Blog

Ten articles from the FoodGPT blog, in English. Each one takes a claim you have already heard about food and follows the mechanism behind it — what actually happens in the body, what the research supports, and where the claim stops being true.

Nutrition

What holds up about food and what turned out to be a story someone told well. No banned lists, no superfoods.

• Gluten in a healthy gut: what actually happens to it — Gluten is never fully broken down — and for most people nothing follows. The mechanism, and the three conditions that keep getting confused.
• Activated charcoal for “detox”: what it actually binds — Charcoal is a real sorbent, but it works only in the gut and cannot choose what it binds. What it catches, what it misses, and why a cleanse course backfires.
• Alkaline water and “an acidic body”: what the stomach does to it — Blood pH is held at 7.35–7.45 by buffers, lungs and kidneys. What happens to alkaline water in the stomach, and why a urine strip proves nothing.
• Food combining: what happens when protein and starch reach the stomach together — The rule says protein needs acid and starch needs alkali. What the stomach and pancreas actually do — and why people still lose weight on the system.
• Artificial sweeteners: are they harmful, and do they help you lose weight? — Aspartame, stevia, erythritol: what an acceptable daily intake means, what the WHO actually said in 2023, and whether sweeteners help with weight.
• Collagen supplements: what digestion does to them — Collagen from a tub never reaches your skin as collagen — but “it just breaks down into amino acids” is wrong too. What actually happens, step by step.

Everything in this section — nutrition.

Weight loss

A calorie deficit and the methods that promise to work around it. What the research shows, rather than the advertising.

• Calorie deficit: how to calculate it and how to hold it — How to estimate your maintenance calories, how big a deficit to take, and why the scale can sit still for three weeks while fat is still coming off.

Everything in this section — weight loss.

Calorie counting

The practical half: where the numbers come from, how accurate they are, and what they can and cannot tell you.

• Negative calorie foods: is celery really more expensive to digest than it is worth? — Digestion does cost energy, but never more than the food supplies. The thermic effect of food, worked through on celery, cucumber and cabbage.

Everything in this section — calorie counting.

Health

Weight does not depend on the plate alone. Sleep and waist circumference — what is known about them, without alarm and without promises.

• Visceral fat: why it matters and how to measure it — How fat around the organs differs from fat under the skin, what waist circumference really tells you, and why crunches will not shift it.
• How sleep loss affects appetite and weight — Short sleep is one of the few weight findings that survives controlled experiments, not just surveys. What changes, how far the evidence goes, what helps.

Everything in this section — health.

This article is for general information. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a prescription for treatment or a diet, and it does not replace a consultation with your doctor. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, take medication, or follow a diet prescribed to you, decisions about food belong with your doctor.

Figures from regulations, guidelines and studies are given as they stood when this article was prepared and may since have changed; check them against the primary sources. This article is not advertising, an offer, or individual advice, and neither the author nor the site owner is responsible for decisions taken on the basis of it.