r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • 23h ago
Health A switch of just two weeks from a traditional African diet to a Western diet causes inflammation, reduces the immune response to pathogens, and activates processes associated with lifestyle diseases. Conversely, an African diet rich in vegetables, fiber, and fermented foods has positive effects.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/10789734.8k
u/moxsox 22h ago
“African diet”.
Has anyone been to different countries in Africa? The food in Egypt versus Niger versus South Africa versus Tanzania is quite different.
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u/Gurkeprinsen 22h ago
Tbf, you could say the same about "western"
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u/Beliriel 22h ago
Yeah, you can substitute "high in fiber and vegetables" for mediterranean. Has also been studied. Probably the best Western diet you can eat.
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u/MRSN4P 21h ago
Agreed. Any meal prepared in a style older than 1950, (which is traditional in all culturally Western countries), is high in vegetables, fiber, and includes fermented foods. Ultra High Processed Foods, sugar, fast food, and industrial food additives developed post 1950 are the culprit, and are not the only thing being eaten in western countries, and there are many healthy western diets, as evidenced by the quality of life and lifespan of people in France, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland…
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u/DocSprotte 12h ago
The famous healthy German "fat with grease on it" diet, washed down with life threatening amounts of alcohole.
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u/knollexx 10h ago
Germany's meat consumption per capita is just about the lowest in Europe, less than half of that of the US. Sure, the few famous dishes we have may be fatty, but these dishes don't encapsulate our entire diet.
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u/croana 10h ago
Is this really true? I have such a hard time believing this because literally every standard hot German meal (usually lunch) is meat + potatoes + (creamy) sauce + veg for decoration. Breakfast is bread + cured meat or cheese or jam etc. Or it's muesli and yoghurt. Dinner is bread + cured meat or cheese + raw veg like cucumber or carrots or something (for children).
It's been over 10 years since I lived in Germany, but I have a really hard time believing that they eat the LEAST meat per capita. Sorry. Vegetarian or (gasp) vegan options were always basically just sad soups or potatoes or naked salad or just dessert like rice pudding etc. The only way I could possibly imagine that this stat holds up is that Germans might eat a lot more bread than some other EU countries, and therefore eat less meat overall, even if it is ubiquitous at every meal.
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u/knollexx 10h ago
https://www.schweine.net/images/sizes/1500x1257/2024-bildmaterial/fleischverzehr-pro-kopf-eu-neu.png
If you haven't lived here in over a decade, you haven't had a chance to see that the vegan offerings in supermarkets have had a meteoric rise in both quality and quantity in recent times.
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u/croana 9h ago edited 9h ago
That's really great news, thank you for sharing.
It's crazy how big a difference there is between e.g. Denmark and Germany. I mostly lived in the far north of Germany, so maybe that's also affected my experience. Tbh I always had the impression that south German cuisine was more meat (sausage) heavy than in the north, but clearly my impression based off of living with Boomers as a teenage exchange student, and then my student experience with Mensa food is not up to date.
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u/Comrade_Derpsky 7h ago
Meat is still big, but there has indeed been a large increase in the popularity of vegetarian foods.
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u/Eihe3939 10h ago
Meat and fat are not the enemy. Excessive carbs and sugar are.
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u/Pianopatte 10h ago
Saturated fats and trans fats beg to differ. As does red and processed meat.
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u/MRSN4P 7h ago
Bad fats are bad, but also the sugar industry paid for fake healthy studies for over 50 years. What did they redirect blame of sugar-caused healthy impacts towards? Fat.
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u/Gastronomicus 4h ago
trans fats
Trans fats are mostly byproducts of vegetable oil hydrogenation. The main source of consuming these come from eating cheap pastries, where much carbs and sugar come from for people eating ultraprocessed foods.
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u/MrCockingFinally 10h ago
Your German diet from pre-industrial times would have included a lot of whole grains and fermented/pickled vegetables.
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u/DocSprotte 10h ago
Mostly kale and beets probably.
Would be interesting to know more. The regional differences were probably huge.
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u/MrCockingFinally 10h ago
Yeah, exactly. Heavily dependent on what grew well wherever you lived. The big issues with the modern diet is too much fat, sugar, and meat. Too much highly processed foods. Not enough vegetables and fibre.
Now pre-industrial diets weren't necessarily good. Off the top of my head the ancient Egyptians ate wai too many carbs. And I'd say too many carbs were probably the main issue with pre-industrial diets, because grains grow a lot of calories per acre and are easy to store.
But you would certainly be eating way more fiber at least. Hopefully more vegetables. And obviously no processed food.
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u/Cute_Committee6151 11h ago
Oh the diet my father was on.... Being poor it was just sugar with sugar.
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u/OnlyOneChainz 11h ago edited 9h ago
At least we also eat fermented stuff. And lots of whole grain rye bread. It's not the healthiest diet but also not the worst, especially decades ago when we didn't have meat at every meal.
