The 70-30 Rule of Healthy Eating

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-pouring-a-drink-into-a-glass-3944308/

I wish I could claim credit for the diet principle I’m about to share with you, but I learned it several years ago at a continuing education seminar taught by Dr. Art Janolo, D.C. who currently practices in Coppell, Texas.

Now, if you’re a high-level athlete or perhaps a fitness model or competetive bodybuilder who needs to have your body as close to perfection as possible at all times, this probably isn’t going to work for you. For most of the rest of us though, it’s a much more practical, and in some ways probably healthier way of eating than rigidly adhering to a strict diet 24/7/365.

The 70-30 rule is simply eating healthy food at least 70% of the time and allowing for some less than perfect food choices no more than 30% of the time.

I want to emphasize the at least part about the 70% and the no more than for the 30%. If you can average better than that, it wouldn’t be a bad thing!

For the sake of simplicity, I suggest doing the percentages by meals rather than by calorie count or other measure that requires a lot of time and attention. In other words, have 70% of your meals be more or less healthy overall and then up to 30% of your meals you won’t worry too much about the healthiness.

Generally, this rule would be applied on a day to day basis so that your body chemisty stays relatively consistent over time and you don’t have to adjust to drastic more-lasting changes. For example, it would probably not be a good idea to eat a super clean diet for a week and then eat total junk for the following three days – your body won’t know what to do with that!

I attended some seminars years ago by Dr. Eric Berg, D.C., who now has an extremely popular health channel on YouTube. To give you an idea of just how popular he is, he actually has a fair number of “hate videos” posted about him by other YouTubers – that’s when you know someone’s hit the big time!

Anyway, at one of the seminars, Dr. Berg shared a personal story that is a cautionary tale about eating super healthy and then suddenly… not. He had for a long time strictly adhered to a very healthy diet and then one day he was out in an unfamiliar part of town and his activities had taken longer than he had planned for. He wound up in a situation in which he hadn’t had anything to eat for several hours. He was really starting to feel the effects of low blood sugar, so when he came across a KFC, he stopped in. He figured in a pinch, a grilled chicken sandwich was probably a better option than trying to function (especially driving) with low blood sugar.

He felt better shortly after eating it, but as his body tried to handle the chemistry of the fast food, he wound up sick for the next three days! It wasn’t food poisoning - just extreme fatigue, indigestion, and a bad headache (this was many years before COVID, so, no, that’s not what it was either!).

Based on his experience, his advice to us was either make sure to always carry some healthy food with you just in case, or else periodically give your body some unhealthy stuff to keep your system up to handling it if and when you do wind up eating something less than ideal health-wise.

Now, there’s a significant amount of disagreement as to what a “good” or “healthy” diet is. Some think keto/meat based is best. Some will insist that vegan is the way to go. The ins and outs of what constitutes a healthy diet is beyond the scope of this article and there’s probably never going to be full agreement on what a healthy diet actually is. In fact, what is ultimately the healthiest diet probably varies somewhat, and possibly considerably, from person to person.

That said, there’s much more agreement on what foods and eating habits are unhealthy. Most would agree that highly processed foods with various chemical additives to enhance taste, appearance, and/or shelf life are not the greatest thing to be eating on a regular basis. Likewise, most would probably say that foods containing a lot of sugar and/or salt should be avoided.

Fat consumption is a subject of much debate, but while the amount of fat in the diet that can be considered healthy is often contested, the type of fats and the forms they are eaten in that are good and bad have more of a consensus – for example, most would probably agree that trans fats and fried foods should be kept to a minimum.

Some might question how healthy the 70-30 rule is as compared to eating a more strict diet. Yes, adhering closely to a very clean diet all the time would no doubt be healthier if eating was strictly about taking in nutrients and minimizing the consumption of toxins.

But there’s at least one very important aspect to eating that goes beyond the biochemical properties of the foods we eat.

Socialization.

Eating is very often a social activity. And eating what everyone else is eating is a part of healthy social interactions. If you go to a party, meet friends for dinner, etc., it will potentially negatively impact the quality of your social interactions if you have extreme limitations on what you will allow yourself to eat.

Now, if you have a restricted diet that you maintain due to ethical or serious health concerns, that’s something you don’t have much choice about. Friends and relatives will usually be understanding and supportive if you, for instance, can’t eat gluten because you have celiac disease or can’t eat nuts because you’re allergic to them. Ethical choices suich as veganism for some people may not be quite as well-accepted, but most people in your life will get used to it and be supportive if it’s based on a long-term strongly-held belief.

But if you show up at a restaurant with friends, it can get awkward if you take a pass on food and just sit there while everyone else eats because nothing the restaurant serves fits your Organic Vegan Free Range Paleo Low-Sodium Gluten-Free diet with nothing cooked in anything but extra virgin olive oil.

Likewise, people are generally going to expect you to have a piece of cake (even if it’s just a “sliver”) at a birthday party, because that’s part of the celebration.

Social awkwardness related to your dietary restrictions could very well lead to you being “forgotten” when invitations to such events go out – and that’s not a healthy situation!

The 70-30 rule means you eat well most of the time, but gives you more flexibility that allows you to enjoy the social aspects of eating and allows you to diverge from your more usual dietary choices without your body getting too upset with you.

For most of us, I think it’s a practical, yet still reasonably healthy way to eat.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.