There’s actually not that much disagreement. There’s disagreement about whether certain foods cause or increase the likelihood of diseases, like red meat and cancer. But it is almost universally accepted that a varied diet made up of Whole Foods like vegetables, grains, meat and fish and as little ultra processed foods as possible, is the best diet. Only social media influencers trying to get engagement are the ones saying that vegan,vegetarian or carnivore diet (or other more farfetched diets) are the “optimal diet”. That being said there’s some nuance to the ultraprocessed food label, because some of them could be good or at least better than most others of their kind, but as a rule of thumb if it doesn’t look like something that can grow out of the earth or came from an animal you can bet that it is ultra processed and is best avoided and eaten only on occasion.

It doesn’t take that much time either imo, just last Sunday I meal prepped for the entire week and it took me 3 hours. I know maybe not everyone can have the time for it but I’m confident in stating that most people can find 3 hours to meal prep, but they choose not to because they don’t know how to and the alternative is easier than trying to figure it out.

Education is the solution, school should be teaching people nutrition and food preparation because parents that don’t have these skills can’t teach them. It’s unbelievable that we will teach people calculus at school which they are unlikely to ever need in their lives unless they go into a technical field, but we won’t teach them the basic skills that keep us alive and healthy as a society.