Niki Bezzant: One diet does not rule them all

A diet made up mostly of minimally processed, plant-based foods in balanced combinations is what we should be eating. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

"This diet study upends everything we thought we knew about 'healthy' food", said the Washington Post headline, demonstrating that even that august journal has succumbed to clickbait-style headlines guaranteed to invoke the stab of a finger on the screen. This one is a favourite angle of editors.

It rarely proves accurate.

That's because science doesn't work that way. It simply doesn't happen that one piece of research comes along and negates everything that has come before.

In reality, each new piece of research adds to the body of evidence, the accumulation of what we know about a topic.

If new research conflicts with some of the previous evidence, it warrants further study. And thus we have gradual shifts in knowledge. It's an evolution, not a revolution.

In this case the study - showing that individuals react differently to the same foods, suggesting "one size fits all" dietary recommendations are not effective - was certainly interesting.

Does it mean everything we know about healthy eating is wrong? No. Does it mean we should throw out everything we know and start again? Of course not. And the scientists who did this research would agree.

It's easy to form the impression that even the experts can't agree about what is healthy, that they keep "changing their minds". Certainly this is what purveyors of restrictive diets dressed up as "lifestyles" tell us.

How often do you hear that what "they" have told you about healthy eating is causing our health woes and that in fact THIS diet is the answer (and please click here to sign up/buy the book)? It's worth being very, very sceptical of these kinds of claims. One diet does not rule them all.

However, some consistent themes run through what science knows about being healthy. And on these themes there is wide consensus, despite what we may think.

I am part of a new initiative dedicated to spreading these ideas. The True Health Initiative is a global group of experts and organisations in health, nutrition, fitness and medicine from diverse disciplines who have come together to rally around the core truths about disease prevention, health promotion and lifestyle as medicine.

The initiative's founder, Professor David Katz, says: "We have known the fundamentals necessary to prevent 80 per cent of all chronic disease and related premature death for 22 years (at least). Really."

He says it is time for the experts to speak with one voice and spread that knowledge, above the din of the my-diet-is-better-than-your-diet claims. Because really, even a vegan and a paleo agree about healthy eating more than they disagree.

So what does that mean, practically, about how we should eat? It's simple. A diet made up mostly of minimally processed, plant-based foods in balanced combinations.

It's vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. You might add some fish, dairy, meat, eggs and chicken, if you like. It's not revolutionary, even if it sometimes feels like it.

Niki Bezzant is editor-in-chief of Healthy Food Guide