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FrameBenignly comments on LW's take on nutrition? - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: michael_b 03 April 2015 12:33AM

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Comment author: FrameBenignly 03 April 2015 03:41:08AM 1 point [-]

When talking about diet, some people are focused on health and some are focused on weight loss. These are related, but not identical. I'm assuming you're focused on health because of your phrasing.

My view is that the Mayo Clinic's food pyramid recommendations come closest to orthodox theory. The top alternative is probably Harvard's nutrition source. Neither of those two sources strike me as politically influenced. I read a lot of Aaron Carroll as I think he does a pretty balanced job of discussing a lot of nutrition research. He recently argued against the claim that heavy red meat consumption is as dangerous as people claim.

Vegetables and fruits have ridiculously good nutrient density. From that perspective Campbell is correct to focus on them. But most nutritionists would argue you should eat other foods to obtain the other nutrients. There is also some concern over claiming bigger health benefits than can be reliably demonstrated. Overall, his views come close enough to orthodoxy that I doubt it's worth worrying about too much, and his biggest difference is in the way he talks about the diet (telling people 0% instead of telling them 10%), so your views are pretty much in line with mine.