As a non american: most people do agree on what a healthy diet looks like. Water > anything else for drinks Diverse and fresh/ unprocessed for foods. Limit salt to 2.5g.

Eat a variety of plant based whole foods, limit processed foods, avoid ultra processed foods.

NutritionFacts.Org is a non profit run by Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM, a real licensed doctor. It has a ton of great information, breaking down scientific studies and examines how diets affect the population. There’s a reason why 9 out of the top 15 causes of death are dietary related, and there’s a reason why people who exclusively eat planet based have much better health outcomes, in terms of heart disease, cancer, etc.

Switched most of my white bread for brown bread, try to get some beans and chickpeas in from time to time. Try to eat a touch less red meat and replace it with fish, and usually my chickpea or bean meals mean I don’t have any meat with those.

Avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners, eat fermented foods like kimchi/kefir/sauerkraut etc, increase fiber intake. No alcohol except on special occasions.

I don’t avoid fat at all except trans fats. Salt I’m also not overly concerned about. Will eat as much bread and carbs as I want.

Still look and feel great for my age (almost 40), body fat is low, and I get a lot of compliments - so I guess it’s working. Bloods are always excellent too.

Pretty easy to stick with this diet and it isn’t too restrictive

what everyone said but i would add watch macros to find balance. swapping out fat for more fibre and protien goes a long way especially with reducing visceral fat which can have a long impact on things like reducing stroke and organ diseases.

keep sugar down around 25g. the average person gets up to like 5 times that amount a day or even in one meal. and any eat sugar you do eat, eat it with fibre so its not released into your system all at once.

Healthy mostly means you get all the stuff you need and not too much of anything.
So what you need and what you need to avoid depends on your body and environment.

You can try to keep book of all the essential vitamins and minerals in your diet.
Or you research what the body needs and what the commonly acknowledged limits are. Then you can just supplement them in reasonable quantities to make it highly unlikely to be deficient or overdosed in any of them. And that’s what I do.
always be careful to not overdose Potassium, Iodine, or Calcium. Don’t supplement vitamin A. Get β-carotene instead as the body makes vitamin A from it as needed.

Chances are, you get enough protein because it’s really hard not to in an industrialized nation.
But it might be worth to look at the different amino acids and the overall protein intake if you don’t like meat, tofu, or highly processed meat replacements.

If you really don’t eat any fish or mussels regularly, you might want to supplement the omega 3 fatty acids.

The digestive tract needs some insoluble fibers in the diet to not get constipation. But it doesn’t need them every day and not in huge quantities. So if you have the occasional random vegetables in your diet, that should be covered. It’s trivial to know when it’s not enough because avoiding constipation is really all the insoluble fibers do.

What’s left is carbohydrates and fats. Any will do. And if you are in an industrialized nation, you likely got them covered.
But some sugars are really spiking insulin production, stress the system, and can lead to sugar highs and lows. So try not too eat too many sweets or soft drinks in one session.

The last thing is calories/energy. If you got too few, you need to eat more carbohydrates and fats. If you got too many, you need to eat less carbohydrates and fats. But as is blatantly obvious by now that isn’t really actionable advice.
I guess, for undersupply, the solution could be to fatten up the diet and sweating stuff with with lactose if not lactose intolerant. But anyone having this problem in an industrialized nation probably also has more serious problems that cause it.
For oversupply there is no real solution for most people apart maybe Ozempic because constantly fighting one’s own appetite is basically impossible for normal people. Just don’t start smoking to loose weight. It probably works, but it comes with its own problems.

Wherever possible, stick to the perimeter of the grocery store. Fresh vegetables and fruit, eggs, dried fruits, nuts and oats, frozen vegetables, unprocessed meats if that’s your thing. The closer you get to the middle of the grocery store, the more processed and less healthy the items are. The candy and chips are usually right in the middle of the store. And for God’s sake don’t eat or drink anything from the shampoo and laundry aisle.

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You don’t have to have a perfect diet (trying too hard to get one ends up being bad for you), you just have to do enough of the things mentioned here.

Just do the basics right. Make healthy choices easier and unhealthy choices harder.

Drink enough water, skip sodas. Eat more green produce, fibre and protein. Buy spices and cook simple dishes that don’t require much time.

I like Ethan Chlebowski for food tips.

If you made it yourself from ingredients, and it has some veggies and not too much meat

Ive been trying to use my forced return to the office and soaring lunch food prices to my advantage by bringing various vegetables & fruits (celery, carrots, peppers, oranges bananas, etc) to the office to eat throughout the day rather than have a sit down lunch. Extra bonus to that is i can then spend my hour long lunch sitting outside reading a book.

soup

You eat food and then you notice how you feel afterwards, that’s the only way. People are very, very different genetically, and while studies show you the average, people can be very unique in what food their bodies does well at digesting.

You eat something and you feel heavy, sluggish, tired afterwards? You either ate too much, or something not good for you, or both.

You eat something and you feel like you didn’t really get any nutrition from it and you can just keep eating and you still won’t get satisfied? You’re probably eating junk not because your body wants it, but because you’re trying to avoid some emotions, and so on.

Awareness is king, as always, you cannot adhere to a fixed system as a living organism; you must actually use your senses in each moment.

I don’t. But when I do, lots of water, a mutivitamin, and one meal per day. I try to follow the Whole30 portioning rules, as well. Palm-sized protein, a fat source, and the rest of the plate is veggies.