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u/ololcopter 15h ago
Oh yeah? You mean like corned beef hash and toast or a towering pastrami on rye?
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u/Ferelar 13h ago
Yeah, definitely agree that saying ANY traditional Western meal from <1950 is healthy is too far. But I would argue that most or at least a heavy proportion of them were. And similarly you can certainly pick out some traditional African meals that are potentially very unhealthy when eaten in large amounts if we're looking to pick out specific examples, like mielie pap, fufu, etc. I'd say every culture/group of cultures has historic healthy foods and historic, uh... "comfort" foods that should only be eaten in moderation.
The big problem in the West is that the comfort foods have been prioritized and access/availability greatly enhanced to the point that they're the MAJORITY of the diet, while the healthier foods are harder to access and more expensive. If we shift that balance back towards plenty of healthy Western meals, it'd be a lot better for us. And I suspect if we compared the staple diets of a Westerner in 1900 to the staple diets of a Westerner in 2025, we'd see very similar results regarding inflammation, immune response, etc.
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u/nikilization 10h ago
Meals from 100 yrs ago contain almost no meat, and sugar was only in desserts. Today every meal is centered around meat, and has an absurd amount of sugar. Your salad dressing shouldnt have the same amount of sugar as a chocolate chip cookie, its insidious.
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u/Ferelar 10h ago
In the US in particular, high fructose corn syrup is put in just about everything, which is simultaneously a cost saving measure, flavoring solution, and a way to empower and curry favor with corn farmers. Insidious is exactly right.
And yeah, going back to my main point, I'd say this isn't a "Western meals suck African meals are amazing", I'd say this is "Western meals have been perverted and it's killing us, rebalancing back to old nutrient levels and dish makeups would likely put it in line with the value of African meals that haven't suffered these corruptions as much".
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u/panda_ammonium 9h ago
Yes, and it isn't as if there isn't highly processed "junk" food in poor countries like India. It's just that here we also have affordable vegetables, fruits, whole grains around the year because of the tropical climate. So it has more to do with big corporations regulatory capture and the climate.
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u/gattar5 18h ago
The "Mediterranean diet" is a prescriptive diet invented by an American scientist studying heart disease, it doesn't describe the diet of any large group of people, including those who live in Mediterranean countries.
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u/HelenEk7 13h ago
Correct. A typical Mediterranean diet consists of mostly wholefoods. In other words, they eat a lot less junk food compared to northern Europe. But, they also eat loads of meat and cheese. I live in Norway, and we actually eat less meat compared to both Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus..
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u/Beliriel 16h ago edited 16h ago
It's pretty easy to see what's in it. Any random tomato pasta sauce will do.
A bit of oil (traditionally olive oil but really any cooking oil will do) to sautee diced onions. Random assortment of vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, artichoke, olives, broccoli, fennel, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms.
Cook/steam until soft. Add tomatoes and spices (for italian mainly thyme and oregano, don't forget salt and pepper). That's it. You can add any "easy" carbs on the side to that as you want: potatoes, pasta, bread, rice whatever.Most "Mediterranean" dishes are something like that. Depending on the country you switch out the spices and the "liquid generator". Here it's tomatoes, but can be milk, cream, wine and/or broth. Technically oil/fat or syrup would work too but I hope you see the problem with that :)
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u/caltheon 14h ago
The name was coined by Ancel Keys, but it came from studying the diets of Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, and Israel, so your point is kind of dumb. It's still a diet of those countries even if the popular name for it was coined by someone else.
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u/HelenEk7 13h ago edited 7h ago
but it came from studying the diets of Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, and Israel, so your point is kind of dumb.
I live in Norway and we eat less meat than all the countries you listed.. We on the other hand eat more fish than all of them, except Portugal (who interestingly imports lots of fish from Norway).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-type?country=PRT~ESP~ISR~NOR~GRC~ITA~FRA~HRV
So a Mediterranean diet based on what these countries actually eat is a wholefood diet high in both vegetables and high in meat. And they eat way more meat than fish.
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u/HelenEk7 13h ago edited 12h ago
Yeah, you can substitute "high in fiber and vegetables" for mediterranean. Has also been studied. Probably the best Western diet you can eat.
I agree that a mediterranean is healthy. But I think a northern European diet is just as healthy when you cook the food from scratch using wholefoods. Its the junk food /ultra-processed food we are currently eating that's the problem. I live in northern Europe and people in several countries up here had the longest life expectancy for hundreds of years. (Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark..)
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u/TalonKAringham 10h ago
Most of the Best Westerns I’ve been too only serve the ol’ continental breakfast.
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u/ChillerCatman 18h ago
For real. I think the missing keyword here is “processed”
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u/Melodic_Junket_2031 22h ago
Vegetables and fiber is pretty broadly speaking
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 20h ago
Sure, but the term "African diet" is still stupid.
