No topic carries more confident misinformation than nutrition — carnivore versus vegan, keto versus low-fat, fasting versus six small meals, supplements "they" don't want you to know about. Nutrition Science: What the Evidence Actually Says About What to Eat is a free, 38-chapter textbook built on a single thesis: nutrition science knows less with certainty than either the food industry or the wellness industry pretends — and it does not know nothing. There is a durable, boring, genuinely well-supported core, and everything sold as revolutionary sits in the noisy margin around it. This book teaches the core, and teaches you to tell core from margin yourself.
Part I builds the evidence skills first: why nutrition studies are hard to run, what observational epidemiology can and cannot show, why single studies keep reversing, how industry funding and media translation distort findings, and how to read a paper rather than a headline. Part II covers the macronutrients you eat in gram quantities — protein and amino acids, carbohydrates and glycemic response, fats and cholesterol, fiber, alcohol, and energy balance. Part III covers the micronutrients you eat in milligram quantities: the fat- and water-soluble vitamins, the major and trace minerals, hydration and electrolytes, deficiency and toxicity, and when supplementation is actually justified rather than merely sold.
Part IV takes on the arguments everyone is having, now evaluable because of Parts I through III — ketogenic and low-carb diets, intermittent fasting, plant-based versus animal-based eating, ultra-processed food, sugar and sweeteners, salt, red meat, dairy, and the perennial detox and superfood claims. Part V is about you specifically: nutrition across life stages from pregnancy through older adulthood, sports and performance nutrition, weight management and the physiology of regain, food allergies and intolerances, clinical nutrition for common diagnoses, the psychology of eating, and personalized nutrition including genetics and the microbiome. Part VI covers the kitchen and the receipt — meal planning, cooking, reading labels, eating well on a constrained budget, food safety, and eating out. Part VII synthesizes what all of it adds up to and how to make it yours.
Every chapter carries graduated exercises, a self-check quiz with answers, worked examples, and annotated further reading. Ten appendices supply nutrient reference tables, a calculation toolkit, food composition data, an evidence-evaluation toolkit, a master claim index with grades, worksheets and templates, special-population guidance, supplement evidence grades, a glossary, and answers to selected exercises. Written for anyone who eats, and for students in nutrition, dietetics, nursing, kinesiology, and public health.