Every Diet Is Good. Every Diet Is Bad. Here Is the Only Thing That Actually Matters.

A few years ago I was sitting with a group of people after a workout. Someone was eating chicken and eggs. Someone else had a vegan protein smoothie. A third person was deep in the middle of a Mediterranean eating experiment. And all three were convinced — absolutely convinced — that their way was the right way, and the other two were wasting their time.

I've been eating mostly carnivore for years. I've gained 8 kilograms of muscle. My energy is consistent. My recovery is good. Does that mean carnivore is the best diet? No. It means it worked for me, in my circumstances, at this stage of my life.

And that distinction — between what works for a person and what is universally correct — is something the entire nutrition industry seems unable to make.

The Diet Industry Is Selling You a War That Doesn't Exist

Walk into any bookstore and you will find forty thousand diet books. Each one confident. Each one convinced. Each one telling you that the last one was wrong.

Keto warriors say carbs are the enemy. Vegan advocates say meat is killing you. Paleo followers say anything after the Stone Age is suspect. Carnivore enthusiasts say plants are optional. Mediterranean devotees say olive oil solves everything.

Michael Easter, in The Comfort Crisis, describes the world of nutrition science as resembling warring families — scientists and nutritionists funded by competing industries, producing research that tends to favour whoever cut the cheque, creating a noise machine so loud that real people with real problems can no longer hear anything useful.

Peter Attia, one of the most respected longevity physicians alive, spent three years as a passionate defender of the ketogenic diet — and eventually concluded that the fundamental assumption underlying all diet wars is simply wrong. There is no single perfect diet that works best for every person.

I reached the same conclusion from a different direction. Not through reading, but through watching real people eat in real life — and noticing that what determined their outcomes had almost nothing to do with which tribe they belonged to.

Every Major Diet Has Something Right. And Something Missing.

Let's be honest about what each approach actually does well — and where it falls short without the basics in place.

Notice anything? Every single diet improves on the Standard Diet — the default way most people in the modern world eat — by removing some combination of processed food, refined sugar, excess calories, or all three. That is the actual mechanism. Not the label.

The Real Question Is Never Which Diet. It's Always These Three.

Attia breaks every nutrition problem down to three questions that cut through all the noise:

Most people who struggle with their health are overnourished, undermuscled, and metabolically compromised — all at the same time. The diet that fixes this is whichever one helps a specific person eat fewer total calories, more protein, and less processed food. Consistently. Over months and years.

Bad nutrition can hurt us far more than good nutrition can help us. Fixing a terrible diet can transform your bloodwork. Optimising an already decent diet produces far smaller gains. The basics matter infinitely more than the perfect plan.

The Two Non-Negotiables That Override Every Other Dietary Choice

After everything I have read, tried personally, and observed in others, I have reduced nutrition to two things that matter more than any other decision you can make about food. Everything else is details.

Eat enough protein. Every single day. Without exception. Protein is the one macronutrient that cannot be compromised. It is derived from the Greek word proteios — meaning "primary" — and that name is accurate. Without adequate protein, you cannot build or maintain muscle. Without muscle, your metabolic health deteriorates, your bone density declines, your insulin sensitivity worsens, and your risk of every age-related disease increases.

The standard dietary recommendation of 0.8g per kilogram of body weight is the minimum to survive — not to thrive. For anyone exercising and trying to improve their body composition, 1.6 to 2.2g per kilogram is where the science points. Attia calls protein the one macro that should never be sacrificed — regardless of which eating pattern you follow.

Eat real food. As close to its original form as possible. Most of the time. Processed food is not a neutral choice. Ultra-processed products are engineered to override your satiety signals — making you eat more than your body needs without ever feeling full. They spike blood glucose, drive insulin resistance, accumulate as visceral fat, and quietly erode your metabolic health over years before any obvious symptom appears.

A vegan who eats mostly packaged vegan products is not eating well. A carnivore who eats processed deli meat and nothing else is not eating well. The quality of the food matters more than the category it belongs to.

What "Good Bloodwork" Actually Looks Like — And How Diet Gets You There

This is the only scorecard that matters. Not how your diet sounds. Not what label it carries. What does your blood actually show?

• Fasting blood glucose — should be below 5.5 mmol/L. Reflects how well your body handles sugar
• HbA1c — your 3-month average blood sugar. Below 5.4% is excellent
• Triglycerides — should be below 1.5 mmol/L. High triglycerides almost always reflect excess refined carbohydrate and sugar intake
• HDL cholesterol — should be above 1.2 mmol/L for men, 1.5 for women. Raised by exercise and healthy fats
• Fasting insulin — one of the most useful and most underused markers. Below 8 mIU/L is good
• CRP (C-reactive protein) — a marker of inflammation. Should be below 1 mg/L. Processed food is one of its biggest drivers

I have seen people on completely different diets produce identical excellent bloodwork — because all of them were eating adequate protein, avoiding processed food, and moving regularly. The label never mattered. The basics always did.

What This Looks Like in an Indian Context

I think about this constantly when I consider the dietary patterns of Indian families — both in India and in the diaspora.

The traditional Indian diet is not the problem. Dal, sabzi, roti, rice — these are whole foods. The problem is what happened to that diet over the last 30 years. Ultra-processed snacks. White bread. Packaged biscuits and namkeen. Refined oil. Sugary drinks marketed as healthy. And critically — very low protein.

A mostly vegetarian diet built around roti and rice without deliberate protein planning is a recipe for being overfed on calories and profoundly undernourished on the one macronutrient that matters most.

You do not need to become carnivore. You do not need to go keto. You can eat dal and paneer and eggs and fish and keep your rotis if that is what works for your life, your family, and your culture. But you need enough protein. And you need to eliminate the processed food that has crept into Indian eating over the last two generations.

The diet that works is the one you can follow consistently, that gives your body enough protein, that is built mostly from real food, and that keeps your blood markers improving. It has no name. It needs no tribe. It just needs to be yours.

The Practical Version — Three Rules That Cover Everything

Follow any eating pattern you want. Call it whatever you like. But make sure it passes these three tests — and then let your bloodwork confirm the rest.

— Shiva Malhotra, Barefoot Protocol

ACE Certified Personal Trainer | Sydney, Australia