I've always been shocked at how crappy the research into nutrition is and how there's very little consensus beyond "vegetables are good" and how shoddy a lot of the professional training is for dieticians. Nearly everybody eats nearly every day, how have we not figured this out?
It's both difficult and largely unethical to do intervention studies on people, and we don't know how to measure individual differences between people very well.
For instance, studying gut biomes of people is mainly done by looking at their poop but that doesn't help you know what kind of bacteria are where in their intestines, and it's not like you can take them apart.
I think there's a pretty simple explanation for this. How many calories should you consume per day?
It's a trick question because it has no answer. It's going to vary dramatically depending upon environmental, physical/physiological, and genetic characteristics. And that is probably the most simple question to answer, because when you get into the specifics of nutritional content, the same is true except it's orders of magnitudes more complex with far less understood.
And many things come down to pretty precise measurement because it's all systems in equilibrium. 100 calories to your diet would ostensibly have a negligible impact because it's not much relative to your entire intake, but if you were just at the equilibrium where your consume - burn = 0, then that 100 calories is suddenly going to start seeing you gain weight dramatically faster than before.
There is much more that we know than just "Vegetables are good" and we know why they're good. Nutrient dense, packed with fiber to slow digestion, includes necessarily vitamins and minerals to not only absorb the nutrients of your food but to also provide you with the micronutrients you need.
That's of course just one example you made. But the problem is where people go to find the right information. Don't watch instagrammers and don't look at the latest "super foods" where the benefits might only be marginal, albeit hardly palatable.
Having studied nutrition and human movement in first year University, my recommendation is for people to actually buy a first year Uni textbook on nutrition and understand what is in your food, what energy systems are, what macro (carbs, fats, proteins), micro (vitamins, minerals) are and how they impact your body. Then you can go and make more informed decisions about what you eat without someone necessarily telling you. You'll know that sugar isn't bad for you, but copious amounts of simple carbs like Mars bars are especially if you're not exercising.
Top level Athletes and body builders are the way they are because of how they train and but largely how and what they eat. If we didn't know that much about nutrition we wouldn't have many world class athletes. As the saying goes, you can't outrun a bad diet and that's true.
If you could afford a sports dietitian, I guarantee they'll know what you should be eating in combination with exercise to be healthy.
A big problem with the Nutrition industry is that its easy to make big positive leaps in what you eat, without it being a bowl of kale and beetroot. The challenge is people's ability to be able to plan and cook properly between their busy lives where nutritionally simple foods are more readily available. Additionally, in today's world of many of us sitting in offices all day, you cannot live a healthy life purely based on what you eat, you need to move your body and exercise as well.
>There is much more that we know than just "Vegetables are good" and we know why they're good. Nutrient dense, packed with fiber to slow digestion, includes necessarily vitamins and minerals to not only absorb the nutrients of your food but to also provide you with the micronutrients you need.
A lot to unpack here. Did deeper, do we really need those micronutrients which make "Vegetables are good". To me, to the extent I dug up, the answer is no.
Micronutrients as vitamins and minerals from fruits and veg? Yes absolutely, they’re essential.
The difference here is that we don’t need a lot of them, not like macronutrients so the majority of us are likely getting our vitamin and mineral intake okay. However deficiencies in certain vitamins can cause problems down the line, it just depends on how deficient you are. Some people also struggle to absorb particular vitamins and minerals and they only realise through symptoms which you might not expect to be because of a deficiency.
The reason vegetables are so good is because they’re usually dense in these nutrients and due to the fibre they possess complement the other foods you eat in terms of nutrient absorption and digestion.
No all good I do appreciate the questioning. Makes us think.
Without going back to my textbooks a good example is iron deficiency, if you are Iron deficient your body cannot effectively transport oxygen in the blood. As it is part of hemoglobin which carries oxygen around the body. Without it you will develop Anemia. Women experience Iron deficiency symptoms much more than men due to menstruation.
Furthermore, Calcium which is essential for bone health, its absorption is aided by iron as well.
Vitamin D, a common deficiency in people that work night shift jobs or underground in the mining industry. Usually need to take supplements.
I do wish I could link some studies to further illustrate "the why" but I don't have enough time. But overall, we don't need much of these at all and we certainly don't NEED to hit our recommended daily intake everyday. The tricky part is if you're quite deficient in one vitamin, it can impact your adsorption of other nutrients as well which can cause larger impacts.
One of the challenges with the food and nutrition industry is the marketing around "if you take vitamins and minerals they will change your life". For the majority of us they won't, but they might if you're deficient. They aren't something you can take that will make you wake up tomorrow magically a better and happier person. Which is how they're marketed, like all things sensationalised.