Saying "research conducted in Africa showed that switching from a diet rich in fiber to Doritos caused issues."
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u/raccoonsonbicycles 19h ago
Man, this made me miss my favorite Ethiopian restaurant that went under during the recession, RIP
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u/TimJBenham 13h ago
All cultures eat vegetables and fibre. They're not specific to Africans (who are quite diverse, as others have rightly pointed out).
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u/Levofloxacine 22h ago
I mean the article very clearly mentions the study took place in Tanzania, so I assume this is this particular cuisine they’re talking about. I agree they should’ve just said Tanzanian diet however.
I guess it’s kind of like the fact Mediterranean diet is quite vague as well.
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u/LegitimateFoot3666 17h ago
A rich Swahili oligarch in Dar es Salaam is not eating like a poor Chagga farmer
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u/all_seeing_one 2h ago
But I'd wager the average Chagga Farmer eats better than the average Westerner, especially an American. Source: A Chagga person with an agricultural family.
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u/romario77 20h ago edited 19h ago
And what is “western diet”? Is Japanese restaurant food in New York a type of western diet? Is Ukrainian borscht a type of western diet?
They most likely refer to fast food, I don’t think you can call that western diet.
For example as i understand one of the most popular foods in England is Indian.
Edit: they talk a bit about it in the article:
how harmful an unhealthy Western diet can be. It typically consists of processed and high-calorie foods, such as French fries and white bread, with excessive salt, refined sugars, and saturated fats.
I think the authors have a bias just by how they write the article and how they name things, so I have hard time trusting the conclusions just because of that.
Words like “excessive salt” - did they oversalt the food? They can use the name usually used for it - junk food.
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u/BolognaTogna 18h ago
The article shows examples of the meals:
1) Sausages and bread with margarine and fruit jam
2) French fries with eggs and chicken with mayo and ketchup
3) Sausages, pancakes, fries, and biscuits/cookiesSo basically, /r/stonerfood
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u/troelsy 10h ago
Well, it seems Tanzanians have some bias if they think that's a "western diet". Does have a bit of a tooting your own horn vibe, not gonna lie.
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u/Coakis 8h ago
Those seem to be the most calorie dense and salty western food products possible that they could have chosen. Maybe some eat that daily but I doubt that most are.
Im a fat pos, but even I find those excessive.
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u/Soggy_Association491 6h ago
Look like authors of the study deliberately trying to steer the result into a conclusion they want.
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u/Velocity_LP 12h ago
And what is “western diet”?
If you're ever asking yourself "what does [term] specifically mean in the context of this study", read the study, they usually define their terms.
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u/largeanimethighs 19h ago
western diet here means sugar pancakes and sugar cereal for breakfast , a big mac for lunch, and finally some fried chicken + pizza with soda
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u/Divinum_Fulmen 15h ago
That's not a western diet. Most people don't eat like that anywhere. That shits expensive.
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u/Tzchmo 6h ago
Lots of people do and unfortunately lots of lower income people eat worse and spend more money on food. Education and convenience play a lot into it.
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u/RichardWiggls 21h ago
Right. I think that's just how titles work though, if the title specified Tanzania then using the word Western might make people think western Africa. If you want to know more specifics you just read the article
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u/Anderrn 19h ago
It’s a pretty well documented issue when it comes to anything with a root anywhere in the continent of Africa. Last I read, it’s basically the end result of a systemic prioritization of European history in schools. Americans are much more familiar with European countries than specific countries in Africa. So, it’s a positive feedback loop of very little discussion of what Africa actually entails geographically, culturally, linguistically, etc.
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u/helm MS | Physics | Quantum Optics 10h ago
Mediterranean diet has a scientific definition that most researchers agree on. I don't know if the same goes for an "African diet".
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u/Levofloxacine 6h ago
If you read the article, they mention just that, that Mediterranean is researched a lot, and not African diet, but they want it to be more studied in a scientific context…
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u/LegitimateFoot3666 17h ago
Nigerian food is so oily and carby your head would spin
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u/oscarddt 22h ago
The scope of the "Western diet" begins in Israel and ends in Australia.
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u/allstar278 21h ago
Israel is western ?
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 20h ago
There's no good definition of "western", and it's certainly not a geographic thing in many cases (Japan is a Western country in many ways, as is Australia and New Zealand). I'd say Israel generally counts towards Western groupings.
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u/bagofpork 20h ago edited 9h ago
Israel's cultural and political elites absolutely view themselves as a part of western civilization, and as a whole, Israel models their society in that way. So, yes, culturally and politically, they are western.
Edit: Guys, this is an objective truth. Sorry if that hurts your feelings. "Western" doesn't mean "good." It means philosophically "Western."
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u/LegitimateFoot3666 17h ago
So does Lebanon, what of it?
