How important is a balanced diet, really?

[KarlGauss]

I’ll go first.

While not literally testing a “balanced” diet, the diet in the following three randomized control trials all included high fibre, low fat, high vegetables, and high fruit - so approaching, if not identical to, what I think a reasonable person would call “balanced”:

• a low fat diet (with lots of fibre, veggies, and fruit) doesn’t reduce the development of colon cancer

• a low fat diet (with lots of fibre, veggies, and fruit) doesn’t reduce the development of invasive breast cancer

• a low fat diet (with lots of fibre, veggies, and fruit) doesn’t reduce the development of cardiovascular disease