Harvard professor tests popular diets himself to find out what actually works
Harvard University professor Daniel Lieberman examines popular diets — from paleo to keto — in his book Fed Up, testing them on himself. In a podcast, he reveals which one has stuck as part of his routine.
Diet trends keep multiplying across social media, each drawing its own devoted following — paleo, keto, raw food, intermittent fasting, and more. For most people, though, it's difficult to tell which of these approaches are actually supported by science and which are best ignored.
Trying to bring some clarity to the debate, Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological sciences at Harvard University, has written a book called Fed Up. Lieberman is an evolutionary anthropologist, and he draws on that background to scrutinise the evidence behind various dietary approaches.
Turning himself into a test subject
Rather than relying solely on a review of existing research, Lieberman went further, turning himself into something of a guinea pig by trying out several of the diets himself to see their effects firsthand.
In a recent podcast conversation with Ian Sample, Lieberman discussed which of the diets he tested has remained a lasting part of his own routine even after finishing the book. The conversation offers insight into his personal experience alongside the conclusions he reached by weighing different eating approaches against the available scientific evidence.
The discussion also touches on why diet trends spread so quickly on social media, and why approaches as different as the meat-heavy paleo diet, the high-fat keto diet, raw food eating, and intermittent fasting each manage to build loyal communities of followers, regardless of how strong the underlying scientific support actually is.
Fed Up and the accompanying podcast bring an evolutionary anthropologist's perspective to modern eating habits, aiming to separate genuinely evidence-based advice from popular but not always proven claims about how humans should eat.
