The bulk of food fads, or indeed any other type of nonsense 'science', doesn't actually come from scientists at all. Instead, its generally PR hype, a barely rewritten press release, and the lazy and ignorant attitude of the media. Whenever someone on the internet writes 'scientists said', you can pretty much bet that it actually came from an article in the popular press, often with a quote from someone who is either trying to sell something, or someone who is just making up stuff from almost nothing.
If you want to know just how rubbish most coverage of science is, then read this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1
When the link to it was first posted on Scienceblogs we all laughed - its funny because its true. But thats quite tragic - because thats exactly the sort of rubbish that gets published all the time. Think about how many Express or Mail front pages have proclaim some miracle cure. And dont even started on the Internet....
Food fads are nothing new, which is how we ended up with Kelloggs Cornflakes, etc. If you want to know more about food fads (which tend to get reinvented every so often), you could start with the classic '
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science' by Martin Gardner. It was first published in 1952, but sadly, not a lot has changed. It has a pretty interesting article on Scientology, which is also still with us.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fads-Fallac...386531&sr=8-1&keywords=fads+fallacies+science
Ben Goldacre covers some of the same ground in his excellent
Bad Science.
http://www.badscience.net/
He really lays into the nonsense that the media churns up, and is incrediably useful as a guide to sorting whats good from whats worthless. His new one is on my Christmas list, as is the T-Shirt with the phrase '
I think you'll find its a bit more complicated than that'. I bought one for my friend last year, and everyone where he works now wants one as well. He also has a go at the Gillian McKeith's of this world, and 'nutritionists' gets a good kicking. Dara O'Briain has a fantastic bit about this as well:
[video=youtube;uDYba0m6ztE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDYba0m6ztE[/video]
There are loads of good books on food, and what works. Michael Pollan has written some excellent stuff
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Defence-Foo...4HQ_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448393343&sr=1-2, and his advice on avoiding food fads is good, as is his dietry advice - "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.".
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
And I'd recommend Barbara Kingsolver's book '
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle', which looks carefully (and without much sentiment) at eating locally. Her attempt to get turkeys to mate makes you laugh.
Paleo diets sound like the those other faddish diets - 'what would Jesus eat? , etc'. There is nothing wrong with eating a diet high in veg, low in processed stuff, lots of fish, more healthy forms of fat, etc. But cutting out stuff because someone might or might not have eaten it in the past makes no sense.
In a month we'll get the normal 'detoxing' articles - so the same old rubbish gets recycled every year.
I would have expected a science site to get a bit more in depth but it makes it look a bit like they just want advert clicks.