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u/Secret-One2890 8h ago
In many places, Lebanese food is an important component of the Western diet, specifically on weekends between midnight and 4am.
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u/bagofpork 11h ago edited 7h ago
Lebanon is heavily influenced by Western culture, but traditional Arab heritage/culture is much more prevalent in that region than it is in Israel. In that sense, it kind of falls somewhere between an Eastern and Western culture.
what of it?
Are you asking for my personal opinion on the matter? Your tone is somewhat confrontational, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
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u/Langstarr 20h ago
I worked at an Israeli restaurant and much of the food has European influences, which I don't think is unusual given the history. Schnitzel is incredibly popular.
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u/darkscyde 15h ago
I partially agree with you but the next time you read "Mediterranean diet" or "western diet" ask the same question. Which country?
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u/Ninja-Ginge 19h ago
Yeah, I was about to ask. Africa is an entire continent. It is incredibly diverse, culturally, genetically and environmentally. There are many different ethnic groups that have access to very different foods. So which group are they talking about?
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u/smilelaughenjoy 15h ago
The article says, "'The African diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, and fermented foods."
They mentioned people drinking a fermented banana drink daily which "showed a reduction in inflammatory markers", and that some of the effects remained even four weeks later. After a little bit of research online, I think that drink is probably Mbege.
Okra and watermelon and coffee are all originated from East Africa (not specifically Tanzania though, which was the country mentioned in the article). Ugali is eaten in East Africa (including Tanzania), it's made from corn flour being boiled in milk or water until it becomes thick and like dough, and it can be eaten with things like collard greens or beans or soups. It's similar to fufu. The two most popular meats in a traditional African diet seem to be goat and chicken, but sometimes beef and fish are eaten. East African diets tend to be more vegetable-heavy and include more dairy than West African diets which tend to be more meat-heavy.
Indian food also influenced East African food, such as samosas and biryani and chapati and chai (blacktea with milk and seasonings like sugar and cinnamon and ginger and cloves) and curry (fish curry and lentil curry and chicken curry seem to be popular). Curry spices are also used in Jollof rice in West Africa, so I guess there is some Influence from Indian food in West Africa too. Curry is also eaten in South Africa.
Hopefully, all of this was helpful to try to understand what they probably meant by a "Traditional African Diet".
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u/Drig-Drishya-Viveka 20h ago
“Planet Earth” diet, they might as well have said
The same goes for the Mediterranean diet. I don't know anyone in the mediterranean who eats that way. When I visit Italy, people on the coastline have abundant seafood. If you go 10 miles inland, people eat all pork.
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u/bjb406 23h ago
Fiber and probiotics are good, and the sudden removal of them can be bad. Not exactly new information.
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 20h ago
But also, ANY diet switch will be bad. Ask people what happened when they went vegan for the first month.
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u/Beeblebroxia 20h ago
Conversely, I stopped eating beef for a long time. Any time I have it now, I can't make plans after.
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u/Afikasi 20h ago
Nothing happened to me. What was meant to happen?
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u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 19h ago
It depends on how big of a change it was for you personally. If you were already eating a varied diet with lots of vegetarian proteins before going entirely vegan, your body probably didn't have a whole lot of adjusting to do. But for a person who does not eat a lot of soy products and legumes and so on, switching to that from beef & chicken is a huge change for your body -- suddenly it's making all the wrong digestive enzymes and needs time to do a whole production changeover. And also some people need more time for this to happen than others.
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u/Amish_Thunder 16h ago
a huge change for your body -- suddenly it's making all the wrong digestive enzymes
Just wanted to make a slightly clarification to this. This is the majority of your intestinal biome complaining that it's not getting the nutrients it wants and fighting your body to train your back into eating what it's used to digesting.
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 20h ago
Lots of people get various digestive issues with ANY change in diet. Not everyone, obviously.
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u/Lesurous 20h ago
Your body needs time to adjust to strict dietary changes, if your body isn't used to the foods in the new diet you can experience nutrient deficiency and other issues. Humans are omnivorous by nature, which isn't a total barrier to veganism but there are definitive obstacles in achieving a balanced diet that must be taken into consideration for personal health.
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u/SelarDorr 18h ago
"In contrast, the switch from Western-style to heritage-style diet or consuming the fermented beverage had a largely anti-inflammatory effect."
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u/9nine_problems 17h ago
The title specifically calls out that the converse diet change was POSITIVE. Like you didn't even need to read the article. Just the TITLE. Reading comprehension is so fucked.
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u/randomly-what 20h ago
Nothing happened to my husband when he did it for a year.
Also nothing happened to him after he switched back to meat after a year.
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u/Robert_Grave 22h ago
I... what?
The western diet examples provided in the study are:
- Sausage, white bread, margarine and fruit jam.
- French fires with eggs, chicken, mayonnaise and tomato ketchup.
- Sausage, pancakes, fries with ketchup and biscuits.
