Diets & Food Debates
Fasting, ultra-processed food, and the myths that outlive every study.
The nutrition section of this site handles targets and food reference. This one handles the arguments — the questions people actually search, where the answer is usually less dramatic than either side claims.
Two principles run through it. Trials beat mechanisms: a plausible story about insulin or inflammation counts for less than a randomised trial measuring what happened. And adherence beats optimisation: the diet you can keep tends to beat the diet that scored better in a 12-week study.
Guides
- Intermittent Fasting: What the Trials Found
When fasting is compared fairly against matched calorie intake, the special effect largely disappears — and it still works for some people.
- Ultra-Processed Food: The One Controlled Trial
Matched for calories, sugar, fat, sodium and fibre, people still ate about 500 kcal a day more on the ultra-processed diet.
- Food Myths, Rated
Seed oils, sweeteners, detoxes, alkaline diets and the rest — each rated against the evidence, with the honest alternative.