A nutritionist reviews 2020s best and worst diets
2020 has been the year of many weird and wonderful events; from having to greet people with your elbow, to being told not to do that, to being told to never leave your house and then subsequently being told that you now can leave the house but only to visit people within some kind of imaginary bubble that you can include a randomly chosen amount of people in.
Anddddd breatheeee...
Whilst the world itself has become a stranger place this year, the nutrition landscape never ceases to amaze with its latest instalments of fad diets or the promise of a wonder pill.
Whilst the absolute best diet is the one which meets all your needs and is specific to you, we're going to cover the most popular dieting strategies of 2020 and give an honest review of why you may, or may not, want to consider giving them a go!
The "worst" diets of 2020
Whilst saying something is the "worst" is being a bit facetious (as virtually all diets tend to lead to an overhaul of all health behaviours), what we actually mean is that these diets, even if they're not focused around weight loss, air on the side of being highly restrictive and possibly detrimental to long term body and food relationships.
Most will be unsustainable in the long term too and have very little thought behind the continually changing demands of weight change / promoting health.
The Carnivore Diet
The Carnivore Diet is a restrictive diet that only includes white and red meat, fish, and other animal foods like eggs and certain dairy products. It excludes all other foods, including fruit, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds.
The creator, Shawn Baker, claims that it will alleviate mood issues, improve blood sugar regulation as well as aiding you in weight loss and weight management.
Whilst a higher protein diet such as this will be beneficial for weight management and blood sugar regulation, the highly restrictive principles of this approach make it a major "no no".
It's terrible on many levels, but we needn't go any further than to say any diet that actively promotes the restriction of fruits and vegetables is a diet that deserves to be dumped.
The raw food Diet
The raw food diet involves eating mainly unprocessed whole, plant-based, and preferably organic foods. Some followers of the diet will even include non plant-based foods, such as eggs and dairy products and consume them raw as well.
Proponents of this diet believe that the cooking process destroys the nutrient content of the food as well as the enzymes which are crucial for digestion.