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After watching the documentary Fed Up, I was inclined to look for trustworthy dietary advice online. Without getting into arguments about whether Fed Up makes a good argument about sugar consumption, one thing they did for sure was highlight the biases of some institutions like the USDA.

Now I'm trying to find (relatively) unbiased information about food and nutrition.

Some websites that seem popular:

So, can anyone recommend websites which base their advice on peer-reviewed scientific literature, and which do not have ties with the food production industry?

PS. I asked this question over at Skeptics.SE, but it was deemed offtopic there. It was suggested I might ask here. It does fit with the topic "Environmental or nutritional factors that affect health", but I'm not certain it describes a specific enough problem. Nevertheless, I hope it is useful to the audience of this site to have an answer to my question.

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  • examine.com while not a supplier of nutritional information has a lot of independently verified analysis on micronutrients.
    – John
    Commented Jul 25, 2016 at 11:45
  • @JJosaur: could you put this in an answer? That way visitors of the site can vote on it.
    – Frank Kusters
    Commented Aug 9, 2016 at 8:39
  • It doesn't answer your question, that site specifically answers questions about nutrition myths and supplements. It isn't a breakdown by-food. Otherwise I would have put it as an answer.
    – John
    Commented Aug 9, 2016 at 9:12
  • It's sure as heck has information on food and nutrition! For example: "Is whole wheat bread better than white bread?". This absolutely conforms to my quest for "unbiased websites with information about food and nutrition", just as much as the answer about NutritionFacts.org does. Please add it as an answer, so I can upvote it.
    – Frank Kusters
    Commented Aug 9, 2016 at 14:00
  • 1
    oh go on then, you twisted my arm.
    – John
    Commented Aug 9, 2016 at 14:11

8 Answers 8

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You can try the Harvard Nutrition Source. It seems to be very science based, although outside interests are always present. I guess the best way to get scientific data is using and comparing various sources of data.

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Well, if you really want a website that offers easy to understand information that is based on scientific studies, then there is one site that I would recommend to you:

Nutritionfacts

It's basically driven by one Guy, Michael Greger M.D., who has a team of people who constantly dig through the latest scientific papers and bundle the information into easily digestible short videos and blog posts. Each video has a small button right of it which is easily overlooked, titled "Sources cited", where it lists all the sources for the information listed in the video.

Aside of these, there are longer videos at the bottom of the site titled "Nutrition Year-in-Review", which are recorded speeches of Mr. Greger where he summarizes the latest in nutrition science.

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  • This site doesn't have a good overview of advice (you probably need to buy the book for that...). However, it does scientifically answer a lot of good questions ("if white rice is bad for you, how about Asian diets?").
    – Frank Kusters
    Commented Jun 27, 2016 at 9:47
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NIH.gov is good for all kinds of things health, including alternative therapies and nutrition. They also have a newsletter.

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Good sources are review articles published in peer reviewed journals such as The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. To apply whatever information you get from there to your own diet, you need to know the content of nutrients in your food. You can obtained detailed information from this website. Protein content is given in terms of all the amino acids, fats in terms all the different types of fatty acids molecules.

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Examine.com

The site does not give detailed breakdown of the nutritional values of specific foods but what it does give is arguably more useful to the Average Joe.

Examine.com is an independent and unbiased encyclopaedia on supplementation and nutrition. They are not affiliated in any way with any supplement company (disclosure below).

The site is run by editors who examine primary research. Users are encouraged to submit corrections and any research we may have missed.

Disclosure

Examine.com is an unbiased nutrition and supplement resource. We are not influenced by commercial interests, product manufacturers, or any other organization, and we will not advertise products or brands. Examine.com does not accept donations, third-party funding, or sponsorship of any kind. One hundred percent of our revenue is generated through our three products: the Examine.com Research Digest, Supplement-Goals Reference, and the Supplement Stack Guides.

For nutrition specifically then go to: http://examine.com/nutrition/

Their top Q&A's are:

  1. Is saturated fat bad for me? (Saturated fat, as an all-inclusive category, has not yet been shown to beneficially or adversely affect heart health.)
  2. Is diet soda bad for you? (There are no studies that indicate any long-term health risks from drinking diet soda)
  3. Do I need to eat six times a day to keep my metabolism high? (There is no evidence to support the idea that multiple meals increases metabolic rate)
  4. What should I eat for weight loss? (Eat less. Different diets can make this easier, so pick whichever one best fits your lifestyle. Ultimately, you need to reduce your caloric intake.)
  5. Is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) worse than sugar? (There currently is no good evidence to suggest that one is worse than the other; either they are both inert or they are both evil. The difference between them is too small to matter in moderate consumption, and in excess both are harmful to health)

And my favourite hidden gem on that site is the topic on green tea:

It has been implicated in benefiting almost every organ system in the body. It is cardioprotective, neuroprotective, anti-obesity, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic, anti-artherogenic, liver protective and beneficial for blood vessel health. These beneficial effects are seen in doses present both in green tea itself (as a drink) as well as from a supplemental form.

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The Mayo Clinic website is a great source of reliable information and a place to start. If you want to dig deeper, NIH website as someone pointed out has many comprehensive resources. See here for the Office of Dietary Supplements, for example. It's not just supplements btw, but info on e.g. how much of a given vitamin or mineral like iron a person needs given their background and which foods contain in (and how much per serving).

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I use this one, mainly because of it's extensive micro-nutrient details including minerals, vitamins and fatty acids, and protein/amino acid analysis:

http://nutritiondata.self.com

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One way to find reliable nutrition info is to first limit your search to an exact question, for example, can high intake of potassium from foods or supplements decrease the risk of heart disease?

Next, put some of the keywords from the question into a search engine and add "systematic review." You can often find at least 3-5 reviews.

Examples of websites with systematic reviews:

  • PubMed Central (A library of articles from various peer-reviewd medical journals)
  • Cochrane (Strict reviews)
  • Linus Pauling Institute (One-page-one nutrient reviews of the effects of nutrients, mainly vitamins and minerals, about their effectiveness in the prevention and treatment of different diseases).
  • Office of Dietary Supplements (Similar as Linus Pauling Institute)

It is then good to check few reviews, because their conclusion often differ markedly from each other.

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