Hidden Heart

Our morning walk, undertaken in a small and unpredictable window between rainstorms yielded very little since it was also the same walk we take several times a week. This walnut shell undoubtedly carried from elsewhere by birds caught my eye because of the perfect heart revealed within.*

Apart from a quick trip to pick up Blake, who gets lonely at home by himself all day, I've barely moved from the couch. I've had plenty of time to catch up on the Sunday New York Times, and was fascinated by an article on diet and artificial intelligence. 

I think most of us have think we have some notion about what constitutes a healthy diet, but it turns out that despite government issued food pyramids, incomprehensible labels on food and thousands of miracle diets, we really don't know much about it at all. We've all read diet studies, studies that refute other studies or studies that turn out to be funded by the very food producers of the food being studied. We lose weight or gain weigh, feel better or think we feel better, but the ultimate conclusion of this article is that the central flaw in the whole premise is the idea that there is one optimal diet for all people.  

Researchers in Israel have used artificial intelligence to analyze huge amounts of data provided by hundreds of individuals to illustrate this conclusion. Combining details of metabolism, microbiome  and environment the researchers have concluded that a good diet needs to be individualized. These are the same researchers who discovered that our microbiome determines more about our response to what we eat than what food we  eat.

It's a fascinating article, but doesn't reach any conclusions, given the amount and complexity of the data and the limitations of artificial intelligence, about how to create individualized diets. What if the computer comes up with a diet of foods you hate? Or you have an unknown health condition that precludes you from eating certain foods? I think my grandmother had the right idea when she said (about almost everything) 'all things in moderation.'

*There is more than a heart hidden in this shell. Putting the picture up on the computer it appears to have one or perhaps two really gross looking worms in it. I decided to use a smaller image and not point this out at the beginning of my musing about food....