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Yet Another Fad Diet?

What kind of diet is the Post-Modern Diet? Is it keto? Is it vegan? Is it Palaeo? Is it another fad diet?

These are some of the common questions I get asked. The short answer is that the Post-Modern Diet is not a particular regimen. I think of it as the sum of the useful knowledge that I have accumulated in the last 20 years and the application of that knowledge.

To be clear, to be useful, there has to be a scientific basis. I do have knowledge of the Hollywood Diet, but that knowledge is of no use to me because there is no biochemical basis for the advantages of eating nothing but grapefruits. In fact, the biochemistry suggests that it’s not something you want to try.

A fad diet is any dietary regimen that is trending, usually because of a book, blog post or article. It gains intense and widely shared enthusiasm for a short period of time, only to fade* away, to be displaced by something else. I would certainly classify the Hollywood Diet as a fad diet, even though it has existed in various forms since the 1930s, mainly because it has kept coming back in various forms over the years.

Every so often I check Amazon for new books on health, nutrition and diet. It is part of my on-going attempts to stay current with new research or new takes on more established research. What I find is a lot of rehashing of existing diet or fitness fads, but occasionallyI stumble on some exceptional or novel interpretations the existing research. And when I do, there is no end of fun for me as I try to determine if there is a biochemical basis for that interpretation and how we might leverage that for better health. That, to me, is the Post-Modern Diet.

*I just noticed that fad is fade without the e. 🙂

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