Because of my long-standing interest in nutrition, especially the connection between diet and brain function, I am constantly amazed at the number and variety of folks who claim to have some degree of nutritional expertise. It seems that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to tell us how and what to eat. Of course, I have my own opinions on these topics and I don’t claim to have all the answers. What should you do when your neighbor, postman, garbageman, or so-called national nutritional experts start to lecture you about this or that diet? Over the years I have developed a list of criteria to evaluate anyone who claims to have nutritional expertise. I call them The Nutritional World’s Fabulous Five. Now let’s get down to the details.
- They must be open minded, intelligent and wise and also have the ability to communicate their views to others. They can look at the world around them and make some sense of it in ways that many of us haven’t appreciated.
- They must have significant formal education and training in fields related to the topics they are discussing. Their education must be at least remotely related to nutrition, biology or general health.
- They must be able to read and understand the scientific literature related to the fields they are promoting. They must think and breath science. With the Internet, virtually all scientific information relating to nutrition and health is available to everyone 24/7. It really helps if they have also published relevant articles in peer reviewed journals.
- They must have some clinical exposure where they can observe people over time who have taken their advice, hopefully looking for evidence of improved health. If somebody adopts a certain way of eating, it’s important to follow them over time to see how things work out. Teaching or coaching in the areas of nutrition or physical fitness would also quality. Professional clinicians would also have this type of exposure.
- They need to have some skin in the game. In other words, if people take their advice and there are significant adverse outcomes, they will be exposed to appropriate consequences. This is much easier to accomplish for professionally licensed individuals, but being exposed to potential lawsuits would also qualify. Being sued would likely very uncommon. Getting fired from your teaching or coaching job in the areas of nutrition or physical fitness because of poor results would be another example.
This is how to use this scoring system. Regardless of their score I advise you to move cautiously and to pay close attention to outcomes because no scoring system is perfect:
- 5 for 5: Their advice is golden, so take it all in and adapt it to your life any way that you can.
- 4 for 5: They still likely have some pretty good information and following their advice will certainly benefit you with little risk of harm.
- 3 for 5: I would be fairly cautious with their advice and pay close attention to outcomes when you follow it.
- 2 for 5: Most of their information is likely flawed, so I would ignore it because any good information they have is like finding a needle in a haystack.
- 1 for 5: Simply ignore their advice.
- 0 for 5: Turn around and run away as fast as you can because this dude is potentially toxic and dangerous!
Diets, Diets Everywhere—Is it Time to Despair?
Why do we need this type of complex scoring system? It’s because over the past few decades a plethora of new diets have been introduced to the public, creating a confusing mess when you try to figure out what to eat. These diets include:
- Mediterranean Diet.
- Atkin’s Diet.
- South Beach Diet.
- The Serotonin Power Diet.
- Eat for Your Blood Type Diet.
- Ketogenic Diet.
- Paleo Diet.
- Dash Diet.
- MIND Diet.
- Ornish Diet.
- Wheat Belly Diet.
- Zone Diet.
- Jenny Craig Diet.
- Weight Watchers Diet.
- Body Reset Diet.
- Engine 2 Diet.
- Vegan Diet.
- Slim Fast Diet.
- Mayo Clinic Diet.
- Nutrisystem Diet.
- Flexitarian Diet
Are you getting dizzy yet? I haven’t ranked all these diets and I will leave it up to you to do so if you are interested in trying any particular diet. It sometimes takes a little effort to gather all the information you will need to rate a diet, but trust me—it will pay off in the long run if you do so. I recommend that you read their books, visit their websites, read their scientific papers and talk to people who have actually followed their diet plan.
How to Use the Ranking System
Let me use an example to show you how this rating system works in the real world. I have chosen to evaluate Gary Taubes, one of the best-known writers of diet related books including the classic “Good Calories, Bad Calories”, “Why We Get Fat”, “The Case Against Sugar” and “The Elusive Benefits of Undereating and Exercise”. He also frequently writes nutrition related articles for the New York Times. Taubes has won numerous awards including the International Health Reporting Award from the Pan American Health Organization and the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Journalism Award, which he won in 1996, 1999 and 2001. Taubes appears to have more medals than an army general and he clearly earned them! Let me state that despite any flaws that he might have, he has been a true pioneer in the field of nutrition. His ability to communicate complex issues to the general public has been invaluable.
