Given than nobody can seem to agree on what a ‘healthy diet’ looks like, what do you do? And why do you choose that diet?
Healthy to me is lots of salads with different greens and vegetables, small amounts of fish or chicken, and fresh green tea.
People do agree.
Almost everyone who studies this stuff professional agrees that the following are bad, and should be limited:
- High sugar, low fiber foods: soft drinks, candy, donuts, cake, ice cream, most other classic desserts.
- Oily/fatty processed foods: chips, certain crackers, shelf stable baked goods like cookies, donuts, wrapped cakes, really greasy pizza.
- Trans fats
- Alcohol
Almost everyone agrees that the following are good, and should be maximized:
- Leafy vegetables
- Colorful vegetables
- Beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, other cooked legumes/pulses
- Fermented/pickled vegetables, especially through lactic acid fermentation
It’s not universal, but it’s a pretty broad consensus that the Mediterranean diet is good for you, which includes a lot of:
- Fish, especially fatty fish low on the food chain, like sardines and anchovies
- Other seafood, especially those low on the food chain
- Whole fruit
- Nuts
- Extra virgin olive oil in reasonable quantities
It’s also not universal, but the broad consensus is that the following are bad for you when eaten in excess:
- Cured meats like sausage/ham
- Fried foods
- Red meat
- Low fiber white starches (white bread, white pasta, white rice)
For me personally, I eat a lot. I want to eat a lot. I could win amateur eating contests in my youth, and even today, left to my own devices, I have no trouble eating 2000 calories in a single meal, 5000 calories in a single day. So I need to manage my hunger, and I’ve found that for me, fiber and protein promote satiety, so I eat a lot of legumes: beans, lentils, green beans, peas, peanuts. These are basically my staple food, and I drink a lot of water, and eat a lot of watery foods (fruit, soup, etc.).
I mostly avoid processed sugar (no sugary drinks or candy or desserts). I leave fried foods, which I love, for special occasions. I have seriously reduced my consumption of red meat, almost to zero, mainly out of social responsibility, but also with an eye towards health.
I avoid bringing unhealthy foods into my house. It’s a lot easier to avoid eating them when I would have to go out of my way to order it.
I’m also working out all the time. Not just to buy me a calorie budget for eating, but also because knowing I need to go to the gym later helps control my portions and choices earlier in the day. Nothing worse than trying to squat 330+ lbs (150+ kg) with a huge portion of greasy fried chicken sitting in your stomach.
Nobody can agree on quantity/quality etc. though
The slight disagreements on some of the edges doesn’t change the strong consensus on the core parts.
The existence of a debate as to whether Kobe Bryant was better than Michael Jordan doesn’t mean that people have no idea who is or isn’t a good basketball player. No matter how you slice it, there are going to be people clearly on one end of the spectrum, people clearly on the other, and all sorts of people in between, where the precise rankings might differ from expert to expert, but where nobody is suddenly saying that Michael Jordan was worse than some random middle aged guy who can’t dribble or shoot.
You may find someone disagree as to whether whole wheat bread is worse for you than a grilled steak. You’ll never find a meaningful debate about whether a donut is healthier than an apple.
The existence of a debate as to whether Kobe Bryant was better than Michael Jordan doesn’t mean that people have no idea who is or isn’t a good basketball player
Isn’t that a matter of opinion though? I mean I’m not disagreeing with your point at large about the consensus on diet, but diet isn’t a matter of opinion like wether a sport player is better than another.
Just do the basics right. Make healthy choices easier and unhealthy choices harder.
Drink enough water, skip sodas. Eat more green produce, fibre and protein. Buy spices and cook simple dishes that don’t require much time.
I like Ethan Chlebowski for food tips.
Im way to lazy to eat healthy. I at most try to choose healthy options when I can. pretty much looking for more fiber and protein and less sugar and fat. also healthier fats which is basically unsaturated. then also more vitamins the better.
also healthier fats which is basically unsaturated
But not trans-fats.
can unsaturated be trans? I always see the three groups listed seperately. trans, saturated, unsaturated. I think like poly unsaturated is the bigger deal to but I can’t remember well enough to keep that straight.
soup
You eat food and then you notice how you feel afterwards, that’s the only way. People are very, very different genetically, and while studies show you the average, people can be very unique in what food their bodies does well at digesting.
You eat something and you feel heavy, sluggish, tired afterwards? You either ate too much, or something not good for you, or both.
You eat something and you feel like you didn’t really get any nutrition from it and you can just keep eating and you still won’t get satisfied? You’re probably eating junk not because your body wants it, but because you’re trying to avoid some emotions, and so on.
Awareness is king, as always, you cannot adhere to a fixed system as a living organism; you must actually use your senses in each moment.
