Request For Comments: Nutritionism

Image by Peggy Greb - This image was released by the Agricultural Research Service, the research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, with the ID K11083-1.

Currently thinking about "Nutritionism". I know almost nothing about it, but yet, it doesn't sound right to me. Just think about how many times have you heard "eat this and you will be healthy", only to hear that same advice declared bullshit in the very next study?

It seems to me that Nutritionism as a science, if it indeed does belong into science has no solid foundations. Just think about it, when was the last time you heard for example that theory of gravity was debunked? Yet, I somehow have the impression this happens very often with Nutritionism.

Just look at the picture above. Wikipedia description reads:

Good sources of magnesium: bran muffins, pumpkin seeds, barley, buckwheat flour, low-fat vanilla yogurt, trail mix, halibut steaks, garbanzo beans, lima beans, soybeans, and spinach.

A reminder, "A NUTRIENT is either a chemical element or compound used in an organism's metabolism or physiology. A nutrient is essential to an organism if it cannot be produced by the organism and must be obtained from a food source."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritionism)

So, I would say, when Nutritionism finds that a certain nutrient is good for you, it seems to me most of the Nutritionists will hurry to recommend foods which contain this, possibly at the expense of other foods that also contain this nutrient, but that also contain other useful things. And here my friends is where I see the potential for Nutritionists to be on the payroll of huge corporations, usually recommending products that these corporations are producing.

So, this seems to me a very dubious practice to judge foods only based on this. Because, by definition, food must contain a lot of beneficial, nutritional substances. Also, as it's discussed in this New York Times article - Most "nutritional science" involves studying one nutrient at a time, which at least to me seems shaky at best.

Yes, science when proven wrong acknowledges that mistake and goes back to the drawing board, But it seems to me that the only stable thing Nutritionism has is "eat fruits and vegetables". And not even this seems very stable. Actually, if you look at Wikipedia, it seems that Nutritionism is nothing more than the idea that the nutritional value of a food is the sum of all its individual nutrients.

Here's another article from The Scientist magazine. In this article author argues that Nutrition research uses "pseudoscientific measures". Well worth of reading.

As I said before, I know nothing about this. My instincts may be completely wrong and I hope that they are, because I believe in science and I do believe that science has a lot to say on a variety of topics, so why should be food be excluded? But I also believe in critical thinking and I believe in deciding for yourself.

This is my first attempt at doing so with regards to this field. I encourage you to do the same. If you have an opinion or a good (preferably layman-friendly) resource you recommend to read, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks for visiting!