In Defense of Common Sense

Post title inspired by one of the best food books I’ve ever read: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Highly recommend if you’re at all interested in food and nutrition.

This book also gave us his famous 8-word guide: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

It sounds so simple—and in many ways, it is. But simplicity often gets buried under the noise of today’s nutrition headlines.

The Clickbait Problem

Here’s a sample of the stories I scrolled past recently:

• “One KFC item dietitian wouldn’t touch” — Umm, any of them?

• “New study: fasting at this hour beats calorie cutting” — So, skipping food for one specific hour will save us all? Really?

• “Is oatmeal good for you?” — Come on.

• “Why eating leftover pasta could reduce diabetes risk” — Honestly speechless.

• “What’s the best diet to lose weight?” — This one pops up every. single. week.

Nutrition reporting has become a swamp of oversimplified, sensationalized headlines. It’s not that research isn’t valuable—it’s that studies are often misrepresented for clicks. In 2015, one journalist even proved the point by planting a flawed “chocolate helps weight loss” study just to watch media outlets run with it (The Atlantic).

The Case for Common Sense

Here’s the truth: health and nutrition education for the average American is terrible. Kids get less than 8 hours of nutrition education per year in schools (CDC).

But even with that gap, a little common sense goes a long way.

Take the keto diet. Originally designed to treat epilepsy in children, it somehow became mainstream for weight loss. Does it really make sense to avoid fruit, beans, and whole grains while eating bacon at every meal? To pee on a stick every morning to measure ketones? Deep down, most of us know better. Variety is the spice of life—and your body needs it, too.

I get the temptation, though. I’ve tried almost every diet out there (except keto—I drew the line there). Like many, I wanted the silver bullet. The “thing” I was missing.

But it turns out, the real answer was just to eat real food.

What That Really Means

Not fasting at a magic hour. Not cabbage soup cleanses. Not protein bars disguised as dessert.

It means eating the foods that humans have thrived on for centuries:

• Fruits & vegetables

• Whole grains

• Legumes

• Nuts & seeds

• Meat, eggs, dairy, fish

Sure, you can refine over time—choosing regeneratively grown produce, pasture-raised eggs, or wild-caught fish—but the foundation is simple: eat real food.

If it sounds too good to be true (“ice cream diet,” anyone?), it probably is.

Final Thought

Ignore the noise in your feed, your neighbor’s crash-diet success story, or the latest “miracle” food. Instead, remember Michael Pollan’s timeless advice:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That’s the kind of common sense we can all live by.