Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of Us

Summary

From the national bestselling author of Racing Weight, Matt Fitzgerald exposes the irrationality, half-truths, and downright impossibility of a "single right way" to eat and reveals how to develop rational, healthy eating habits.

From "the Four-Hour Body" to "Atkins," there are diet cults to match seemingly any mood and personality type. Everywhere we turn, someone is preaching the "one true way" to eat for maximum health. Paleo Diet advocates tell us that all foods less than twelve thousand years old are the enemy. Low-carb gurus demonize carbs, and then there are the low-fat prophets. But they agree on one thing: there is only one true way to eat for maximum health. The first clue that this is a fallacy is the sheer variety of diets advocated. Indeed, while all of these competing views claim to be backed by science, a good look at actual nutritional science suggests it is impossible to identify a single best way to eat. Fitzgerald advocates an agnostic, rational approach to eating habits based on one's own habits, lifestyle, and genetics and body type. Many professional athletes already practice this "Good Enough" diet, and now we can too—and ditch the brainwashing of these diet cults for good.