How I eat

First of all, I recommend having as few restrictions on diet as possible, especially absolute restrictions. See my experience with intermittent fasting for more on how that can go wrong.

Minimise Inflammation

That said, I have found that there are some things that tend to make me feel bad if I eat them.

The main one is refined vegetable oils, which in my opinion are one of those things that the food industry uses a lot simply because it’s cheap and an efficient use of resources. It’s also convenient for packaged foods, as it doesn’t spoil as easily as animal fat and can make products look more appealing.

So the first principle is:

• If the meal contains a significant element of fat, make it animal fat. Ghee works especially well as an all-round replacement for vegetable oil.

Beyond that, I’ve also found that wheat, oats, and milk generally don’t agree with me. So the second principle is:

• Tend towards minimising wheat and milk*. There are GF and DF versions of everything now, and many of them are nicer.

  * Generally the more processed or fermented, the better it is—butter is fine, and probably cheese as well.

An overarching theme I’ve identified is inflammation. I find that optimising for low inflammation naturally favours healthy, satisfying foods, and serves as a better guide than other metrics like sugar, processed-ness, fat, salt, gluten, etc. If you’re sensitive enough you can identify foods that are inflammatory from your mood and digestive feeling after eating them. If you live in the UK, for example, compare fish and chips in vegetable oil vs. beef dripping. They are entirely different meals!

Eat Meat

Having tried vegetarianism and veganism, my thinking has now shifted towards the idea that “humans eat meat” in the sense that it is basically necessary in order to thrive. Substitutes don’t work; it’s a holistic thing.