People always ask me, “What do you think of paleo?” “Do you eat meat?” “What about Keto?” Basically they’re asking, “What’s the Best Diet?”
This can be really frustrating for me – not that people are asking the question, but that after all these years, I don’t have a simple ‘one liner’ answer.
Think about it – there’s a lot to consider:
- Body type
- Dietary preferences & exclusions
- Budget
- Nutrition knowledge
- Time
The best nutritionists don’t have a single nutrition philosophy.
There are so many variables to consider which is clearly demonstrated by examining the traditional diets around the world. For example the Artic Inuit have a traditional diet of very high fat and animal products with very few vegetables. Conversely in the South Pacific the traditional diet consists of very low fat and very high vegetable and starchy carbs.
Crazy differences, right? Yet all traditional diet eaters are relatively healthy people with minimal incidences of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, inflammatory obesity, etc.
This is only possible because the human body is amazingly adaptable to a host of different dietary conditions.
As a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, I shouldn’t really belong to any specific nutrition camp at all. I need to be able to evaluate anything and everything that could work. Nutrition science is continually evolving and I have to be willing to try new methods and not be too strongly fixated on one particular set of beliefs.
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BEWARE of Diet gurus (or health ‘influencers’) who are in this game to get attention, make a scene, and get on TV. That’s why they try to force people into following strict and largely unnecessary nutrition rules—demonizing some foods, deifying others.
Sure, it sells books. It gives good TV. But we all know how things turn out when real people try to follow these rules in real life. Diets are so restrictive that they are almost impossible to follow for any length of time. PLUS, they don’t teach or help the individual form good habits.
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