There Is No Such Thing As the “best” Diet
US News has once again ranked all the diets and came up with a revolutionary result: … they are all different ways of eating food. Their website does provide a good comparison of the pros and cons of different diets, but the whole concept of declaring one diet to be better than another is broken in the first place.
The very idea of something being “better” suggests that every thing competes with others and that those at the top of the list are better than those at the bottom. (US News reports that they rate diets and no longer rank them, but, sorry, when you make a list with the “best” foods at the top, that’s the ranking. And this feeds the misconception that you just need to find the right diet , the “best” diet to solve what you perceive to be your weight loss or health problems.
Why “best diet” lists are nonsense
Before you start ranking (sorry, ranking ) the “best,” there’s the question of what a “diet” actually is. Diets on US news lists are a bizarre mix. Some are vague approaches to eating, such as the “flexitarian diet,” which simply refers to the concept of eating meat infrequently. Some are commercial products designed to help people lose weight, such as the subscription app Noom or the multi-level marketing product Optavia. Some are diets designed to treat medical conditions, such as the low FODMAP diet. Combining these disparate items into one line doesn’t really help anyone.
And while I do appreciate that US News has stopped including extreme diets like the Master Cleanse, this year’s list includes the “BRAT Diet,” which is not a competitor to any of the above (nor is it a marketing vehicle for Charli XCX). This is a mnemonic for four foods—bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast—that are considered bland enough not to cause nausea in patients suffering from gastrointestinal diseases. Limiting patients to these four foods is no longer even recommended by medical professionals , so it’s wild that US News decided to feature it this year as a “new” diet on its list.
How to Actually Choose the Right Diet
First, if you want to lose weight , know that all weight loss diets work the same way: they give you the opportunity to consume fewer calories than you burn . The “best” diet for this is the one that is easiest for you to stick to, as long as it still provides you with a reasonable amount of protein, vegetables, fats and micronutrients such as vitamins.
Some people feel great on the keto diet; some find intermittent fasting convenient; some prefer to eat low-fat and vegan foods. It doesn’t really matter as long as your calorie deficit isn’t too big and you’re not depriving yourself of important nutrients like fiber, vitamins, or protein.
Whether you’re trying to change your weight or not, the basics of a healthy diet are pretty simple: lots of fruits and vegetables, enough protein, not too much sugar. If you have specific health concerns that you have discussed with your doctor, be sure to consider them. (For example, the DASH “diet” is a list of recommendations you can follow if you need to lower your blood pressure. It suggests, among other things, eating less sodium and more potassium.) If you’re willing to pay for help, you might want to seek advice with a nutritionist than buying the latest expensive weight loss product.
So, do you want to eat healthier, lose weight, or improve your health? Find an approach to eating that fits your goals and that you can stick to. If you need some structure, you can buy a book that has recipes and a fancy name for the diet. The most popular diet, the Mediterranean diet , is quite suitable. But the paleo diet, ranked 23rd (sorry, in the rankings), despite its silly premise—that cavemen made a lot of fake pizzas out of almond flour and coconut oil, if I remember correctly—can do just as good a job.