I have seen a lot of nutrition articles lately along the lines of "10 that are really not as good for you as you think." I am not saying there is no truth to any of them. But there are quite a few of these articles that make some incredible leaps in logic.
The most ridiculous example of this was an article that had a section against tomatoes. The entire section was actually about ketchup and the condiment's high fructose corn syrup content. I still have no idea if tomatoes are really actually bad for me and I learned very little from the article; I was never under the impression that ketchup was a health food.
A more common failing I see in these articles is the argument that some people with disease A get sick when they eat B and, therefore, people should not each B. Really, this argument makes absolutely no sense. If you followed this logic religiously, you would be unable to eat anything.
I knew someone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) who had a really small number of vegetables that she was able to eat. They gave her special trouble raw, but even cooked vegetables caused gas. I am pretty sure most nutritionist would advise me against following her diet.
I had a roommate with phenylketonuria (PKU) who got approximately half of her calories from a special incomplete-protein shake (it didn't have phenylalanine, the amino acid that would cause brain damage for her), and limited all other protein intake. Phenylalanine deficiency, however, leads to "confusion, lack of energy, depression, decreased alertness, memory problems, and lack of appetite", so I am pretty sure it is better for other people to not follow her diet. We have the enzyme to process phenylalanine, so there is no need to worry about it.
I think there are problems with following each of these diets if you don't have the respective disease that makes it necessary, but think about what would happen if I followed the initial line of logic; I would have to actually follow both of these diets simultaneously (along with a bunch of others, but we will go with this for now.) I have no idea how people with IBS would tolerate the special protein shake of the person with PKU (though a quick google search indicates many protein shakes give people with IBS problems), but we will assume they can eat this one to be as conservative as possible in our criticism. Even so, between these two diseases (based on the admittedly less than perfect sources of the internet and my memory of my friends' diets) we are going to have to cut out raw vegetables, some cooked vegetables, meat, most grains, beans and other legumes, anything fried or spicy, dairy, eggs, nuts, raw melons and citrus fruit (and any other fruit that may give a person with IBS trouble), avocados, many dried fruits, and any other food with over 2 grams of protein per serving. In other words they can eat some fruit and vegetables--more often if they are cooked--and an incomplete-protein shake. Funny that both of these things are "processed." The second certainly does not occur in nature at all. I am also wonder that our chances of developing the above mentioned phenylalanine deficiency is not quite high.
I am not a dietary expert, I am just trying to follow the logic in the argument that lots of people have peanut allergies or some people have celiac disease and therefore no one should eat the offending foods and it ends in a really pitiful dietary place if you apply it across the board. With just 2 diseases we are drinking a processed shake for half our calories and eating soggy fruits and vegetables for the other half.
I am not saying there are no foods that really are bad for people. I am pretty sure eating ketchup for dinner is not a healthy choice and I am certainly willing to believe we shouldn't be frying everything. I am not, however, going to stop eating something because someone somewhere feels sick after eating it when I have personally no ill-effects. If you can show me how it is bad for me or members of my immediate family I am responsible for feeding please let me know. Otherwise there is no harm in us eating it.