The other diets are:
- Porridge with fermented milk
- Porridge of maize, okra and green vegetables.
- Boiled green banana, kidney beans and avocado.
Now I don't want to criticize too much but... isn't this just a study to prove that not eating vegetables is bad for you? I have never, ever, met anyone who lives on such a diet in the western world. Let alone that the diet of an American is going to be incredibly different to someone from the UK, or France, or The Netherlands.
They essentially just switched from a diet of fresh vegetables to the worst junkfood, and then called this a western diet.
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u/paralleliverse 22h ago
Who would even eat that? This is the kind of study you do when you feel like you HAVE to get results or you just really want to start the next diet trend, not when you actually care about science
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u/Xanikk999 22h ago
This 100%. They defined a western diet in very very specific way that does not encompass what most people consume in their diet. It fails to recognize the diversity of actual diets people have in the west. They only defined it this way to get the results they wanted here.
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u/SwayingBacon 21h ago
Seventy-seven healthy men from Tanzania, both urban and rural residents, participated in the study. Some participants who traditionally ate an African diet switched to a Western diet for two weeks, while others who ate a Western diet adopted a traditional African diet. A third group consumed a fermented banana drink daily. As a control, ten participants maintained their usual diet.
They studied the "western diet" of Tanzania.
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u/Lakridspibe 10h ago
I saw an interesting study done in Mongolia about the gut biome and the traditional Mongolian diet - which is super dairy-heavy.
I think we all know about the mutation in some populations that allows adults to digest milk sugar (lactose) as adults. Or rather, in some populations, the production of the milk-digesting enzyme lactase is not suppressed in adults. But most perople in Mongolia don't have that mutation. They don't produse the enzyme lactase as adults. And yet they're able to consume large amounts of milk without discomfort.
It all comes down to lactic acid bacteria in the gut biome. Which is interesting.
But what is relevant to this thread is the difference between gastrointestinal bacteria in those who live in the big city of Ulaanbaatar and those who live far out in the countryside with a traditional lifestyle. People in the big city have the same lack of biodiversity in the gut biome you see in urban populations everywhere.
So when people in this thread is complaining about "this socaled 'western diet', what is it supposed to be?" While eating cup-noodles and drinking energy drink, you know what it is.
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u/Ellen-CherryCharles 18h ago
I absolutely know people that eat like that. I order the food for our meetings at my office and I have one guy who will not eat any vegetables. Doesn’t even get veggies on his burger. His diet is basically alcohol, dairy, sugar, meat (so much meat), carb and grease heavy snacks, and bread.
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u/MustLoveWhales 10h ago
Yeah i hate to admit it, but I eat fruit/veggies like a handful of times per year.
I think malnutrition finally caught up with me at age 36.
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u/imjustjurking 7h ago
My mum is the same and at age 60 I think her diet is about to catch up to her but she's in denial. I started hiding vegetables in her food when I was a teenager.
She avoids vitamin and mineral deficiencies with a daily multivitamin, it has worked pretty well.
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u/Neirchill 5h ago
Same. I mean, I eat vegetables on a burger/sandwich, but overall I wasn't fed them growing up and as a 35 year old adult, no matter how much I try my taste buds won't give in. I actually made some progress with broccoli once until they (the taste buds) decided to mutiny and start making me gag at the taste of something I was starting to like.
Funny enough, I actually like peppers and onions quite a bit but my wife has a small allergy to them, so I'm limited in what capacity I can eat them.
I wish I could follow what people say to make them taste better. Boiling, steaming, and most popular baking them in the oven, I hate it all. Raw carrots and cucumbers are pretty much all I can do otherwise. I guess technically corn and potatoes but I think there are many that would argue they wouldn't count, especially with the amount of butter I slap on corn.
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u/VenkHeerman 13h ago
Yeah, the causality seems pretty far off. Had they included some basic dishes like pasta or even freaking bangers & mash the results would probably be way different.
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u/VenkHeerman 13h ago
Yeah, the causality seems pretty far off. Had they included some basic dishes like pasta or even freaking bangers & mash the results would probably be way different.
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u/Sweaty-Lynx421 4h ago
(In the US) some of my coworkers would start their day with a McDonalds breakfast combo, followed by a few donuts between breakfast and lunch, then hit Chick-Fil-A or Five Guys for lunch.. The 'western diet' above wouldn't have been far off, maybe even marginally healthier.
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u/teriyakininja7 22h ago
Even the title alone makes me suspicious about the study.
As others have pointed out, even the article just says “African Diet” but Africa is a massive continent with quite a diversity of cultures and with that, cultural dietary habits. And “Western diet” again is really odd as a category because “the West” is also quite a conglomeration of various cultures with different cultural dietary habits.
For years we were told that Mediterranean diets were great for your health. Guess what? Mediterranean cultures are typically classified as part of “the West”.
