healthy and unhealthy? Is moderation or a balanced diet really the answer?

In short. Yes. A slightly longer answer is ‘it depends’. And the even longer answer is below.

Spend enough time on the internet and you’ll find that red meat will give you heart disease but is also incredibly important for your health. Fish contains important oils, but eat too much of it and it’ll poison you. Chicken, alongside red meat, is great as part of a muscle building diet but you also risk bad cholesterol if you over indulge.

People just can't make their minds up about soy!

What does someone new to planning our their diet do in this situation then?

 

The best thing you can do is understand that nutrition, along with all aspects of health and fitness, is prescriptive. What’s good for me may be bad for you. What may be perfect for my long-term goals may be bad for your long-term health.

 

But also, the best thing for your health is to not look at just one aspect of nutrition, such as meats, to try and determine what is 'best' for your health. Because health isn't isolated to just one thing. Food alone will not make you healthy if everything else about your lifestyle is garbage. Your physical health is largely irrelevant if other aspects of your life are impacting you psychologically. Biologically you may be better off eating a ketogenic diet despite a diet rich in carbohydrates being convenient for others. You may be better suited focussing on fixing your social situation and just eating whatever is convenient for now until you’re in a better position to look at different eating habits.

 

You could eat a 'balanced, healthy diet' but if you spend your days sitting on the sofa, smoking, drinking heavily and generally treating your body like it's nothing to you, you will be unhealthy. Because the overwhelming bad will outweigh the good.

 

Returning to red meat for a moment: This was demonstrated in the famous study that tried to show why it's bad for you:

 

Red meat intake and risk of coronary heart disease among US men: prospective cohort study https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4141

 

It concluded by saying: “We found that greater intakes of total, unprocessed, and processed red meat were each associated with a higher risk of CHD. (Coronary Heard Disease)”.

 

Yet earlier in the study it was mentioned that: “Those with higher total red meat consumption were more likely to smoke, consume alcohol, have diabetes, and use aspirin. They had higher intakes of total energy and trans fatty acids but were less physically active and less likely to have hypercholesterolemia or a family history of cardiovascular diseases. They had lower intakes of multivitamins, fruit, vegetables, and cereal fiber compared with those in the lower fifths of total red meat intake.”

 

In trying to point out why meat was bad, it instead shows us why a balanced and healthy lifestyle is better for us than food in isolation. Was it the meat or the additional poor lifestyle choices that contributed to the CHD?

 

Try and move away from looking at foods and meats in isolation and look instead at what is best FOR YOU. Nutrition, much like a health and fitness routine, is entirely prescriptive.

 

Everything is bad for some. Everything is good for others. You need to focus on what's best for you.

 

And the environment, if you can.