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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Bari Weiss had a podcast with Dr Casey Means about Means new "Levels" diet.

https://www.honestlypod.com/podcast/episode/d0186220/eating-ourselves-to-death

(Bari Weiss does not really interview, in the sense of pushing back on her subject and making them take tough positions. I guess that is podcasting world.)

The tl:dr is to not eat anything processed at all. There is some kind of biofeedback which shows you getting better by not eating processed food. The episode's arguments about why there is no support for this range from extremely reasonable to conspiracy theory stuff.

Is there any follow-up research on how well her diet works?

(I do not want "her ideal diet is wrong, follow my ideal diet instead." I just get this sinking feeling whenever I ask questions about a specific diet that people see it as a chance to talk about their own, and that the proponents of the diet in question will say that any problems with it are from not following it closely enough.)

I think any type of diet like this ends up being effective just like any other diet - calorie restriction. Processed foods are frequently high calorie. Replacing them with other similar foods will frequently be less calorie dense, therefore healthier.

Another factor is costs. Speciality foods cost more, so people will buy less to follow a particular diet, causing them to eat less and lose weight. Gluten fanatics eat less carbs which tend to be calorie dense. Etc.

Basically if any diet replaces high calorie low nutrition foods with low calorie high nutrition foods its probably going to be effective. If someone wants to do that with eating no processed foods and it works I think they should be empowered to follow the diet, even if they misunderstand how the diet is benifitting them.

Like /u/EfficientSyllabus below, I am not at all surprised if the diet "works" for people who try it, for whatever reason, because they are at least thinking about their food for more than a few seconds.

I would still like to know what kind of follow-ups this stuff gets, though.