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u/BringBackRoundhouse 22h ago
“Western food” according to the link: It typically consists of processed and high-calorie foods, such as French fries and white bread, with excessive salt, refined sugars, and saturated fats.
Clearly this researcher hasn’t been to Southern California. We love salads as a meal. In fact, it’s difficult to find the variety when I travel internationally.
I don’t eat that unhealthy when I travel and always order veggies. But after a week I’ll definitely crave a gigantic salad. It’s hard to find and it’s always Caesar salad.
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u/Spaghett8 19h ago
It’s pretty dumb tbh. Their definition of western food is processed, high in sugar, fried/high fat food.
But we already know that that a highly processed, fatty, sugary diet is unhealthy. Ofc cutting them out for a natural diet is beneficial.
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u/BringBackRoundhouse 18h ago
I guess they ignored the fact we are a country of immigrants, and our regional foods reflect that.
They basically chose the most negative of the whitest stereotypes and went off that. Not even considering European foods that don’t align with this “Western” profile.
We’re a mixing pot of cultures, and our local foods reflect that.
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u/pheonixblade9 16h ago
Japan has a reputation for being super healthy but my god they love their junk food there. thank goodness they walk a lot, they'd be fatter than Americans.
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u/RigorousBastard 9h ago
Note that the study was done in NL. Europe has far more African immigrants than the USA, and language and cultural terms reflect that.
I lived in south London UK for many years, in various immigrant areas, and yes, 'African' is a generalized term for British Commonwealth countries in the continent of Africa. The term is loosely connected to the African diaspora and Caribbean communities in the UK.
When we lived in S London, my wife would regularly walk down London Road and stop at all the Indian and African produce markets, pick up a fruit or vegetable and ask what it was called, ask how to cook it, spices that go with it, and favorite dishes. All the proprietors knew her. It is a fantastic way to learn about the Commonwealth, trade and history and cultures.
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u/fourthpornalt 19h ago
after skimming the actual study in Nature it seems they specify African Heritage Diets, and their sample is mostly from the Chagga tribe in Tanzania. It's interesting, but they don't put enough emphasis on the fact that this study is on a subset of subset of people on a massive continent.
I'm South African, I've never drank fermented banana in my life.
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u/toodlesandpoodles 22h ago
So what did the group on the "Western diet" eat? I live in a western country and my diet consists of lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, fermented foods, beans and lentils, and whole grains.
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u/SocraticTiger 22h ago
I'd guess a lot of saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, high sodium, etc. I guess that's what it's referring to.
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u/StrayVanu 22h ago
With "western" they definitely mean american. Not a single plant on that menu. Garbage study.
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u/toodlesandpoodles 22h ago
Ah yes, the typical american breakfast of beef stew and pancakes and a lunch of fries and eggs.
No fruit, no vegetables, protein is almost entirely beef. This isn't a western diet. It is just an unhealthy diet missing key nutrients.
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u/encaitar_envinyatar 21h ago
Nutrition research is hard to conduct and media-reported results are usually rubbish. This is actually not so bad as far as that goes because it is an RCT, does not have recall bias, makes objective biochemical measurements, and corresponds with biological plausibility given some of the generalities that are understood from nutrition evidence.
Usually people report what they eat incorrectly, falsely recall past habits, do not get extensive biochemical measurements, and are neither randomized to treatments nor switched to observe changes. So this is really quite good. I think the reporting could reflect that better.
The direct relevance of inflammatory molecules as causing problems or indicating problems is not always clear.
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u/SocraticTiger 22h ago
I'm still kinda confused about "processed food". Every week I look at a source and it either says that its harms are over exaggerated, or that it's the devil's poison itself. Not sure which one to believe.
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u/lanternhead 22h ago
In the context of this experiment, “processed foods” means “beef, french fries, sugary bread.” I think we can all agree that eating that stuff at every meal is, if not inherently unhealthy, at least a surefire way to get too many calories
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u/Seanbikes 22h ago
How exactly is beef a processed food but not any other animal protein?
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u/lanternhead 22h ago
I don’t think it is. The paper discusses “western diets” not “processed foods” so the discussion of processed foods here is a little tangential
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u/lessdes 22h ago
That is completly useless to a lot of people, believe it or not I actually want to know if something is healthy rather then its caloric value.
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u/lanternhead 22h ago
The paper discusses the specifics of the meals themselves and the health effects they cause
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u/PogChampHS 22h ago
Wait there are sources that say processed foods dont significant harm health? Any examples?
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u/FaerieAlchemy 21h ago edited 21h ago
Whooo. Lots of comments in here confused about the Western Diet, and I guess that's to be expected as most people in science are not in nutrition science.
The Western Diet is a specific term in nutrition studies. It does not specifically mean "anywhere in the West" but instead refers to a diet that is high in fat- and more specifically, saturated fats- high in sugar or simple carbohydrates, and low in fiber. It actually does mimic the general eating patterns of a majority of Americans, if for no other reason than because fresh vegetables and produce are expensive and cooking at home is time consuming. For many, many people who are working, raising children, and struggling to make ends meet, this is a huge barrier to access to "healthy" foods.
