I've seen calorie restriction articles posted a few times on here. Why the fascination? It's a rather challenging approach to longevity, and for most people there are easier ways to improve long term health. Specifically:

Avoid all foods with hydrogenated oils (promotes heart disease.)

Avoid homogenized milk (promotes blood vessel plaque, heart disease.)

Eliminate excess sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Substitute with agave nectar which is just as yummy and very low glycemic. (promotes diabetes and creates inconsistent blood glucose levels which promote obesity.)

Avoid refined carbohydrates, substituting whole grains, vegetables, sweet potatoes, nuts, legumes, berries, greens, etc. Substitute wheat for quinoa and teff. Substitute white rice for brown rice. (Refined carbs deplete B vitamins and promote glucose instability.)

Avoid all meat packed with sodium nitrate (promotes colon cancer). Look for "uncured" meats.

Avoid artificial sugars, flavors, colors. (Nearly all of them have unfortunate side effects.)

Try to get 90% of your protein from plant sources. (excess animal protein is associated with disease)

Go outside! (Sunshine promotes vitamin D which is critical for immune function, and vitamin D strongly prevents cancer.) While you're there, exercise! :)

Read: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Cancer-Gate by Dr. Samuel Epstein

Given that nutrition is a very complex science and heavily dependent on the state of your digestive system and particular combinations of foods, I don't think there's any one-stop solution for all your nutritional needs. The #1 source of advice should be to listen to your body following a meal. If you feel worse, for any reason - tired, unfocused, unwell - then something about that food probably hurt you.

That said, some arguments are definitely stronger and better researched than others, so it's worth seeking them out.

One good read I discovered by accident is Jonny Bowden's "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth." It contains a lot of surprisingly positive stances on foods with poor public image.

Rather than the big picture of long term health effects, my first impression on the brain regeneration issue. You suggest diet changes that could certainly help you live longer, but do they help the brain specifically to stay healthy?

The other point of interest (to me) is that maybe buddhist monks and indian ascetics do have something else going for them.

Your question seems to suppose the idea that the health of the brain is independent and unrelated to the of the overall health of the rest of the organism. This has historically been a common belief in western medicine but evidence to the contrary is now abundant.

Studies I have read suggest the adult brain is able to generate new cells in the presence of these conditions: being required to learn something new and challenging, physical exercise, and adequate nutrition.

Some of the food ingredients most mentioned in health literature supporting brain health and development are omega oils, especially DHA/EPA.

I don't mind a little sun, but there are less carcinogenic ways of getting Vitamin D.

As for the whole list, it's just a list of plausible theories to me; unfortunately, it would take quite a bit of tedious research to approach figuring out what's quackery. Could you recommend some high quality research (or surveys of it) for any/all of the above?

Yeah, there's a lot of disinformation about health running around. I've been researching nutrition informally for about 10 years. The only really useful pattern is that most of the disinformation is profitable to someone. It's frustrating how much that disinformation prevents people I know and care about from making even basic improvements to their diet.

As for sun and cancer, sunlight is actually more helpful than harmful, and policy recommendations suggestion avoiding the sun are causing problems. http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/03/23/8666.aspx You can get Vitamin D from supplements though.

For the rest of the things on the list, The China Study is where I suggest starting if your just getting into health and nutrition, and prepare to be blown away.

I don't think anything I mentioned is particularly disputed or hard to confirm with some Googling. There's opposition though. The dairy industry certainly won't tell you that homogenizing milk puts plaque in your blood vessels, for example. The meat industry doesn't want you to know about sodium nitrate, etc.

My argument is just that, for most people, there's something basic they're already doing routinely to sabotage their health, so trying calorie restriction without fixing those first is bad optimization.

Thanks for the replies, both of you.

My organic milk (I only buy it because I prefer the taste) is more homo. than cheap milk. I wonder if it's therefore worse in any meaningful way.

Organic avoids the heavy hormones and antibiotics from regular milk. You can definitely get non-homogenized organic milk though. You just have to shake it before drinking. Avoid Horizon brands (see the Organic Consumers Association reports on them for details.) HTH.

I'm impressed with http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ as a starting point. The typical post does a critical review of some papers in some area of diet/health. (Here's one touching on the topic you mention, Vitamin D and sunlight: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/01/vitamin-d-and-... )

>But again, additional research suggests that not all exercise is equal. Interestingly, some researchers found that exercise considered drudgery was not beneficial in neuronal regeneration, but physical activity that was engaged in purely for fun, even if equal time was spent and equal calories were burned, resulted in neuronal regeneration.

D'oh.

D'oh or not, many people consider exercise a chore and treat it like one. Might be a good idea to variate a bit.