The Levels Dietary Philosophy
10 Points on how Levels thinks about nutrition and health—and why we believe foods and diets are neither good nor bad
“Are blueberries good or bad?”
“What’s the right thing to eat?”
There’s so much conflicting information available on what to eat that it’s hard to know what’s true. The reality is that the disappointing response of “it depends” is the correct answer. This article is our attempt to explain why.
Here are 10 things that we believe to be true and that define how Levels approaches food, nutrition, and health.
1. We believe that food matters.
The food you put in your body is not just sustenance and not just calories. It is a crucial determinant of physical and mental health. It can be a necessary lever in helping us achieve any goal we set out to achieve. Therefore, we should give it the time and respect it deserves. Paying attention to what you eat is an important and valuable use of your time that will pay dividends many times over.
2. People want to be healthier.
When people pursue a dietary path or lifestyle change or ask questions about nutrition, they make a commendable effort to improve their well-being. Like physical fitness, we believe metabolic fitness is a spectrum, and we applaud any effort at improvement. According to the CDC, 49.1% of U.S. adults tried to lose weight in the last 12 months, which is a testament to the will that exists to improve health.
"Data should not cause shame or blame. For example, a glucose spike or a poor night’s sleep are not examples of failing; they are learning opportunities."
3. Food should empower people, not foster shame or blame.
We are not cynical about people’s nutrition choices, regardless of their circumstances or current health condition. Despite the current metabolic health crisis, we are optimistic that people can get healthier individually and at scale.
For example, a recent paper from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health argues that obesity is not the result of eating too much and exercising too little. This historical framework has made it easy to blame the person. Instead, obesity results from individual hormonal responses to carbohydrates that make a body more predisposed to accumulate excess fat. Personal choices matter, but they aren’t the whole story. There are also systems-level factors that make it an uphill battle to make healthy dietary choices.
Similarly, data should not cause shame or blame. For example, a glucose spike or a poor night’s sleep are not examples of failing; they are learning opportunities. We think about metabolic health as a long-term project—the body knows how to handle a single glucose spike, it’s when it happens over and over that we see accumulating damage. We don’t see data as a way to judge yourself or others but to make more informed choices.
4. People do better with more information about their bodies.
When people can understand that information and get closed-loop feedback, they can better enact behavior change around their health.
For example, if you find you consistently feel bad mid-morning, that could be from poor sleep, high stress, a blood sugar crash from your breakfast—or some combination of all three. However, if you’re tracking your sleep quality and blood sugar response with wearables, you might see that oatmeal is causing a significant blood sugar spike and crash each day, regardless of your sleep. And once you see that and understand that blood sugar levels relate to energy, you can use that feedback to change a behavior: your daily breakfast. This information is especially meaningful and motivating because it comes from your own body—not from marketing language on a food package or even from your doctor.
Additionally, food can have a slow and insidious impact on the body, with ramifications cumulative over time. Tracking the body’s response in real-time to food can give insight into the more immediate effects (like blood sugar spikes) that, over time, develop into long-term dysfunction. This empowers you to make changes early, when the effects may not be as obvious.
5. Nutrition is individual.
First, food is physiologically individual, as we each have a unique history and genetic makeup that affects how our bodies process the information that is food.
For example, research shows that people can have vastly different glycemic reactions to the same food. We also know, for instance, that the genetic variation ADRB2 impacts how the body regulates energy and can make it easier to gain weight.
Food is also culturally and personally individual—what you eat is a personal reflection of what you believe, when and where you live, and access to food.
For example, we can no more tell a person of Hindu faith that they should eat beef as we could tell someone struggling to pay their bills that farm-raised venison is the only protein they should eat.
6. Particular dietary approaches—keto, vegan, paleo—are strategies, not facts.
They are systems people employ to find better health in a manner that fits their individual needs. They are a reflection of a person’s values and what they are optimizing for. Each has tradeoffs. There is no “best” or “correct” dietary approach, and we do not endorse one specific approach over another.
For example, Levels CEO Sam Corcos is a digital nomad, rarely in the same city for more than a few days and without a consistent kitchen for cooking. When he tried being a vegetarian, he found he was mostly eating a lot of carbs – like pasta, oatmeal, sandwiches, and snack foods – and felt awful. Now he eats mostly meat and vegetables because it’s accessible no matter where he is, and he feels great.