I don’t. But when I do, lots of water, a mutivitamin, and one meal per day. I try to follow the Whole30 portioning rules, as well. Palm-sized protein, a fat source, and the rest of the plate is veggies.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
nobody can seem to agree on what a ‘healthy diet’
You’re wrong but it’s OK. Eat vegetables. " Things that are green " if it helps you. Not too much meat, not too much bread and pasta. That’s it, it’s easy. 2 or 3 times a day, not more. Stop eating sugar.
Not too much sugar. Bread and pasta are fine as long as they’re not just cake disguised as bread (looking at you, America).
Everything in moderation
The average person wants to be eating around 2,000-2,500 calories in a day unless you’re trying to put weight on or cut weight
Carbs shouldn’t make up more than about 50-60% of that
If you’re eating half a loaf of bread a day, you’re gonna have a bad time even if it’s good quality bread
Even without sugar, bread and pasta are usually from white flour, that is quite processed and should not be eaten too often. You can replace by rice and other cereals or whole grain, they are all better options
Not just green, eat the whole rainbow of vegetables! Different colors are frequently associated with different nutrients so a mix is good.
do remember proteins, it’s not just a fad
0.8 g / body kg / day
It is a little bit of a fad because you’re probably getting enough protein. People should be treating fiber the way protein is treated. 90% of western diets do not have enough fiber.
idk when i started going vegan i didn’t know how much you need so i had the daily amount maybe in a week, i just want people to avoid that
The real reason people complain about stomach issues after taco bell. So much fiber that most people aren’t used to.
The science is actually clear: Mediterranean diet extends life. Mediterranean diet + wine extends it even more.
This means:
- avoid red meat
- eat a lot of legumes (yes, beans!). stews prepared on the base of tomato are really good for you*
- eat vegetables
- eat fish
- add some nuts and fruit
- some white meat is ok
- glass of wine a day
It’s scientifically proven that this is good for you.
*look for traditional Spanish recipes for fabada, lentejas, garbanzos etc.
It’s also scientifically proven that any amount of alcohol is harmful, it might have some slight benefits but it’s such in small quantity that it’s practically non existing.
I’m not sure if the Mediterranean diet is actually proven or just a consequence of the economy boom that happened when most old persons were young, so they had the money for good healthcare and food was grown in more natural ways.
It is proven: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.313348
The available evidence is large, strong, and consistent. Better conformity with the traditional MedDiet is associated with better cardiovascular health outcomes, including clinically meaningful reductions in rates of coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, and total cardiovascular disease.
For the last couple of decades many trials were done with thousands of participants and the results are strong and consistent.
As for wine, results of Predimed study (17k participants) showed that Mediterranean diet reduced mortality by 23%. Mediterranean diet with wine reduced mortality by 33%.
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/eurheartj/ehag696/8786407
updated and longer GBD analyses published four years later concluded that, among adults older than 40 years, low-to-moderate alcohol consumption was associated with lower all-cause mortality than abstention.3 Likewise, the 2025 report by the U.S. Academies concluded that moderate drinking, up to two drinks per day in men or one in women, was “associated with lower all-cause mortality” with moderate certainty.
These two people
and
They both have degrees in this stuff. They focus on easy realistic healthy eating. You don’t have to give up pizza, just eat a little less and add a salad. You don’t have to give up brownies, just add beans for more fiber (trust the process, seriously). You don’t have to give up instant ramen, just add some veggies. It’s really not as hard as it’s made out to be and they both do a very good job showing that.
Given than nobody can seem to agree on what a ‘healthy diet’ looks like
as a side quest I recommend working on how to distinguish credible sources of information from not
Right?
The information is out there if you know how to sift through the nonsense.
Though trying to do this with nutrition really is hard mode. I don’t know of another topic that’s quite as flooded with nonsense.
Try to get 30 grams of fiber a day. Limit processed foods. Limit saturated fats.
I eat a lot of salads with avocado. Oatmeal with dried fruit. Beans and rice.
I had high cholesterol and was overweight. Changing my diet fixed these issues and made me feel better.
You don’t have to have a perfect diet (trying too hard to get one ends up being bad for you), you just have to do enough of the things mentioned here.
trying too hard to get one ends up being bad for you
That’s true. You know, sometimes I think that’s how we end up with all them crappy fad diet things
A very simple, though hardly practical rule to follow perfectly is: “Avoid things with ingredient lists.”
Michael Pollan as mentioned elsewhere “eat food, mostly plants, not too much.”
“Avoid the centre of the grocery store” assuming a North American layout (which has regional variations) - the point being that the prepared foods are in the middle, the outside edges are butcher, dairy, and produce.
Some asshole once said, “Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.” This is also good advice, despite the source.
Some asshole once said, “Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.” This is also good advice, despite the source.
Pretty sure he’s somewhere in this comments section (someone else offered almost exactly that same advice lol)
