We Know More About Food Than Ever Before, So why are we eating as if we know less?

David L. Katz in Medium:

Every wild species on the planet knows to eat the diet to which it is adapted. Carnivores know to eat meat; herbivores know to eat leaves and grass; koalas know to eat eucalyptus, and giant pandas know to eat bamboo. We, too, are animals; we too, once knew what to eat based on that same blend of cultural experience and instinct. Science should only have served to enhance our native understanding. Instead, we have so abused the applications of science to nutrition that while pandas keep eating bamboo, humans are being bamboozled.

Nutrition scientists compete to be noticed, and some surrender to the dangerous temptations of notoriety. This results in questions that play to pop culture interests rather than scientific merit, such as “Which is better: low fat or low carb?” The question is destitute of meaning: High-fat foods range from peanuts to pepperoni; high carb foods range from lentils to lollipops.

The transgressions of nutrition scientists — some intentional, many not — are then compounded by an unholy host of others.

More here.