Everything You Know About 'Health Foods' Is Wrong: There Are No 'Bad Foods,' Doctor Says
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Get ready to question everything you've ever known about a healthy diet. A new book by Dr. Aaron Carrol advocates for eating soda, cookies, butter, and even heaping portions of mac and cheese without worrying about any health consequences. According to Carrol, you've been living a lie based on bogus food research.
If you're ready to shun this man for spewing what sound like obesity-fueling lies, give the guy a chance. Once you hear him out, he actually has a lot of science on his side.
He compiled his evidence in a new book, The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully. Detailed in his interview with NPR, Carrol's evidence revealed that thousands of food studies are flawed. This is in part because many nutritional recommendations are based on experiments with animals instead of human subjects. Though these animals showed "associations" between certain foods and health conditions, it's possible that the effects on smaller scales for actual people are minimal to null.
"All the data that's behind making you think these foods are bad for you is pretty weak," Carroll explained. "If you just take some sensible ideas and try to eat in moderation, and not worry about it too much, you'll probably be much healthier and certainly much happier."
Life without guilt for eating chocolate... That does sound happier. The guy's got a point — I mean, who's to say the effects of those "bad" foods outweigh the incredible health effects of happiness?
Carrol does have one caveat — to avoid foods that are overly processed.
"Nature intended you to get the appley goodness from an apple, not from apple juice," he said. "But we shouldn't be so panicked and fearful and constantly believing that if we don't do what we've heard from the latest expert, that we're going to get sick and die. That is just not true."
In other words, a cup of apple juice won't kill you.
Carrol even advocates for drinking soda if you really want to — maybe just don't down liters of it every day.
Not surprisingly, not everyone on Twitter is ready to delete their nutrition trackers just yet. Carrol has earned himself some snarky social media responses.
I bought the bad food bible and nowhere does it differentiate between Good or Bad diarrhea. Care to flush this one out?
— Elsie (@xrover) January 8, 2018
But really, it makes sense that people are upset, especially if they've been avoiding cupcakes and potato chips for years. — or if not avoiding them, at least feeling guilty for chowing down on junk they think could kill them.
But instead of honing in on the rage and regret you feel having kept cookies out of your life for this long, you could just ditch "clean eating" now and make a change. Here are 101 incredible cookie recipes to get you started.