These thoughts are not entirely my own and I encourage you, along with every one of the commenters here, to read "Food Politics" by Marion Nestle. The dietary advice is generally sound, but the overall message of the book holds true; diet is a political issue. It's a particularly polarizing one too, due to the intimate role that food plays in our cultures, identities, livelihoods and health. It makes sense that this article (along with a hoard of others), is so opinionated and lacks the context to have a well-rounded analysis. I didn't read all the studies, and I'm not going to tell you what to eat, but here my thoughts after reading the article and comments;

- The article mentions data collection issues in nutritional research. My understanding is that, generally, most of this data is collected at an aggregate level (economic I/O, based on overall production and consumption), or via the FFQs mentioned. Self reporting can be unreliable and is heavily subject to biases and the placebo effect.

- The studies linked about TMAO[0] seem to follow a couple trends in nutritional research that food companies rely on to sell more food. First is; diet is holistic, but applying pharmaceutical methodologies to individual nutrients while ignoring the overall dietary habits (again, data collection is hard) can lead to opportunities for companies to market unhealthy food as "healthy". I see that red heart[1] on some of the most sugary cereals, still. Second is; heightening the focus of specific nutrients over food sources in general as a method of dietary confusion. It is more confusing, and more favorable to industry, to say "avoid foods containing cholesterol and saturated fats," than it is to say "avoid meat". Studies that focus on nutrients reinforce these claims and make sound dietary advice inaccessible.

- The article fails to disclose the author's own biases[2] while calling out the "conflicts of interest" that the other studies' authors have with P&G. Commenters are quick to say "follow the money." However, a disclosed conflict-of-interest is not necessarily a bad thing, nutritional professionals need to work and the food industry is a, well... industry that hires food professionals. Do the conglomerates that fund nutrition-research often times leverage studies in bad-faith in order to sell more product? Yes, absolutely. Should you discredit all nutrition research backed by a corporation, probably not.

- Dietary advice is intended for populations, not individuals. If I were to say something like; "avoid having more than 24g of sugar a day"[3], I'm saying that targeting 97% of a population. This advice is also influenced by the goals of the organization/administration[4] releasing the advice and overall health concerns for the population. Most of the leading causes of death, in the United States, are linked with overconsumption. As an individual, genetics and lifestyle play a role and shift your needs. A person will probably need more than the recommended amount of salt on the day-to-day than average if they exercise.

On a separate note:

@dang I'm tired of reading political op-ed pieces that quote bad studies as proof of... whatever, especially those related to health. Is there a blocklist and can (unsettledscience.substack.com)[5] be added to that list? Also, out of curiosity and possibly related to this submission, what sort of mechanisms does HN employ in order to moderate submissions from suspect users? Thanks for all you do by the way.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylamine_N-oxide

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Heart_Association

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz

[3] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/a...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Guidelines_for_America...

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=unsettledscience.subs...