Kevin Klatt, PhD, RD

I've heard the phrase from other medical professionals that nutrition is a 'softer science'. Softer sciences are considered to be ones where it's difficult to establish strictly, objectively measurable criteria, and the term is often used in reference to psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences. I've heard it said plenty but I've never really given it much thought, often chalking these statements up to individuals taking a cheap shot at the field or not fully understanding all of the lines of evidence - to a degree, I still feel this way. I thought a lot more deeply about the soft-ness of nutrition, however, when I saw the most recent reports making headlines - Dr Katz over at Yale published a public health review that concluded there is no best diet. Most of the summaries of this research making the social media rounds have been to 'eat real food' AKA don't eat processed food. A part of me rolls my eyes at this, especially...

Amongst the movement of health-minded individuals trying to derive the perfect algorithm for optimal health, there has been a resurgence of consuming raw, or unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk. For more on their perspective, you can peruse http://www.realmilk.com/ - in summary, they push that it's 'natural' dairy and that is therefore better, making a number of claims that I'll address below. Besides the obvious naturalistic fallacy and lack of scientific backing, I always find it interesting how humans in modern society love to reinstate previously removed selective pressures. This whole camp of raw milkers also seems, to me, to be of the same mindset as the anti-vacciners. I guess everyone's a bit concerned their immune systems were getting off easy? #YODO. Anyway, do any of these claims stand up to the science? Claim 1 : Pasteurization denatures proteins - sure, pasteurization denatures proteins, so that they are no longer biologically active. This begs t...

I've mentioned before that I'm currently in the process of obtaining both my PhD and the Registered Dietitian (RD) credential. In my opinion, both are very complementary degrees that can inform/influence each other in a positive way, to make one both a better scientist and a clinician. However, at times, they clash - scientific idealism doesn't always align with clinical realism, and vice versa. My current internal monologue/debate really heated up these past couple weeks, with the release of these two seemingly contradictory articles: 1 . For the first report, see here . Dr Yoni Freedhoff, whose blog is a really great read, pointed out a number of somewhat troubling tweets from RD's at the F3K conference. The RD's took to the usual mantra of needing to work with the food industry, and tried to absolve the sins of processed foods. To quote one RD's twitter, "Healthy eating requires - balance of foods, right portions, & proper prep. Don't worry a...