Year In Review: Why You Should Abide By The 'New Healthy'

There are year-end lists and then there are year-end lists. This one is the latter kind. If the year has been about the rethinking of conventional approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, it has also been about the reiteration of the traditional when it comes to diet and nutrition. This contrast is starker when you consider the large strides made in understanding the role played by the gut microbiome in our overall health and mental wellbeing.

As the author says in her introduction to the list, the most exciting news is that healthy eating has a definite form now—defined both by modern culinary styles as well as rock-solid nutritional science. At long last, despite the constant back and forth that seemingly occurs in popular science (and surely does in the florid imaginations of clickbait journalists), dietary advice has achieved consistency. And that is remarkable, considering how complex and ambiguous nutrition science actually is.

Furthermore, if all the new information and discoveries are pared down to a single sentence, it will turn out to be the very savvy advice sane grandmothers have been giving their families from aeons—eat more fruits and vegetables and add less sugar. As dull as it might sound, it has taken nutritionists quite a while to arrive here—a sobering thought if ever there was one.

Coming to the actual list, the author does a neat job of compiling all the big perspectives on health that were reinforced this year. These include the huge emphasis on gut health, the whole sugar versus fat debate (and the happy news that fats have won), the growing awareness about keeping food local and cuisine traditional and how food sustainability is gaining traction, among others. This is the ‘new healthy’ as the author says and one cannot disagree. Which is why, for those interested in kick-starting a healthier, more sustainable and climate friendly life, this article is a good starting point.