If you have never had to look at responses to food frequency questionnaires, I can see how this might seem wild and out there. But it is not. There are pockets in America where we see different eating patterns, but- unsurprisingly- those pockets also tend to be more affluent areas.
The Western Diet is used very commonly in nutrition studies, but that is because it is an accurate reflection of the population as a whole.
To my knowledge, there is no such similar standardized diet that falls under the umbrella term for African diet.
Edit: words hard.
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u/AwareHighlight9777 19h ago
What is this fermented banana drink? I googled and found some info about banana beer & banana wine but I imagine that’s not the healthful tonic they were referencing?
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u/ctrlaltcreate 17h ago
Is eurekalert even good science journalism? I feel like I've seen a lot of half-baked studies reported on there.
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u/PocketNicks 15h ago
As a North American, my diet has always been mostly vegetables, fibre, starches and fermented foods.
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u/corn_toes 18h ago
Since so many people here are taking issue with the terms "generalizing" diets, "Traditional African Diet" and "Western Diet", I want to explain their use as someone studying immunology and have read a fair bit of papers on connections between diet and microbiota diversity/immunity/disease.
Diet and medicine has been studied for a long time and it was decades ago that we first started using the term "Western Diet". At the time, this diet was pretty much only found in westernized societies and consisted of highly processed foods, fast food, and sugary drinks. People weren't as health conscious back then and it was really common. So we could say that it really did refer to the diet of westerners.
As other countries also became more modernized and processed foods became more widespread, this diet began popping up in other places. So it no longer referred solely to the diet of westerners, rather the diet of a "westernized" society. Simultaneously, more work was done to characterize what makes this diet different from others and this term will always refer to a diet rich in refined carbs, fat, and low in fibre but scientists may also choose to add "minor" characteristics like high-calorie, low nutrition, etc. Most articles which use the term "western diet" will further define in the introduction somewhere how they are characterizing the western diet in their article.
A lot of amazing work has been done looking at the impacts of this kind of diet and this term has been solidified, so it's going to continue to be used in science even though western societies are becoming more health conscious and potentially diversifying their diet (although this is actually difficult to achieve for many in certain western societies due to economic barriers). (A good review on western diet and inflammation: DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2019.09.020)
Basically, when scientists write or read the term "western diet" they're not going to think: "hmm what's the western diet now?". Recently, I have seen some articles trying to accommodate for changes by calling it "western-type diet", though not sure how much that helps. Here's a well-cited review on
To add to comments which state the "traditional African diet" is vague, it's not in the full article behind the paywall. A quick point: It's well established that low fibre, high refined carbs/sugar diets are bad, but the point of this study was to gather data on underrepresented non-western diet (i.e., the traditional African diet), investigate what happens when you switch from a western diet to traditional African diet (and vice versa), and look at the effect of fermented drinks.
Here's what the study does. First, the authors define the "traditional African diet" and the western diet in the introduction. "Africa has a rich diversity of heritage diets, often rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains and fermented products. (importantly is the inclusion of fermented foods, hence one of the comparison groups wasn't a diet switch but just the addition of a traditional fermented drink). "Western-style diets, high in calorie-dense and processed foods...".
Their definition is directly reflected in their sampling; subjects were only included if their typical diet matched the definition above: "Most rural dwellers in the study were from the Chagga tribe, whose heritage diet is predominantly plant-based, rich in fiber and polyphenols, and includes ‘Mbege’, a fermented banana beverage made with finger millet. [...] Questionnaires were evaluated by a nutritionist to ensure participants were adhering to either a diet typical of the Kilimanjaro region or a Western-style diet. [...] Only participants adhering to either a Kilimanjaro heritage-style diet or Western-style diet were further considered for participation.".
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u/agnostic_science 8h ago
It's missing an important control group: westerners switched to Tanzanian diet. Any diet disruption could be harmful.
Second, this should be more specific. If it's vegetables and lean meats vs no vegetables and red meats, well we've known that for awhile and you don't have to change continents to show it.
Third, the study feels biased because it seems it gets to take the best elements from one diet and basically compare to the worst parts of another.
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u/Crafty_Cellist_4836 19h ago
What exactly is a western diet? Because the west is many countries and each country has its own different died. Radically so
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u/IEatLamas 16h ago
Studie references 2/3 meals with french fries. That's not western, that is US/UK diet. seems like the western meals are things most people know is unhealthy and is only eaten rarely
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u/CosmicLovecraft 20h ago
Would be interested to see how different populations react to each diet. Maybe westerners tolerate this slop better.
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u/Wonderful_Tea8749 17h ago
Balkanian here, after one month of American food every single one of us “ballooned” as we ended up naming it.