Concerning his formal education, he graduated from Harvard College in 1977 with a B.S. degree in applied physics and he received an M.S. degree in engineering from Stanford University in 1978 and in journalism from Columbia University in 1981. Using traditional measures, is some ways Taubes almost seems over qualified to write science related books and articles. Now let’s rank him using the Fabulous Five System:
- They must be open minded, intelligent and wise and have the ability to communicate their views to others. There is no question that Taubes passes this parameter. I have read most of his books and he is an excellent writer who knows how to communicate complex issues to the masses.
- They must have significant formal education and training in fields related to the topics they are discussing. Taubes doesn’t fully quality for this important parameter. Although applied physics isn’t directly related to biology or nutrition, intense study in the field of physics have often given us insights into fields far removed from physics. Think Stephen Hawking.
- They must be able to read and understand the scientific literature related to the fields they are promoting. It is fairly clear that Taubes passes on this test. He seems to have a good grasp of the relevant scientific research and his science background is likely helpful in this regard.
- They must have some clinical exposure where they can observe people over time who have taken their advice, hopefully looking for evidence of improved health. It is challenging to rank Taubes on this parameter because most of his information is general and he doesn’t promote any specific and well-defined diet. Because many of these individuals don’t monitor people over time, they cannot give us meaningful feedback. Another option is to carefully monitor your own progress when following someone’s specific nutritional advice.
- They need to have some skin in the game. Taubes might eventually suffer adverse consequences if his nutritional advice was obviously inferior or flawed. At that point, his books and articles would likely gradually fade from the scene. Of course, he is not as exposed as a licensed professional like a Physician, Nurse Practitioner, Physician’s assistant or Dietician.
Listen to the Real Experts
To sum things up, Taubes scores at least 3 out of 5 which appears to be a somewhat low ranking for one of the best known nutritional writers. I do give him credit for overcoming these apparent shortcomings to rise to the level of a “respected expert” in the field of nutrition. That’s why these five criteria should only be used as guidelines. This is a list some other nutritional writers and their approximate scores. These numbers are estimates and some are based on inadequate information:
- Joseph Mercola: (5/5).
- David Katz: clearly: (5/5).
- Richard Johnson (fructose researcher): (5/5).
- Robert Lustig: (5/5).
- Tim Noakes: (4.5/5) or perhaps even 5/5).
- David Ludwig: (5/5).
- Jason Fung: (5/5).
- Barry Sears: (4/5).
- Nina Teicholz: (3/5).
- Michael Pollan: (2/5).
- Zoe Harcombe: (5/5)
- David Perlmutter: (4/5).
- William Davis: (4/5).
- Aaron Blaisdell: (4/5).
- Robb Wolf: (5/5).
- Loren Cordain: (5/5).
- Julia Ross: (5/5)
- William Wilson:. (?/?).
I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. If you mainly stick to the folks on this list who score at least 4/5 or above, you will be receiving solid and useful nutritional advice. Even though Nina Teicholz only scores 3/5, she is so strong in those areas I consider her to be in the top group. Folks like Gary Taubes and Michael Pollan, who are some of the best-known writers when it comes to food and nutrition, come up a bit short of the ranking system, but they seem to compensate very fairly well with their intelligence, writing abilities and empirical skills.
This scoring system isn’t appropriate for people like Jimmy Moore. He is very unique in that he serves as a bridge between some of the top experts in nutrition and the general public. He has written several groundbreaking books where all the information comes from experts that he has interviewed. If you have the chance, I would recommend reading his books or listening to his many excellent Pod Casts.
And please feel free to rank me based on these criteria. As they say, he who makes up the rules must also live by the rules!!