Truths and Misconceptions About Nutrition

Today we have access to an almost unlimited amount of information about nearly every aspect of life. The development of the internet and its accessibility have enabled practically everyone to get informed about any specific area of interest and form their own personal opinion on the subject. At first glance, this is a phenomenal thing because we are just a few clicks away from the massive memory of human knowledge, and consequently, it seems, from the answer to every question. However, entirely new problems are now emerging. While our ancestors had no way to reach knowledge, we have more of it than we can remember, process, and understand. The confusion caused by hundreds of disconnected conclusions is further amplified by a huge number of experts—both real and fake—whose expertise, instead of being backed by scientific circles or achievements, is guaranteed solely by their number of social media followers.

Nutrition falls into the category of universal topics, and everyone who eats—meaning everyone—feels called upon to express their opinion on the matter, so the volume of information and nutrition experts is even greater compared to other fields. While it is obviously not a problem that everyone has an opinion on nutrition, the problem arises when anyone can broadcast that opinion into the ether and address everyone who can hear it.

In this way, the field of nutrition has become very murky and unclear. It has become almost impossible to distinguish verified and scientifically backed facts from myths, opinions, and half-truths. Additionally, an aggravating circumstance for understanding this area comes from corporations, who do exactly what corporations do—try to sell their product. This confusion creates frustration and raises questions: What to eat? What to avoid? What is healthy and what is unhealthy? And most importantly—who can be trusted?

This website aims to provide clear and verified information. I will never write to you about miracle diets or simple fixes because, unfortunately, they don't exist. Instead, I will guide you through the reality of food and nutrition, through verified information and simple changes that contribute to your health and goals.

Why Is Nutrition Confusing?

Since its inception, nutrition has been a field primarily concerned with health. It is important to know that this is a young science, emerging in the 20th century, and a large number of unanswered questions still remain. We know that a good combination of ingredients, quality food preparation methods, and avoiding certain substances can improve performance, prevent health problems, and even extend life, but the exact mechanisms and evidence for a large number of claims have yet to be fully researched.

For some time now, modern nutrition has not been a science primarily focused on our health, but rather a global industry worth billions of euros. From dietary supplement manufacturers to social media celebrities, everyone wants to tell us what to eat, how to nourish ourselves, what is best for our health, and what we should avoid.

The problem is that much of the information reaching us has no scientific basis. For example, headlines about miracle diets or superfoods that solve every problem you have ignore the complexity of the human body and metabolism. The fact is that we all have unique and specific needs, so even when something works for one person, there are no guarantees it will work for another. Nutrition is individual, and universal solutions do not exist.

Research in the field of nutrition is highly complex and challenging. It often requires daily, multi-year monitoring of large groups of people to prove the impact of just one food item or a single nutrient. This drives the cost of research sky-high, takes a long time, and leaves plenty of room for error. Because of this, even though it seems simple compared to other scientific branches, a comparatively small number of high-quality nutrition studies are published worldwide. Another much cheaper and faster method of research is through surveys and forms, but food is such a deeply ingrained habit that people often don't remember what they ate yesterday, let alone a month or a year ago.

For all these reasons, a lot of what we think we know about nutrition is actually just a current hypothesis—an assumption based on limited knowledge. To convey these assumptions to the broader population, they are often simplified, and from a single assumption, many simple guidelines emerge, which further leads to the creation of a whole sea of information that wasn't reliable even at the source. Ultimately, when we become overwhelmed, we simply look for someone to tell us clearly and loudly what to do, making it easy to fall into the trap of blindly believing the loudest voices.

My Approach to Diet

The main part of my job is filtering and analyzing information through the prism of scientific evidence and experience gained over years of working with people. I believe my role is to help separate verified facts from misconceptions and, based on that, help people make decisions that are, first and foremost, grounded in knowledge, and that best align with their desires.

