Evrim Tekin

Food and nutrition

Every meal is a vote for a body and a landscape.

What it is

Nutrition links personal health to the planet. The same plate is a question of energy and nutrients for the body, and of land, water and farming for the world.

Public-health advice is broad and stable: plenty of fruit, vegetables, legumes and whole grains; less free sugar, salt and industrially produced fat. Agriculture, meanwhile, already uses about half of the world’s habitable land.

Updated 5 November 2026 · 3 sourced facts

Real data

WHO healthy-diet targets for adults

The daily limits and minimums WHO recommends, side by side.

Source: World Health Organization

Ideas to carry

  1. 1

    Boring advice works

    The best-supported guidance has barely changed in decades.

  2. 2

    The plate is a landscape

    What we eat decides how land is used far beyond the kitchen.

  3. 3

    Know what is in it

    Choosing food by what is in it, not only by price, is the idea behind GoodEat.

Established What we know

  1. WHO advises eating at least 400 g, five portions, of fruit and vegetables a day.[1]
  2. WHO advises keeping free sugars below 10% of total energy intake and salt below 5 g a day.[1]
  3. About half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture.[2]

Interpretation The older lens · Religious and folk practice

Many traditions treat eating as ritual, from the Islamic and Jewish dietary laws to the Japanese “hara hachi bu”, eating until 80% full.

Reading

  1. 2008In Defense of FoodMichael Pollan
  2. currentHealthy diet fact sheetWorld Health Organization
  3. currentEat wellNHS

Nutrition science in 2026

Still: eat your vegetables

Made in-house, for fun.

Connected subjects, projects and writing

Sources

  1. Healthy diet (fact sheet) World Health Organization. Checked 5 Nov 2026.
  2. Land Use Our World in Data. Checked 5 Nov 2026.
  3. Eat well NHS. Checked 5 Nov 2026.