Lagt ut av Now that I’ve gotten your attention with an overly bold title I will still be so bold as to introduce the draft of my very own dietary guidelines.
The American Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) has recently produced a draft for the new American dietary guidelines. The Norwegian government has been doing the same here at home. Both in the US as in Norway the guidelines are greatly criticized, most recently and publicly in this article by Hite and colleagues in the journal Nutrition.
I sent a mail with the article to the big chief working on the Norwegian guidelines. I got a «thank you», but I doubt it’ll make a big impact.
The draft for the new Norwegian guidelines is a 370 page document consisting of close to 140000 words. It’s a tome and although it is great fiction I doubt very many will have the stamina to read it in its entirety.
As I feel the new guidelines are not fit to wipe my ever whitening bottom, I decided to make my own guidelines.
They are, I claim, far more likely to reflect the truth and a far better choice if health is your concern. And best of all, my guidelines are only 360 words.
Nutritional guidelines should of course be temporary and modified in accordance with the development of scientifically produced knowledge. I would thus be grateful for any suggestions or additions that might contribute towards improving my guidelines.
It is of course of importance that the dietary guidelines are for the general public. Because of its audience the guidelines must be easily understandable and easy to follow in everyday life. No general guidelines like the official or those presented here should attempt to cover all aspects of health and all eventualities. We still need professionals to address individual health.
The guidelines
1. Relax
Don’t worry. Don’t worry about details, not even those pertaining to diet and lifestyle. If you focus too much on the details, your health will suffer and would indeed be better off with you not worrying about the details.
This is not strictly a dietary advice, but it’s too bloody important to leave out.
2. Eat like humans are built to eat
Science tells us that humans can thrive with good health on quite a lot of different diets, but the diets which accompany good health have a few but important things in common. Here are the main aspects of a healthy diet:
3. Some of us need a little extra
Dietary supplements can make things even better. Extra vitamin D and long chain omega 3 fatty acids may benefit many of us. If you are an athlete, under lot of stress or in any other way are subject to stress physical or mental, supplements are more important and should be addressed by someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Pål Jåbekk 
OK that's nice Pål, we are very much on the same line. Our dietary guidelines http://bit.ly/9OYe5F became a hit on the net. VBR Hans
LikerLiker
Ah! Good to see we're on the same wave length. Also much better than the official guidelines.
LikerLiker
I think you should add:
Skip a few meals a week. Once or twice a week skip breakfast and lunch or skip breakfast and eat a late lunch.
The benefits are:
Increases insulin and leptin sensitivity
Reduces the calories eaten that day
Increases cell health through autophagy
May kill stray cancer cells
LikerLiker
Thanks Jake. Comment duly noted. Are the effects described because of energy restriction/starvation in it self or because of reduction in specific dietary factors?
LikerLiker
The effects are due to starvation. During starvation the body goes into a repair mode.
LikerLiker
Pål
Good but I think you could have stopped at #2 and the rest would probably follow.
I've gotten involved with some diabetes people and they keep wanting to make recommendations on diet. I keep shaking my head and saying, «One size doesn't fit all.» The only recommendation I've got is to test and find if the results of what you're eating is what you want. My problem is that there isn't a whole lot of testing equipment on the market.
LikerLiker
I agree Michael. Should stop at #2. What sort of testing equipment are you talking about?
LikerLiker
I was thinking of glucometers and blood pressure cuffs. I would love to have a meter that measured liver functioning.
LikerLiker
Eat meat and animal products for food, eat vegetables as medicine.
In other words, if a vegetable has little or no medical value – if it contains lots of carbohydrates but no antioxidants (or probiotics, or minerals) you can't get somewhere else, for example – don't eat it.
That would be grains and sugar. And other root veges score better than potatoes.
LikerLiker
True hopeful geranium. I'm uncertain about what would be a good way to formulate an advise about vegetables. Your advise is good advise, but it would be too much to ask of people to know the nutritional value of all vegetables.
LikerLiker