The labels of dietary approaches are somewhat meaningless since a vegan diet can be both nutrient-rich or nutrient-poor. What we care about is how the components of food impact our cellular biology.
7. You can optimize any dietary preference for better health.
Personal data and information can help people understand how food choices impact their bodies and empower them to customize their dietary approach to maximize benefits for the body, with minimal collateral damage.
For example, if you need quick grab-and-go foods, you can choose minimally processed foods to reduce long and short-term negative health impacts. If you’re vegan or paleo, you can ensure you’re getting essential micronutrients to support your body’s cellular machinery.
Level Chief Medical Officer Casey Means was strictly plant-based for many years but found that many plant-based items she ate caused large blood sugar spikes, including rice, quinoa, grapes, sweet potatoes, and corn. With this information, she learned to swap nutrient-rich alternatives that provide healthful properties without the glucose spike, like cauliflower rice instead of rice or quinoa, berries and apples instead of grapes, and balancing meals that include corn and sweet potatoes with extra protein and fiber.
8. Nearly all whole foods are generally good from a nutritional perspective.
For most people, who have food choices, food is about more than nutrition; it’s also a reflection of your values and priorities. How do you think about eating animals? About agriculture? About local versus factory food? We believe that no matter what your values are around food, there are ways to optimize that such that you get the best benefit from the choices you are making.
For example, are eggs good or bad? In the context of an otherwise healthy meal (i.e., not a lot of refined grain or sugar-laden pastries), many experts consider eggs a healthy source of protein and micronutrients. But how the hen was raised also matters for the nutritional profile of the egg. And, of course, whether or not you eat eggs also depends on your beliefs about eating animals and how animal foods are sourced. If your values are to not eat animals, there are many other ways to get protein in your diet.
Is Beyond Burger good or bad? If you’re optimizing your diet for avoiding meat, it’s good. If you’re optimizing for unprocessed foods, it’s not.
9. Nearly all processed food should be avoided.
As Dr. Robert Lustig, professor emeritus in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California San Francisco, says, “All food is inherently good; it’s what’s been done to the food that’s bad. You can’t learn that from your doctor…and no label tells you that.”
The more processing a food undergoes, the more it loses its positive nutritional qualities. Our bodies are designed to deal with whole foods, and most forms of processing impede our natural metabolic machinery. This especially includes added sugar, which has no nutritional benefit and, at current average consumption, is already overwhelming our body’s mechanisms for using it.
For example, our bodies have evolved to process small amounts of fructose, as you’d find in moderate amounts of whole fruit. But when we consume many times that amount of fructose as a processed additive to several foods in our diet and refined fruit products like juice, it can overwhelm the liver and rapidly lead to insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, and more.
10. We benefit from being mindful of what we’re eating.
If a person puts care and thought into decisions around eating and pays attention to how they feel before, during, and after eating, they will be incrementally making improvements. Blind adherence to an approach or ignoring the body’s cues are the quickest ways to a non-optimal diet.
Unfortunately, modern industrialized food can make mindfulness challenging, as food products are designed to take us to our “bliss point” and make us crave them. Additionally, some effects of food can be lagging, with the impact slowly stacking up for years before overt symptoms or subjective feelings arise. (This is where we believe wearables can help shorten that feedback cycle and improve mindfulness.)
Despite these challenges, engaging with food with intentionality and mindfulness has the power to change our relationship with food and start to pick up on the subtle effects that food has on our bodies.
For example, if you find that your energy slumps nearly every day mid-morning, try evaluating your breakfast. Experiment with different foods to see if minimizing the amount of sugar or processed carbs you consume reduces that energy dip. Wearables can help with these N-of-1 experiments, but they aren’t necessary—simply pausing to note our subjective response to food can go a long way.
Choices that arise from awareness, understanding, and self-compassion are ultimately the ones that will stick. Being aware of the context of your nutritional choices and your response to them should help you find a diet that removes the constant stress of thinking, “Am I eating the right thing?”
Conclusion
In short, the right thing to eat is the healthiest diet you can maintain sustainably, and that aligns with your values and your goals. Arguing at the margins (for example, about whether carrots are allowed on a keto diet) is missing the bigger picture. Generally speaking, if you avoid sugar and processed foods, you’ll be doing a great service to your body, mind, and long-term health.
