Eat Your Troubles Away

Best Diet?

The quest for the best diet seems inescapable right now. U.S. News and World Report has published its annual rankings and come up with not just one best diet, but nine. From a list of only 38 diets, that’s a pretty neat trick — almost fulfilling the promise to the millennial generation that everyone is special.

They did it by slicing the list nine different ways, thus maximizing the promotional opportunities:

 
It’s a great way to sell advertising, books, special food, and assorted other merchandise. But if you’re just looking for information and you’re a discerning reader, you can scoop up much of it for free. All you have to do is filter out lots and lots of nonsense.

When all is said and done, the only value a short-term diet offers is to help figure out a healthy pattern of eating that can work for you over the long term. In the Huffington Post, Judith Beck does a pretty good job of explaining just what it takes for a diet to work:

  1. It’s healthy.
  2. It includes your favorite foods, in moderation, even if they’re not entirely healthy.
  3. You can stay with it for the rest of your life, so it has flexibility, variety, and sufficient calories.

 
Click here for more from U.S. News and World Report, here for more from Judith Beck, and here for more from NPR.

Eat Your Troubles Away, photograph © Wackystuff / flickr

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January 10, 2016