I have arrived at a point where I understand that each person’s biochemistry is unique and each must work out their own diet to suit their life goals, life style, genetic predisposition and current state of health.  There is no single, one, all-encompassing, correct diet.  But, there is a single, basic, underlying Principle of Nutrition that is universally true.  In its most simplified form, the basic equation of human health goes:  Health = Nutrition / Calories.  The equation falls far short of explaining the origin of each individuals diseases or how to cure diseases but Health = Nutrition / Calories does show the general path toward healthful eating and proper medicine.

All animals have the exact same dietary problem:  finding enough nutrition to build and maintain their bodies within the limits of their digestive capacity.  Rarely in nature (except for predatory carnivores) is there any significant restriction on the number of calories or serious limitation of the amount of low-nutrition foods available to eat.  There’s rarely any shortage of natural junk food on Earth.  Except for domesticated house pets, animals are sensible enough to prefer the most nutritional fare available and tend to shun empty calories unless they are starving.

But humans are perverse, not sensible.  Deciding on the basis of artificially-created flavors, preferring incipid textures, we seem to prefer junk food and become slaves to our food addictions.  For example, in tropical countries there is a widely grown root crop, called in various places:  tapioca, tavioca, manioc, or yuca.  This interesting plant produces the greatest tonnage of edible, digestible, pleasant-tasting calories per acre compared to any other food crop I know.  Manioc might seem the answer to human starvation because it will grow abundantly on tropical soils so infertile and/or so droughty that no other food crop will succeed there.  Manioc will do this because it needs virtually nothing from the soil to construct itself with.  And consequently, manioc puts next to nothing nourishing into its edible parts.  The bland-tasting root is virtually pure starch, a simple carbohydrate not much different than pure corn starch.  Plants construct starches from carbon dioxide gas obtained the air and hydrogen obtained from water.  There is no shortage ever of carbon from CO2 in the air and rarely a shortage of hydrogen from water.  When the highly digestible starch in manioc is chewed, digestive enzymes readily convert it into sugar.  Nutritionally there is virtually no difference between eating manioc and eating white sugar.  Both are entirely empty calories.