Drop Your Diet Dogma
No, your diet doesn’t work for everyone
A common joke in the fitness communities goes like this: “How do you know if someone is vegan? Don’t worry, they tell you.”
You can easily swap out any other diet for “vegan,” though, and the joke works equally well.
I have more than 15 years of experimentation with different diets under my belt — driven mainly by irritable bowel syndrome problems and my love for self-experimentation.
Diets I followed for extended periods include whole foods vegan, raw high carb vegan (also known as 80/10/10), paleo, raw paleo, zero carb, raw zero carb, keto, and vegan keto. These diets taught me valuable lessons about my body and introduced me to recipes I still use today.
However, the most important lesson I have learned throughout my journey is that diet is a very sensitive topic to discuss.
Many people are personally offended if you disagree with their opinion.
The high levels of dogma and cult-like behaviors of followers of specific diets are baffling, considering nutrition is a surprisingly young science, and there is much more we don’t know than what we know.
Consider this: the first vitamin was isolated and chemically defined in 1926. That’s less than a hundred years ago. And research on the role of nutrition in chronic diseases only really took off after 2000. Add to this the fact that nutritional research is rife with faulty methodology and human bias, and it is even more astounding how close-minded and dogmatic people can become with regards to their favorite diet.
New Diet New Dogmatic You
Make no mistake about it. I know how it feels when you finally find a way of eating that reduces or eliminates your symptoms and improves your quality of life.
You feel convinced that this is the optimal diet.
You start to search for more evidence, and sure you’ll find it — diet books from doctors and science writers, Facebook groups, fitness influencers who espouse this particular diet.
And if you look further, you will find arguments why big pharma, dairy, and meat industries, food manufacturers, and doctors and nutritionists alike are all involved in a big conspiracy. They somehow all conspire to keep you sick, so they get rich.
Funny how this is a common sentiment in all diet groups — only the villain changes.
What all seem to agree on, however, and what is the only valid argument, in my opinion, is that ultra-processed and engineered foods should be eliminated as much as possible from one’s diet.
The Dangers Of Diet Dogma
Why do I think being dogmatic about your diet is dangerous? Because when you start to treat your diet like a religion, you lose the will to learn and accept different viewpoints.
I have been active in various communities, from vegan to keto to carnivore. In all of these groups, you find closed-minded people who are unwilling to accept that their glorified way of eating may not work for other people.
They repeat arguments of their favorite gurus, seemingly without critical thinking.
They are oblivious to the glaringly obvious holes in the theories of why this particular diet is the “optimal human diet.”
And I don’t know what is worse: That they get personally offended when you offer alternative viewpoints and experiences or that they outright hate on people who are following a different dietary approach.
While being “militant,” “extreme,” and “aggressive” are words people like to use when they complain about vegan advocates, I have had the same experience with people in the keto and zero-carb communities.
I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems odd that people make fun of each other and trash talk about people only because they eat differently from you.
Being dogmatic about your diet also kills your ability to listen to your body and what it is telling you.
Plus, you’ll have a difficult time enjoying food with others and likely miss out on a lot of the fun. After all, food is also a way to connect and relate to each other.
What Diet Should You Follow?
The truth is that there is no one perfect diet that works for everyone all the time. Even if you have found a dietary approach that works for you now, it may very well be that it will not work for you anymore in a few months or years.
And unless you have a disease that has been shown to require a specific diet (for example, epilepsy or celiac), the only dietary rule you might need to follow is to eat less crap.
Listen to your body and keep an open mind.
Be willing to have your assumptions and ideas challenged. Otherwise, you close yourself off to learning and growth.
And you might very well become that annoying person who gives unsolicited food advice, judges others’ food choices, and has that aura of self-righteousness whenever the question pops up “what should we eat today.”
Well, if you still get to eat with others 😉
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