[mjlangiii]

I don't think there is one smoking gun for a chemical in food.

To me, I see a clear pattern. Reducing nutrition to consuming more of a specific chemical/molecule or consuming less of a specific chemical/molecule is always way more complicated than that. The best way to get the complicated combination/form of chemicals is to just eat as low on the food chain as possible in a minimally altered form.

Naturally occurring sugar in plants, say an orange, or rice, is good for you. Extracting sugar doesn't ever seem necessary for the American diet. The oil in a nut is good for you, extracting oil and using it to cook doesn't ever seem necessary for the American diet.

So I don't think it is controversial to say eating plans is good for you, especially say broccoli for your inflammation. The more broccoli you eat, the healthier you are; its really simple.

The second part of what I said, to try to eat low on the food chain is more controversial. But as soon as you combine that rice with meat, that sugar starts interacting in new more complicated ways and the it is no longer as simple as, the more rice you eat the healthier you are. It becomes, if you combine it with meat you have to limit the amount of rice you eat because together they spike your blood sugar level [0] study, image of that spike [1]. And I rarely hear, "the more meat you eat, the healthier you are".

So to me it seems like you can try to walk a tight-rope of eating the right amounts of the right processed and meat foods, or you can just eat things that generally make you healthier when you eat more of it.

That is a simple baseline that you adjust based on atypical differences you have, celiac disease, etc.

Regarding cholesterol specifically, and how you mentioned it conflicting with current theories that are being questioned (fairly enough) in this thread - here's some summary thoughts from the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology on it. [2] They might be helpful providing some color to the conversation.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2679037 [1] https://imgur.com/ZqHpEzv [2] http://www.webedcafe.com/extern/program_media/ajconline.org/...