Levels Perspective on Common Dietary Questions
Here, we're summarizing our take on some of the most thorny and debated topics in nutrition. There is not enough research for definitive answers to most of these questions, so we try to present the strongest current evidence and form an opinion based on that. If the opinion is loosely held, we'll say as much. Remember that everyone's health is unique, so experimenting in a rigorous way or consulting a nutritionist or functional medicine provider is never a bad idea.
Seed Oils
The controversy: Seed oils refer to a highly processed group of cooking oils commonly found in fast food and processed foods, and there is intense debate over their impact on health. Opponents argue that chemicals created during the manufacturing and cooking of these oils could be damaging and that they lack nutritional value. Mainstream doctors mainly counter that there's not enough evidence that they are harmful in the real world and that they may be better than alternatives, like saturated fats.
Levels Perspective: While we absolutely need more research, it's hard to make a case that more seed oils are better for you than their non-seed alternatives. Even their beneficial compounds can be obtained from healthier, unprocessed foods. So, while having a teaspoon on a salad is not likely harmful, we recommend non-seed oil alternatives, such as olive or avocado oil, for most things.
Read more: The 2024 Levels Guide to seed oils and metabolic health
Fat
The controversy: The idea that we should avoid dietary fat seemed like settled science by the low-fat craze of the 1990s, under the belief that consuming fat led to obesity and that saturated fats, in particular, led to cardiovascular risk. But in the last decade, that dogma has come under question as researchers find those links may be more tenuous than previously thought. Current US dietary guidelines have no upper limit on fat, and many experts argue that saturated fats don't drive the dangerous cholesterol that increases heart risk.
Levels Perspective: It's non-controversial at this point that monounsaturated fats like those found in olive oil, avocados, and nuts are generally good for you. As for saturated fat, the context of the type of food (whole is better than processed), your overall health, and your macronutrient balance (how much protein, fiber, and carbs you're eating) all matter. The most generic take: Small amounts of saturated fat consumed in whole foods are generally fine.
Read more:
Protein
The controversy: There's no argument we need protein in our diet. It's a cornerstone of many biological processes, including muscle growth and repair and cellular health. The only debate is how much we need. The current U.S. Dietary Guidelines suggest 0.8g/kg of body weight, but many functional medicine providers and nutritionists think that's far too little and suggest as much as 1.2-2g. The argument against consuming unlimited amounts of protein: your body can only absorb so much at once, and any extra simply becomes stored fat. Some doctors also suggest those with impaired kidney health should moderate protein intake.
Levels Perspective: Given the many benefits of protein and how many of us---particularly those who follow a plant-based diet---don't get even the bare minimum, we generally advise focusing on upping your intake. What you need is indeed highly individualized, based on age, fitness, genetics and more, but eating so much so consistently that it becomes problematic is unlikely for most people.
Read more:
Dairy products
The controversy: Dairy is full of confusing choices: Regular or lactose-free? Skim or whole fat? Traditional dairy or dairy alternatives? In addition, while dairy doesn't spike glucose, it does cause a higher-than-expected insulin surge, which may have consequences, particularly for people with obesity or insulin resistance. On the other hand, dairy can be a good source of protein.
Levels Perspective: First, consider your health state and pay attention to how dairy affects you. Try cutting it out and see if you feel different. As for dairy products: Opt for full-fat milk if you drink it (and unsweetened versions if you use an alternative); avoid sugary ice creams; choose high-protein cheeses like parmesan and Swiss (and skip the crackers); finally, eat plenty of fermented dairy (i.e., unsweetened yogurt, kefir), which feeds your gut.
Read more: What we know about dairy and blood sugar
Organic/Grass Fed
The controversy: The terms surrounding "high-quality" proteins and produce---organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, wild-caught---can sound like marketing buzzwords, and it's true that oversight is a mix of government, private, and non-existent. But in many cases, the labels really impact the health status of the food. For example, a recent study showed that pasture-finished beef had significantly more beneficial compounds than grain-fed beef. For many people, there's also a moral component to these labels, complicating the discussion.
Levels Perspective: There's no getting around evaluating each of these distinctions individually and through the lens of your own preferences, but here is our general guidance based solely on the health effects:
- For livestock, grass-fed really does appear to have more nutrients and be leaner.
- Chicken is more complex: free-range birds have less fat, but there's little evidence the meat is healthier based on the feed.
- For fish, farmed often have higher levels of omega-3s, but more toxicants, so we recommend wild-caught.
