Why are food choices so bewildering?
One reason is there are 50,000 or so items in a large supermarket. Another is the complexity of nutrition research, which tends to focus on one nutrient at a time: calcium and bone density, low-fat diets and heart disease, vitamin A and cancer, etc. That takes nutrients out of their dietary context. People don’t eat nutrients. They eat lots of different foods. Food companies love to use research results to advertise the benefits of their products, even if those benefits are totally out of context. And the FDA lets them. Take whole grain Cocoa Puffs. This is a chocolate candy-coated sugary cereal with one gram or less fiber per serving. Or trans-fat-free cookies of any kind. They still have calories. Or claims that the product “may help prevent” heart disease or cancer, but only when eaten as part of a healthy diet. How should shoppers navigate the supermarket? I call them “The Rules.” Rule No. 1 is that supermarkets want customers to spend as much time as possible wandering the aisles
