Eating Is Ambiguous, Naturally

If what we eat fuels us, becomes us, interacts with all our layers, and shapes what we become, then we have a host of implications to think about when choosing what to pass through our system.

Not many foods are absolutely good, nor many absolutely bad, and dose can turn something good into bad, even water. And, how our bodies respond to certain foods this week might be different to next week. Plus, each of us is as biologically unique on the inside as we are on the outside. And our unique needs change over time; at different life stages, after injury or illness, when our activities change, if we’re a woman cycling through the month.

Despite our analytical arguments over which specific diet is the best for all humans all the time, there is no constant anywhere in nature - days and nights, seasons, droughts, and migrations are a few things that prevent it. Even our different geographical histories mean that each of our ancestors had access to different foods. The only constant in nature is change, and surely that's what our DNA is most familiar with.

Looking at eating through these lenses makes it clear why we don't see much agreement in nutrition. And why with each decade of nutritional science, we backpedal on a few fundamental assertions. Or that despite whatever we have learnt, most people are still victim to their diets.

So what can we do about this? How on earth could we possibly know how to navigate our nutrition through all that uncertainty?

You can probably guess that it’s not by figuring out the one nutrient, supplement, hack or diet that your friends are raving about. And it's probably not in that book or TV show that's trending.

No.

Trying to generalise any diet is inherently disregarding our unique and dynamic needs.

What we need are principles and some solid self-awareness. We need to understand a few meta ideas, and we need to start paying attention to our personal experience. There is no black or white in real life, especially in nutrition.