Filtering information means recognizing the limitations of each study and understanding the context in which the results were obtained. For instance, a study might indicate that a certain diet reduces the risk of disease, but is that diet applicable to your lifestyle? Is it sustainable in the long run? Chocolate reduces the chance of hormonal imbalance in rats, but how meaningful is that for humans? So, I try to help you find a balance between scientific discoveries and practical application in daily life. That is why I strive to combine what science offers with what real life demands in my approach. Diet is not a dogma; it is a tool that should adapt to you, not you to it. One of the most important things I've learned through my practice is that people often worry too much about their diet. Of course, it is important to think about what we eat, but I have heard worries that cross the boundaries of what is useful countless times. Questions like "Will using grape seed oil instead of olive oil ruin my efforts?" or "What if I eat a piece of bread after six in the evening?" contribute neither to a healthier diet nor to a healthier life. Instead, excessive worry creates stress that can cause more harm than the benefit derived from minor dietary tweaks.

I view diet as part of a broader picture of health. Every change we make is just a small piece of our overall health. This means we don't have to do everything perfectly; rather, every effort in the right direction is an improvement. Instead of perfection, we should turn toward sustainability and consistency. It doesn't matter what we eat for every single meal; what matters is what we eat most of the time. A good line I picked up somewhere says: "Good is often better than perfect," which is a profound truth when it comes to diet.

Another drawback of overcomplicating your diet, besides unnecessary stress, is the creation of an unnatural relationship with food. In my office, I frequently talk to people who use strictly scientific terms for their everyday eating habits or tell me exactly how many calories they ate for dinner. If I were talking to a colleague, this way of speaking would be expected, but here we are talking about accountants, homemakers, and programmers. To me, this is an indicator of information overload—the illusion that just because we read and understood something, we now possess the knowledge and capacity for a deep understanding of the entire field. Being informed is one thing; having knowledge is another. The difference isn't in what information I or someone outside of nutrition can access; the difference lies in context and assessing importance. If you view every dietary decision as a critically important part of some flawless process, you will very quickly experience burnout, a feeling of helplessness to control everything, and an aversion toward healthy eating or even food in general. It is crucial to remember that diet should, above all, be a beautiful and tasty part of life that supports and does not threaten health along the way, not the meaning of life and the primary source of anxiety.

So, my job is to filter information, to help you distinguish the important from the unimportant, truth from prejudice. However, an equally important part of my job is to tell you when to stop, how not to overdo it, and how to have a better diet for the sake of a better life, rather than living a better diet. I work with you as an ally, not a burden.

How to Spot Charlatans?

In the vast world of the internet, we often come across people presenting themselves as nutrition experts who actually spread half-truths or complete falsehoods. This is to be expected, because diet is a universal topic, so it interests everyone, and it is easy to assume that knowledge about nutrition is obvious or that everything there is to conclude can be easily figured out. You can notice the same thing with other widespread topics, good examples being: sports and the number of sports "experts," cars and the number of "mechanics," politics and the number of "insiders" on the political situation.

There are a few traits by which charlatans are recognizable:

They know everything there is to know - Nutrition, as a scientific discipline, is a very young science and is still evolving, which is the exact reason why all of us, as humanity, do not yet know everything about it. Additionally, the gut microbiome has turned out to be one of the most important, if not the most important, thing related to our diet. The human microbiome is composed of about one hundred trillion (100,000,000,000,000) individual microorganisms and roughly five thousand different species. We have very limited knowledge about how the microbiome functions, and it will take us decades of research to claim we know anything for sure. The truth is that nutritional science changes constantly with new research, so questions like "Which diet is best for longevity?" or "Is coffee good or bad?" do not have simple, universal answers because they depend on countless factors, including genetics, lifestyle, and even geographical location.

They offer simple solutions - You know you are dealing with a charlatan if you hear that eliminating or adding a single food item can make all the difference. For example: "All you need to do to lose weight is cut out bread" or "All your problems will disappear if you eat ten aronia berries every morning." The fact is that generalizations like these simply cannot be true for a system as complex as the human body, and both problems and solutions are the result of a set of long-term habits.

They offer quick fixes - "Lose 25 kilograms in 15 days." Through talking with people, I've noticed that individuals have become aware that promises like these cannot be true, and even when they are, they seriously jeopardize health. The only way to permanently change something in your diet is through long-term changes, and long-term changes take time. Remember that weight is just a number on the scale and an indicator of a problem, not the problem itself. Consequently, focusing solely on reducing weight is like taking medication to lower a fever without truly addressing the illness that caused the temperature to spike in the first place.

