what are the top nutrition facts you wish somebody had told you about long
ago I asked this question on social media and there were so many amazing
answers from you guys so let's look at my top seven start the countdown. top
nutrition facts number seven: Vincent wrote: being willing to make
mistakes trying new things in the kitchen so true some of my favorite
meals came from trying out crazy new stuff it helped that I had zero cooking
skills so I also had no ego attached to it so I was always very open to making
mistakes in the kitchen. some people even say that's all I do in there! top
nutrition facts number six Hugo wrote it's a marathon not a sprint
no fat diets just learning to build one's health. this is so money. done is better
than perfect. so many times we want to be perfect so we don't even get started or
we give up way too early the key is gradually building up to a
healthy dietary pattern without falling for the temptation of the hack or the
shortcut it's a great life fact and it's a great nutrition fact as well. I get it,
we all want overnight results and gradual improvement sounds super boring
but consider this: if you just improve 1% today, just 1%, in about 3 months you'll
be a hundred percent better, that's how quickly small steps add up. top nutrition
facts number five: okay not sure who that is but great last name. that's actually
my sister, we didn't coordinate this or anything
she wrote eating healthy is not the same as eating less calories. so true. in our
society we're obsessed with weight loss and being lean which is okay but it's
not everything. of course we can be lean and unhealthy. the real aha moment for me
came when I started focusing on health promoting foods and the calorie problem
just solved itself. I never think about calories I eat for overall health and
I'm leaner than I've ever been top Nutrition Facts number four: Remco
says I wish I knew protein is not only in
"protein foods". yeah this is a broader issue that we've been literally fed all
these myths growing up: protein equals meat, calcium equals milk, Iron equals
meat again. these are so pervasive I had already graduated medical school and I
still didn't understand this well. of course we can get protein from animals
or plants and the same for calcium and the same
for iron and I've made videos specifically about those before but to me calcium is
the most egregious example even more than protein because the number one
source for calcium are low oxalate greens like kale and collards. of course
we can get plenty of calcium from dairy and everybody told us that from an early
age but no one told us about the number one source and that's kind of shocking
we really need to be teaching children the basics of nutrition as a society but
we're not even teaching doctors about it! it's unreal. top Nutrition Facts number
3: Frank says there is no one magic diet. so true. every diet guru and popular
book is based on this idea: "mine is the one true diet and everybody else is just
lying to you!" usually based on demonizing a single nutrient or a single food. and
this is a very appealing idea to a lot of people because here's a shiny new
diet you've never tried and it delivers... usually weight loss and you don't have
to make any effort. it's magic! yeah, for the creators pockets maybe. in reality
when you look at the evidence you see that vegan vegetarian Mediterranean
paleo low-carb low-fat they can all be done in a healthy way as we saw in the
recent keto versus vegan video. prateek also said it focus on healthy foods not
diet Wars. there's all this fighting online, "my diet is way better than yours" "oh
yeah? well you're gonna get cancer" "enjoy your diabetes, moron". you know what's
funny? the same people that get very upset over food because it's very
personal to them are the ones arguing that one diet is best for everybody! top
nutrition facts number two: Pei fan said: I wish I knew not to look at nutrients
in isolation foods are best consumed whole. so
powerful! a lot of these debates on nutrition are about single nutrients. is
saturated fat good or bad? does this have protein? is it low-carb? is that low-fat?
it's even in the name: nutrition is about nutrients. but this microfocus confuses
people and it distracts from the real issue which is the overall health impact
of a food which is not determined by whether it's low fat or low carb. it's
totally ok to look at a single nutrient and see what the science says, we looked
at saturated fat in a recent video, but always without losing track of the
context of the food itself. if our entire approach to
food is based on a single nutrient like low fat or high fat then we've
completely lost track of the context and I would even go one step further, beyond
the single food and looking at the entire dietary pattern. it's much harder
to get lost or confused when you have a pretty good idea of where you're heading
one of my older videos is called super foods and I wouldn't even approach it
like that nowadays because I think overall dietary pattern is much more
meaningful and a better mindset than focusing on individual foods so that's
okay, we learn and evolve. I should make a video criticizing that old video
I should really do that! "who is this joker? don't listen to him, he's clueless"
and top nutrition facts number one Jimmy
said personal preferences matter and the best diet is the one that's healthy
enough and you can stick with and enjoy long-term. pure gold. hey Jimmy
Internet high-five. most disagreements in nutrition focus on what's the best diet
but the best diet is the one that gives you long-term health and if you can only
sustain it for a summer even if on paper it's amazing and all the experts give
you the thumbs up then it's useless so absolutely use the science and the
knowledge to point you in the right direction but how far you go down that
road, how fast and how you get there has to be personalized because it has to
work for you. thank you so much for all the input everybody that was so much fun
if you want more information this video covers a lot of common questions in
nutrition so enjoy, stay healthy, peace