- When it comes to produce, environmental toxins like fertilizers can be harmful to health, but real-world effects from produce vary. If you can afford it, there's little reason not to go organic. Otherwise, we recommend consulting a guide like this one from the Environmental Working Group.
Read more: What are the metabolic benefits of "free-range," "grass-fed," and "wild"?
Sweeteners
The controversy: As soon as you start paying attention to your sugar consumption, you'll realize how many products use sweeteners, which go by dozens of names. Beyond all the ways to refer to plain old sugar (honey, rice syrup, molasses), there are artificial sweeteners common in diet sodas (aspartame, saccharine), sugar alcohols like erythritol or sorbitol, and natural sweeteners like allulose, stevia, and monkfruit. Research is mixed, especially for that last category, which is relatively new.
Levels Perspective: First, the best thing you can do for your diet is to train yourself away from sweet cravings. None of these sweeteners is a get-out-of-jail-free card to gorge on dessert or candy. Here's our take on each category:
- Regular sugar (e.g., brown sugar, agave nectar, maple syrup, rice syrup, molasses, cane sugar, honey): Minimize as much as possible. Your body doesn't need it (you can get enough glucose from whole foods), and no version is any healthier than table sugar.
- Artificial sweeteners (e.g., Saccharin [Sweet 'N Low], Sucralose [Splenda], Aspartame [NutraSweet, Equal], Acesulfame Potassium, or Ace-K [Sweet One]): Despite decades of research, there's no hard consensus on these chemicals, but there's strong evidence they can contribute to obesity by triggering the same processes in your body as regular sugar. It's best to avoid them.
- Sugar alcohols (e.g., Sorbitol, Erythritol, Maltitol, Xylitol): Common in sugar-free candies, these won't spike your glucose, but they can cause gastrointestinal issues like bloating for many people. Best to minimize.
- Natural sweeteners (e.g., monkfruit, stevia, allulose): Often found in "keto-friendly" products, these sweeteners don't typically lead to blood sugar increases, but research on long-term effects is limited. If you need something sweet, they are probably your best bet, but use them as an occasional treat.
Read more:
- How do artificial sweeteners affect my glucose levels?
- How sugar alcohols affect metabolic health
- Are there natural sweeteners that won't raise my blood sugar?
- 8 Natural sugars that are not healthier for you
Alcohol
The controversy: Will a glass of red wine a day help you live longer, or will any alcohol damage your health? Headlines change depending on the latest study, but like so much nutrition research, it's nearly impossible to design a study that reveals a universal truth. The type of alcohol, consumption context, and even genetics all seem to play a role.
Levels Perspective: If we're just talking about glucose response, a drink with dinner often reduces the blood sugar rise you'd otherwise see; however, carb-heavy beers and sweetened cocktails will have the opposite effect. For long-term health, there's no question heavy drinking is harmful for you. The impact of moderate drinking---roughly, one a day or less---is still unknown, with studies showing both benefits and adverse consequences (particularly for neurological health). If you follow an otherwise healthy lifestyle, the occasional drink is unlikely to be problematic, but it's also unlikely to extend your life significantly.
Read more:
- What does alcohol do to my glucose levels?
- Alcohol alternatives for better metabolic health
- The 12 best non-alcoholic and low-carb beers
Supplements and Vitamins
The controversy: Although it is true that our bodies need micronutrients, which include vitamins, what's less clear is how deficient any one of us is in a particular nutrient, and whether any given supplement is the best way to get your daily dose. Some micronutrients are more bio-available (easy for your body to absorb and use) in natural food form as opposed to pills. Supplements are also a largely unregulated market, so you can't be sure that the advertised amount of a nutrient is what you're getting.
Levels Perspective: The following vitamins and minerals are worth considering in supplement form because a) many of us are deficient in them, and b) they can be effective as a supplement:
- Alpha-lipoic acid
- Vitamin D
- B vitamins
- Curcumin
- Magnesium
- Omega-3s
- Selenium
- Zinc
- Vitamin C
- CoQ10
The following substances we generally recommend skipping in supplement form and trying to get from real food:
- Calcium
- Fiber
- Green tea extract
- Melatonin
- Probiotics
To find reliable sources, look for products that have been third-party tested by an independent organization such as NSF International or U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP). A few sources we like are Pure Encapsulations, Thorne Research, and Integrative Therapeutics.
Read more:
The 10 best vitamins and supplements to consider for optimal metabolic health
Take control of your metabolic health
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