The Five Keys to Navigating the Nutrition World

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 nutritional expertise. It seems that every Tom, Dick and Gary (Taubes) 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 expert starts 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.

1. They must be open-minded, intelligent, wise, and can 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.
2. They must have significant formal educationand training in fields related to the topics they are discussing. Their education must be at least remotely related to nutrition, biology, or general health.
3. They must be able to read and understand the scientific literature related to the fields they are promoting. They must think and breathe science. With the Internet, virtually all scientific information pertaining to nutrition and health is available to everyone 24/7. It would help if they had also published relevant articles in peer-reviewed journals.
4. 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 particular eating method, following them over time is essential to see how things work out. Teaching or coaching in nutrition or physical fitness would also quality. Professional clinicians treating patients would also have this type of exposure.
5. They need to have some skin in the game. In other words, if people take their advice and have 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 be very uncommon. Another example is getting fired from your teaching or coaching job in nutrition or physical fitness because of poor results.

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 you can.
• 4 for 5: They still likely have some pretty good information, and following their advice will undoubtedly benefit you with little risk of harm.
• 3 for 5: I would be 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: Ignore their advice.
• 0 for 5: Turn around and run away as fast as possible 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 reading their books, visiting their websites, reading their scientific papers, and talking to people who have 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,” “The Elusive Benefits of Undereating and Exercise,” and “Rethinking Diabetes”. 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 earned them based on his journalism skill! His ability to communicate complex issues to the public has been valuable, even though some of his information appears flawed or suspect.

Concerning his formal education, Taubes 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 journalism from Columbia University in 1981. Using traditional measures, Taubes almost seems overqualified to write general science-related books and articles, but nutritional science is another matter. Now let’s rank him using the Fabulous Five System:

1. 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 many complex issues to the masses. He clearly is an excellent journalist.
2. They must have significant formal educationand training in fields related to the topics they are discussing. Taubes doesn’t qualify for this critical parameter. Clearly, applied physics isn’t related to biology or nutrition.
3. They must be able to read and understand the scientific literature related to the fields they are promoting. Taubes once again comes up short on this test. He seems to have a good grasp of the relevant scientific research in physics, but this doesn’t extend to the field of nutrition.
4. 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. Taubes is not a clinician or practitioner who follows people over time, so he fails this parameter.
5. They need to have some skin in the game. If his nutritional advice was inferior or flawed, Taubes might eventually suffer adverse consequences. His books and articles would likely gradually fade from the scene at that point. Taubes is not a licensed professional, such as a physician, nurse practitioner, physician’s assistant, or dietician, so consequences for him would likely be minor.

Listen to the Real Experts
To sum up, Taubes scores 1-2 out of 5, which appears to be a low ranking for one of the best-known nutritional writers. I give him credit for overcoming these apparent shortcomings to rise to the level of a “respected expert” in nutrition, but it also means that you should be very cautious about following his nutritional advice. Your dog catcher’s nutritional advice might even be better! This is a list of some other nutritional writers and their approximate scores. These numbers are estimates, and some are based on inadequate information:

• Joseph Mercola: (3/5).
• 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: (5/5).
• Nina Teicholz: (3/5).
• Michael Pollan: (2/5).
• Zoe Harcombe: (4/5)
• David Perlmutter: (5/5).
• 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 you get the picture. You will receive solid and valuable nutritional advice if you mainly stick to the folks on this list who score at least 4/5 or above. Folks like Gary Taubes and Michael Pollan, some of the best-known writers on food and nutrition, come up short in the ranking system, so I would not recommend using them for any type of nutritional advice if you value your health and well-being.

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!!