You know kale is good for you, right? Of course you do — because it’s the “superfood” du jour that its fans will not shut up about. You also know that turmeric reduces inflammation and that inflammation is the grim reaper himself, right? And that beet root powder improves your circulation, and milk thistle will clean up your liver, and salmon has omega-3 fatty acids (but only if it’s wild caught) and without omega-3’s you’re as good as dead, and on and on…
Thanks to the internet and the media, we now know a lot more about diet and health than we ever did before. One day, you read an article about apple cider vinegar and decide it’s worth adding to your morning routine. Then you read about how creatine monohydrate can improve your muscle gains, and it’s cheap, so why not try it? Then one of those TV doctors tells you all about green coffee-bean extract and the wonders it may produce, and so on until one day your kitchen is overflowing with more exotic fruits and vegetables, pills, and powders than you can possibly make time to swallow, yet you’re panicking that you might be out of one of them.
Welcome to diet anxiety — a daily dread of not eating the exact right things, in the exact right amounts, at the exact right times. I know this anxiety exists because I’ve fallen victim to it myself. It’s easy to do. At any given time over the past few years, my kitchen may have contained some (or all) of the following: whey isolate, apple cider vinegar, beet root powder, creatine monohydrate, HMB, beta-alanine, milk thistle, turmeric, red yeast rice, CoQ10, vitamins B, C, and D3, MCT oil, L-Carnitine, magnesium, DHEA, collagen peptides, dessicated liver tablets, and last but not least, one giant CostCo-sized bag of fucking kale.
I feel you.
I have a few things to say about this, so it will be in a few installments. Next, I’ll talk about the role studies play in this (and why they’re mostly bullshit).
Until then,
Dan
