food is complicated

[cellio]

My doctor says that my "bad cholesterol" is a smidge high (good's fine) and I should cut down on dairy and red meat. I eat very little red meat (really not much meat at all, though lots of fish), but I did bump up the dairy intake a bit in pursuit of calcium after learning of some family medical history this summer. Ok, fine, I'm perfectly willing to take calcium/D supplements instead, go back to soy milk instead of yogurt for breakfast, etc, but it does raise a question for me.

Presumably it is possible to find the right combination of nutrients in nature, without taking supplements. Sure, our understanding of "right" has changed over time, but for at least several decades I gather that we've grokked the importance of basic vitamins and minerals, and I don't remember supplements being nearly so prevalent a few decades ago as they are now. So how does one get enough good stuff (calcium, protein, vitamins) without getting too much bad stuff (cholesterol, sugar, excess calories), without supplements? What is the canonical modern (wo)man supposed to eat? (The last time I looked at the food pyramid it wasn't very helpful for gleaning details. It also assumed 2000+ calories/day, which a sendentary blob like me shouldn't eat.)

Comments

[dsrtao]

I don't know that your premise is correct. Humans appear to have spent the last 5 million years or so as generalist omnivore hunter-gatherers. Then about 10-15 thousand years ago we developed agriculture, and around the same time started domesticating animals. Lifespan is strongly related to available nutrition, which skyrocketed in availability and cheapness again in the last few centuries. It's entirely plausible that you can't get an optimal diet from all natural sources... but I wouldn't bet on that. What I would suspect is that tracking it all down and balancing it requires an extremely varied diet across the course of a year.

[cellio]

Hmm, yeah, that makes sense.