Reader Response: Are there any foods that were not at one time considered harmful in a study?

Are there any foods that have not at any time been found to be harmful in a study? Tony Clancy, Malvern

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Reader Response

The vast majority of credible academic studies in the field of nutrition conclude that no food is harmful provided it is picked up within five seconds after being thrown away. Mobilepope

Almost everything is harmful if you consume enough of it, including things that will also kill you if you consume too little. Water is a good example. Too little, and you'll die of dehydration, but it will also kill you if you drink too much, because your blood sodium levels drop too low ("hyponatremia"). This may well have been the cause of death for some people who died after taking ecstasy (MDMA) - when trying to stay hydrated, they overdid it. Shasarak

The answer must be no. I started doing random searches for "dangers" and after 10 I gave up because there were too many results. Certainly, several had won the Ignobel Prize. For bananas, the biggest success was a university study on the dangers of using the skins to treat cracked nipples. MabLlechIdris

The problem is that the advice of governments in the past was deeply wrong. Partly it is alleged, because of lobbying, partly because the consumer could not understand that unsaturated fats were good or good, but saturated fats were bad. I think that complicates things because people see official advice changing it 'feels' like being told not to eat eggs one day and then being encouraged the next day. _Be_Kind_

I think it's more that people seem to struggle with anything that can't be summed up in a six-second tweet or soundbite, because the people are looking for simple binary answers. Is it good or bad…and the general reality of most scientific answers is that generally “it depends on the specific circumstances such as…” which is the point that most people have turned off. Paperingover

MSG (monosodium glutamate). For years, many scientific researchers and baseless slanders have hoped to condemn MSG, following the racist term “Chinese restaurant symptoms”. Despite outsized efforts to slander it, MSG has maintained its innocence on the FDA's Gras List (generally recognized as safe) and continues to be one of the most widely used and safest additives in the food industry. JJ

My mom was 3lbs and 4lbs when she died 11 years ago. A lifelong follower of the Daily Express and an avid reader of Top Santé magazine, she was severed twice, where she was force-fed. She believed what she read, understood no ulterior motive in posting an article about the dangers of canned salmon or roasted tea cakes. Taking it all as gospel, she cut all food once a bad word was posted about it. She died believing that statins were, or weren't, the answer to everything. The only remaining item she would happily eat were organic tomatoes. Did she somehow ignore this article, is it post-death, or are they still shielded from the scrutiny of the Express? John Roughton, Hereford

Part of the conflict for me is illustrated by the publication of erroneous studies, e.g. too few samples, too short a time frame, self-reporting , lack of sufficient peer review and/or stakeholder sponsorship. Also, when I read "probably, possibly the case, it seems likely, requires further investigation, possibly, would seem to indicate" I immediately perceive garbage. The presence of certain words such as "superfood" should be enough to dismiss everything that follows as hyperbole. Unfortunately, most of what is published about food, exercise, health care, diet, etc. is simply a worthless fog. phrixus

In the 21st century, it's the way food is produced, processed and marketed that is bad for us. Also, moderation in all things; wealthy Western countries suffer from food allergies and so on far more than countries in Southeast Asia or the Indian subcontinent. Expecting to eat hamburgers every day is bad for everyone...