FED UP

A game and occasionally gamy exploration of diet fads and the quest for the perfect plate.

Harvard evolutionary biology professor Lieberman likes his yogurt, coffee, and even the occasional Big Mac, which “fires up your brain like few other meals.” Most modern diet plans would find fault with one or another of those offerings: A keto practitioner would run in terror from the carbs, a vegetarian from the burger, a vegan from the cheese, a paleo aficionado from the lettuce. By Lieberman’s account, while modern industrial, sugary, heavily processed foods “are sickening and killing millions of people every year,” no one solution offers a miracle. Walking the walk, he attempts to follow a range of common fads for a couple of weeks apiece. Some he finds immediately unappealing, particularly the raw diet advanced by so many health-guru types, not least of them the Swiss doctor who invented muesli. “Animals who eat solely raw food evidently do just fine,” Lieberman allows, but they really have to work at it, whether traveling long distances to find wild fruit or chasing down a gazelle. There’s something to be said for cooking, then. As to the vaunted paleo fad, he pronounces, “there was no single Paleolithic diet,” adding that our Stone Age forebears enjoyed forbidden things like porridge and lentils. Not surprisingly, one diet that best passes muster is the Mediterranean, although, as with all things, Lieberman offers scientifically based qualifications. Sometimes the science gets a little thick, for that matter, as when he discusses the behavior of various of our gut microbes and the splendid ways in which they ferment the fiber we can’t easily digest, a win-win for all. In the end, Lieberman maintains, with due gravitas, “Humans evolved to be superlative omnivores who eat just about anything—­plants and animals—­to maximize not health but reproductive success.”

A book that neatly punctures food myths while encouraging a splendid, healthful diversity at table.