Towards a more Holistic Vision of Human Nutrition to Prevent from Diet-Related Chronic Diseases: The Reductionist Drift

When asked the general public what the attributes, for example, the health potential of dairy products, citrus fruits, meat or grain products, it mostly responds, respectively, calcium, vitamin C, protein and fiber. These responses if they are partially true, are also partially false. In fact, they reduce the health food potential to a single nutrient. But foods are complex matrices consisting of hundreds of nutrients. And it is the synergistic action of these nutrients as well as the structure of the food matrix in which they are included which determine their protective effects. Thus, the milk is a highly complex food containing a wide variety of proteins and lipids, sugars, minerals, trace elements and vitamins. Therefore, milk health potential can not be reduced to a single calcium. The usual response of the general public clearly reflect how the paradigm of the "reductionist" thought invaded our vision. But probably research in food science and popularized communication of results are primarily responsible!