We Already Know the Best Diet for Humans

Don’t worry: It doesn’t involve counting calories or nutrient scapegoats

Dr. David L. Katz
Heated

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Illustrations: erhui1979

A funny thing happened on the way to eating better, or trying to: We broke science.

Science is the best method we’ve ever devised to answer questions we cannot answer with casual observations; it extends our observations and senses to the realms of the unseeable, unhearable and untouchable; to see beyond the limits of our eyes, and hear beyond the limits of our ears. It provides methods to defend us from our native biases, to account for variables we have not even considered, and to measure the differences between causation and fluke.

But science was never intended to question the reliable answers we already had. Science can and should certainly invite us to question answers, too, but not all answers are subject to doubt.

An example? Toss an apple up in the air, and you know with absolute certainty that it will fall back down, not float away.

Imagine that the work of some physicist, between Newton’s day and now, had led to a different conclusion, one that showed the apple must float away. Well, then, that “science” would be wrong. The new theory would not prompt us to doubt the fate of tossed apples; the discrepancy between theory and established reality…

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Dr. David L. Katz
Heated

President, True Health Initiative; CEO, Diet ID; Founder, Former Director, Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. @DrDavidKatz