They offer absolute solutions - "The only way to do this is to do that." While the complexity of human metabolism makes understanding and studying humans difficult on one hand, it ensures that an alternative solution exists for every problem on the other. I explain to my patients that solving a problem is like traveling from home to school: there is a shortest path, but you can reach the same destination via numerous other routes. Similarly, there are opposite claims that state: "You must never eat this because..." Complete nonsense! There is no food that must never be eaten. Some food should be eaten a bit more often, some a bit less often, but whatever you feel like eating, go ahead and eat it, be done with it, and move on. Food should be a source of enjoyment and pleasure; it just doesn't mean every single meal has to be the greatest possible pleasure. The problem doesn't arise when people eat poor-quality food because they want to and enjoy it, but rather when people eat poor-quality food out of habit or because it is the only thing available. So, enjoy with moderation.

Marketing - The last group aren't really charlatans, but rather people who say and do things for direct profit. Unfortunately, this group can include people who are renowned and qualified, like nutritionists, fitness professionals, and doctors, but they prioritize personal interest over yours. Just like with all other information, one should remain skeptical about nutrition, and when you hear new information, it is good to ask: Where is the evidence? Who stands behind that claim? Is it based on research or on trends? Critical thinking is the only tool we have to distinguish information from misinformation.

Nutrition is young and nobody knows everything; those who claim to know everything often know nothing. Diet is not a one-size-fits-all matter, nor is there a single right path to health; those who claim otherwise are simply wrong. Diet is the oldest habit we have, so change takes time; anyone who says it can happen quickly is not working in your best interest. Nutrition is a multi-million euro industry, so everyone wants to sell some universal solution, but remember—there isn't one.

The Value of Continuous Learning

Through all my years working in the field of nutrition, I have learned that changing one's mind is a natural and inevitable part of continuous learning. There are many things I previously believed were best, only to realize later, through new research or experience working with people, that better solutions exist. I do not view this as a consequence of a lack of knowledge, but rather as the process of its growth. Nutritional science is constantly evolving, and my understanding changes along with it. Having the personal humility to accept new findings and adapt my approach is something I am proud of, because I believe that every step forward benefits the people I work with and those I will work with in the future.

One of the most important lessons I've learned is that no matter how expert I am in biochemistry and nutrition, my clients possess a unique kind of knowledge—they are the experts on their own lives. Only they know what can fit into their rhythm, what can become a permanent habit, and how they will ultimately apply the recommendations at the end of the day. It follows that even if I knew everything there is to know about nutrition (which I don't), half the knowledge I need to help someone will always be locked away from me. My role is not to hand people universal rules, but to collaborate with them to find solutions that are simultaneously scientifically sound and adaptable to their daily routine.

Continuous learning and the willingness to change your mind are not signs of weakness, but of strength. None of us has all the answers, nor should anyone be expected to. Learning is a process, and while we know what a better diet looks like, what the absolute best diet is, nobody knows yet.

Conclusion

Diet is much more than a calorie count or food choices—it is a part of our every day, our health, and our relationship with ourselves. In a world flooded with information and misinformation, the challenge of what to eat is less significant than how we perceive food and how we decide what is best for us.

Perfection is not what matters; what matters are lasting and realistic changes we can integrate into our lives. Filtering information, critical thinking, and a readiness to learn are, today more than ever, essential tools for understanding the massive volume of knowledge coming our way. Diet is not universal; it is deeply individual and should support your way of life, not become its sole purpose.

It is important to remember: nobody knows all the answers. Nutrition is evolving, just like our understanding of the body and its needs. What I offer are not ready-made solutions, but support in your process of exploring, adapting, and making the decisions that are best for you. A good diet is not just healthy, it is sustainable. A tool for a better quality of life, not a more stressful one.

Thank you for taking the time to read this text, in which I tried to convey my understanding of the field I practice. If I had to summarize this entire article in just a single sentence, that sentence would be: "The goal should never be perfection, but continuous progress."

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