The Frontal Cortex

This new article on the website of the NY Times listing "the 11 best foods you aren't eating" is a perfect example of nutritionism run amok, full of dubious claims like this:

Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.

Turmeric: The "superstar of spices,'' it has anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.

I have no doubt pumpkin seeds are good for you (they're also delicious when salted and toasted or when turned into an oil) or that turmeric is a "superstar," but I've read enough Michael Pollan to dread this sort of pseudoscientific evidence. Lest we forget, at least 30 percent of major medical studies - the sort that find tenuous connections between turmeric and cancer - are wrong, or at least directly contradicted by later research (which, of course, might also be wrong). That's why I'm so skeptical of any grocery list that mentions the word "antioxidant" or "longevity". Ben Goldacre, that noble cynic, has more:

Gary Schwitzer used to be a journalist, but now he has turned to quantitative analyses of journalism, and this month he published an analysis of 500 health articles from mainstream media in the US. The results were dismal. Only 35% of stories were rated satisfactory for whether the journalist had "discussed the study methodology and the quality of the evidence": because in the media, as you will have noticed, science is about absolute truth statements from arbitrary authority figures in white coats, rather than clear descriptions of studies and the reasons why people draw conclusions from them.

Only 28% adequately covered benefits, and only 33% adequately covered harms. Articles routinely failed to give any useful quantitative information in absolute terms, preferring unhelpful eye-catchers like "50% higher" instead.

There are many good reasons to eat sardines, beets, turmeric, etc. But don't eat them because of some correlation in a medical study. There's a good chance, after all, that such a correlation will turn out to be dead wrong.