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"You can spot most fad diets a million miles away. (Eat nothing but baby food all day? Yeah, pass.) But lately you're hearing less about crash courses and more about health kicks: cleanses, reboots, detos. These increasingly popular trends seem as if they might actually make your body look and feel better, but are they good for you? Experts discuss the five most famous new ways to eat\u2014and whether you should bite.\n\nJuicing\n\n So, every celebrity in Tinseltown is fueled by green juice, right? And sipping kale smoothies and apple-pear-carrot water instead of having a burger does feel like a virtuous way to go. But \"the devil's in the details,\" says Donald Hensrud, M.D., an associate professor of nutrition and preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. \"Juice has more calories per volume than whole vegetables or fruits. To get a decent-size glass of OJ, you'd need about four to five oranges. When would you ever sit down and eat five oranges at once?\" Dr. Hensrud notes that, in general, juicing strips out the fiber from whatever gets squeezed into your cup, provides too little protein, and has a high glycemic load\u2014which could mean extra calories and even weight gain. What about the cleansing powers people obsess over? \"Nobody needs to cleanse themselves by juicing\u2014that's why we have kidneys. Your body does it naturally,\" says New York City nutritionist Keri Gans, R.D., author of The Small Change Diet. \"And many report side effects like feeling weak, irritable, exhausted\u2014and, P.S., hungry! When the words side effects come up in a diet, that should be a warning in and of itself: This is not something you should do.\"\n\nThe Paleo Diet\n\n This popular plan is all about eating the way our ancestors did\u2014limiting yourself to foods you could either hunt or gather, and nothing processed (because, as you know, cave-men didn't have factories). So meat, poultry, fish, seeds, fruits, and vegetables are in; Baked Lays and Oreos are out. Sounds smart. In fact, it claims to be \"the world's healthiest diet.\" But Gans believes it's overly restrictive: \"Yes, cutting back on processed stuff is good, but there's a difference between foods with tons of ingredients you can't pronounce and those that are processed for human consumption\u2014foods like pasteurized milk, Greek yogurt, or whole-grain bread.\" Those are off-limits on the Paleo plan, but eliminate whole grains and dairy, she says, and you'll miss out on key nutrients, including fiber, iron, vitamins B and D, and calcium. Result: \"You'll feel tired and wind up eating unhealthy amounts of saturated fat from all the protein in this diet, which can put you at risk for problems like heart disease down the road,\" Gans says.\n\nVeganism\n\n Experts agree that going vegan\u2014where you pass up not just meat and fish but anything that comes from an animal, such as milk and cheese\u2014can be healthy for you, but only if you do it right. (After all, French fries are sometimes considered vegan.) \"Let your parents know if this is something you want to try\u2014 or, better yet, meet with a nutritionist\u2014 because it's not as easy to satisfy your nutritional needs on a vegan diet as it is on a traditional one,\" Gans says. \"You'll also have to open your eyes to things you may have never tried before\u2014tofu, soy milk, seeds, nuts, beans, and dark, leafy greens\u2014and whoever is doing the grocery shopping should make sure to pick up the right balance of foods.\" Supplements (vitamin B12, calcium, and vitamin D) are a must, too, she says, to help fill in the potential nutritional blanks left by cutting out animal products. One last bit of advice from Gans: Before you totally commit to going vegan, try it out first (say, by having a couple of vegan meals every week for a month) to see if it's something you want to stick with.\n\nGluten-Free\n\n In recent years, gluten has practically become a bad word. The resulting diet bans any food containing wheat, rye, or barley\u2014think pasta, bread, and many cereals\u2014which all have gluten, a protein that causes digestive issues and abdominal pain for some people. \"There is a small percentage of the population that needs to avoid it,\" Dr. Hensrud says, \"but there's no reason to go gluten-free if you don't have a problem\u2014in fact, you'll be eliminating an entire group of foods that has real health benefits, like protecting your heart.\" Gans agrees: \"One hundred percent, you should go gluten-free only if you've been diagnosed with celiac disease or a gluten intolerance. This is not a diet you try because a celebrity does it. Often it's used as an excuse to go carb-free and have it masquerade as something healthy.\" And the diet's not synonymous with weight loss, either. A lot of gluten-free products, she adds, are actually higher in calories than their gluten-containing counterparts.\n\nDairy-Free\n\n If you truly are lactose intolerant (get an actual diagnosis), then by all means. Otherwise there's really no point, Gans says. Eschewing milk and fro-yo won't do you any harm, necessarily\u2014yes, you'll miss out on protein and calcium, but you can get both from other foods (greens like broccoli are loaded with bone-boosting calcium). But don't expect any real benefit. \"There's a misconception that dairy makes you fat, and that eliminating it will help with weight loss\u2014maybe because girls who genuinely can't digest dairy often report bloating,\" Gans says. \"But there's no research to support this idea. To the contrary: There is evidence that people who consume dairy have healthier body weights than those who don't.\"\n\nOk, So What Is Good For You?\n\n \"First of all, any diet that eliminates entire food groups should raise a red flag\u2014that's not what a balanced diet is, by definition,\" Gans says. \"Avoid getting stuck in an eating rut, too. Expand your horizons! Just because you didn't like salmon at age 5 doesn't mean you won't like it at 15.\" That said, both Gans and Dr. Hensrud agree that for the average healthy teen, the best diet is (and this is going to sound verrry familiar) one filled with lean proteins, like skinless chicken breast and fish, whole grains, fruits and veggies, and some healthy fats, like avocado and olive oil. As for snacks, bypass the stuff that comes in a box or bag (and has 72 sketchy-sounding ingredients) and go for something real and sustaining, like half a turkey sandwich or Greek yogurt with nuts and a piece of fruit. \"I know it sounds boring and unsexy,\" Dr. Hensrud says, \"but it really is the healthiest pattern of eating. All the evidence supports this kind of diet.\" But don't feel like you can't make room for treats now and then, otherwise life would suck. Bottom line: \"If your diet is overly restrictive in any way\u2014as most 'cool' diets are\u2014eventually you'll go 180 degrees the other way,\" Dr. Hensrud says. And we agree: There's nothing remotely cool about that."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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