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u/Furthur MS|Exercise Physiology|Human Performance/Metabolism 17h ago
i did metabolic physiology for a living/academic for about eight years. diet is great. how's their life expectancy because of it? prevalence of cancers? all cause mortality? We don't WANT to live in systemic inflammation but it does spur come sorts of cellular apoptosis which isn't a bad thing.
Yes, if we eat simple things and others that help our gut biome proliferate we'll be better off. plant heavy, bits of animal protein and live cultured dairy and we'll be fine.
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u/-Kalos 15h ago
Fermented foods? Interesting. I know they’re rich in probiotics and recent studies have shown the importance of gut microbiota and the gut brain barrier. “We are what we eat” is so true. Your physical and mental health rides heavily on having beneficial gut bacteria. Grab some Greek yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut and make a batch of kombucha
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u/collegetest35 12h ago
The African diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, and fermented foods. Our study highlights the benefits of these traditional food products for inflammation and metabolic processes in the body. At the same time, we show how harmful an unhealthy Western diet can be. It typically consists of processed and high-calorie foods, such as French fries and white bread, with excessive salt, refined sugars, and saturated fats. Inflammation is at the root of many chronic conditions, which makes this study highly relevant for Western countries as well
For those wondering what the foods were
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u/misanthrophiccunt 10h ago
From the comfort of my Mediterranean Diet in Spain and one of the longest life-expectancy in the world let me ask you one thing:
Define "western diet"
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u/MadRune 10h ago
People are sold poison that kills them slowly on a daily basis and most of them buy it, with the money they make for a living, thinking they eat, but what they do, really, is consuming toxic garbage wrapped in tasty flavors, sold by greedy industrials and hoping their body we'll be ok processing that kind of trash for 60 to 80 years, just because everybody does it and because the states are corrupt into building and protecting that trust in eating poison.
My advice would be to stop any sugar income (proven to be pro inflamatory), unless it's from fresh/dry fruits, avoid industrial processed food at all cost, avoid cereals, especially refined ones and never skip fresh vegetables on any meal.
Food is stronger than medical drugs to improve and protect anyone's health, if given what their body actually evolved into processing without the weird side effects drug have.
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u/NomadicSc1entist 6h ago
When I was in my PhD program. I remember seeing a series of posters at an American College of Sports Medicine conference covering this exact topic, as well as the dangers of vaping on lung tissue (popcorn lung). This was around 2015...
We need to figure out a more efficient way to get data from posters to the public in a more expedient manner.
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u/darthbiscuit 6h ago
So if you take someone, and completely, cold turkey, change their entire diet… It may make them sick?
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u/JonathanL73 6h ago
Seems like every diet is better than the American diet.
Mediterranean diet proven to be healthier. Japanese diet is healthier, etc.
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u/Yurya 6h ago
We'll never get good data on human nutrition because we can't throw people in a lab to rigorously track all they consume like we can with farm animals and others.
There is so much conflicting studies that the only thing I use are essentially guesses. I don't think fiber is bio available so I don't aim to consume it. I've seen a study where constipation was completely absent when for the group that ate 0 Fiber. I avoid simple sugars as I think they feed sicknesses. Protein is the one macro to target otherwise eating less is best. I do hold fermented foods pretty highly but have never seen a big benefit to consuming them.
These are lacking in firm backing but so is every other diet. Every study seems to follow a bias: fiber is good, meat is bad, meat is good, vegan is optimal, no seed oils, no sugar, no fat, no trans fat, no saturated fats, saturated fats are the good ones. People living life near the sea live longer because they eat fish, fish give you worms. There is a lot of back and forth and I know there is nuance but I don't think we'll have definitive knowledge soon.
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u/HouseofFools 4h ago
Any dietary study relying on self-reported data on consumption habits is inherently suspect
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u/Constant_Natural3304 4h ago edited 3h ago
Let me formulate a hypothesis:
If the title of the paper resembles the title of the article, or if the ridiculously ignorant and americentric terms "African diet" or "Western diet" are used anywhere in this paper at all, then I am 80-90% sure the authors are American.
There is such a fundamental, intrinsic falsehood about these terms, anybody who uses them can automatically be said to lack even the most basic cultural and culinary insight to make any sort of empirical observation on regional diet and health.
I am not exaggerating, it is truly that bad. And if true, shows why supremacist ignorance becomes a particularly nasty bias. I suspect the same bias will lead to removal of this comment, because it will be deemed "out of order" by the biased people.
Just wow. Never seen anything like it on here.
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u/nooooobie1650 37m ago
Met a girl from St. Lucia in an airport once, probably mid 20’s. She said it was her first trip outside her home country, and was shocked at how much processed food was everywhere. If she were to buy a standard sized bag of Doritos at home, it would have cost her $13 USD. Is it any wonder us North Americans are so unhealthy?
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