Diet choices and trade-offs

There seems to me to be an ideologic and identity race of which is the superior diet out there today more than ever. For example the biased vegan propaganda film "Game Changers". I think the notion that there is one diet that is optimal for humans is fundamentally flawed unless we can formulate our question with better precision, definitions and some constraints and nuances. I think there are some general points we can agree upon that is supported by biochemistry, antropology, archeology, biology, etc. However the answer will often not be less complex than the question which is why the question needs to be a well enough designed construct. No one diet for humans can be better than all diets, simply because we respond differently to different nutritional and biochemical inputs. The problem and its answer could be visualised as a mathematical function that maps from the set of all humans and specific diets, the set of point in space-time (on earth) to the set to all outcomes from that diet. Already here we realise that everything else may be confounding variables to varying degrees of magnitude. I would even go further to say that what diet is optimal is a too limited question. I think that what diets (pluralis) is a better one. Add the time-axis to the answer and I would be so bold as to guess that the answer will be that there are multiple diets that are good for you and bad for you and all in between, and that this evaluation will depend on the choice of metrics, and which weighing evaluation system is the appropriate or most relevant one depends. It is a matter of choice and prioritisation. What is important to you? what trade-offs are you willing to make? It might even be so there is ordered dependencies among choices of diet strategies, that is the model has state with respect to time.

So for me. There may be more than one independent diet or independent set of nutritional strategies, that will have equal good outcomes, but this depends of the value-system I choice to measure this with. And this "function" or these functions (where each function is in conjunction with a value-system) will potentially vary over time. How this varies over time may be affected by the prior effects of the diets and other independent or dependent factors.

Realising the complexity and perceived intractability of this problem makes me so humored by those who actually take the super-simplified version fo this question seriously. So, to make this worth while we have to make trade-offs. Trade-offs in what we want to achieve. Trade-offs in the precision of evaluating this question by constructing it in such a way that it can actually give us an answer that holds true in reality(which in itself is non-trivially defined). So with the assumption that I have simplified the question and problem sufficiently to be confident in providing tangible answers to "my diet" choice I would for example be willing to make certain health trade-offs as long as I get the cognitive performance and neurological longevity benefits that I can see with regard to certain parameters on a ketogenic diet of a specific type that is congruent with me at this time. I will still continuously have to tweak it over time to go in that direction, but this is a trade-off solution to the "set of equations" I am willing to live with. So essentially my brain and nervous system will supposedly thrive longer compared to doing most other protocols evaluated with the same thought experiment.

Perfection is futile, in as far as it maps to the outside reality (if that exists). Be willing to find the equilibrium that is tractable and achieves your goal is isomorphic to being willing to make trade-offs. The question is which trade-offs are you willing to make? What is important to you? (and compared to what?)