While the Institute of Medicine stated that ”it is uncertain how much these omega-3s contribute to improving health” (and they might do the opposite if you get them from mercury-contaminated fish), a Harvard study declared that simply by eating a couple of servings of fish each week (or by downing enough fish oil), you could cut your risk of dying from a heart attack by more than a third - a stunningly hopeful piece of news. Just last fall two prestigious studies on omega-3 fats published at the same time presented us with strikingly different conclusions. The year before we learned that dietary fiber might not, as we had been confidently told, help prevent colon cancer. Last winter came the news that a low-fat diet, long believed to protect against breast cancer, may do no such thing - this from the monumental, federally financed Women’s Health Initiative, which has also found no link between a low-fat diet and rates of coronary disease. Sooner or later, everything solid you thought you knew about the links between diet and health gets blown away in the gust of the latest study. Before long, a dense cloud bank of confusion moves in. But that’s how it goes as soon as you try to get to the bottom of the whole vexing question of food and health. Things are suddenly sounding a little more complicated, aren’t they? Sorry. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat ”food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products.
Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. The New York Times Magazine, January 28, 2007
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