There is something disturbing about nutrition books. Is it just the contrast between the smiling picture on their cover and readers’ earnest expectations? Is the gap between promises and results coincidental or are we facing a more sinister and disquieting phenomenon?

The effect of hundreds of books, magazine articles, and television programmes on nutrition has been negligible. In our days, the great majority of the population continues to eat in ways that sharply increase their risk of major illness and shorten their lifespan.

Social scientists have come up with three explanations for this fact, but are still discussing which one is exact. To make things worse, these three theories leave us little margin to react:

1.- IT IS TOO COMPLICATED. Nutrition advice, some argue, is so abstruse that will always remain dry and unappealing to most men and women. Recondite knowledge is destined, by its very nature, to the chosen few. In other words, this is how it is and there is no way around that.

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