In an era obsessed with fad diets, juice cleanses, and miracle supplements, there is finally some good news in terms of effective regimens. Essentially, consuming natural, minimally-processed foods is the best thing you can do for your diet.
Doctor's Orders
Dr. David Katz is a practicing physician and researcher at Yale University's Prevention Research Center, and he has a few things to say about all of the modern diet crazes. Mainly, he disagrees with all of them and finds them to be untruthful and full of empty promises.
Katz and colleague Stephanie Meller recently published their findings in a scientific journal, Annual Reviews of Public Health. In the review, they compared the major popular diets today, including low carb, low fat, low glycemic, Mediterranean, mixed/balanced (DASH), paleo, vegan, and elements of other diets.
They concluded that no diet is the best, but there were several patterns that provided health benefits. The main theme of all the diets was eating minimally-processed, natural foods, predominately plants, for promoting health and disease prevention.
Findings
Katz and Meller found "no decisive evidence" that low-fat diets are better than diets high in healthful fats, like the Mediterranean diet. Essentially, after extensively comparing and analyzing all of the popular diets, Katz and Meller concluded that there was no clear-cut winner.
They keep it simple when it comes to nutrition. Katz and Meller agree that eating food directly from nature and cutting out processed foods is the most beneficial way of nourishing the body. Consuming a wide variety of unprocessed plant foods and a balanced intake of nutrients go hand-in-hand. For more information, check out our Health and Nutrition guide.
Sources
- Annual Review of Public Health, Can We Say What Diet Is Best for Health?, 2014
