A lot of Composite’s clients follow a Paleo-inspired approach to eating. And, frequently, they ask us about the impact of occasionally adding some specific food – say, full-fat dairy, like cream or cheese – to what they eat.

Not everyone reacts the same to all foods, so we might gauge how a given client reacts to a class of foods through blood panels at a doctor’s office, or at home with the Coca Pulse Test.

But even for people who do show some reactivity, deciding to include a food or not actually requires zooming out a bit. For a change in diet to have meaningful health impact, it needs to be something you can keep up for the long haul. For many people, regularly enjoying something they particularly love makes their new way of eating far more pleasurable, and therefore much easier to sustain. In practice, it’s the difference between eating healthfully, albeit at 90%, for years, versus eating precisely ‘by the book’ for a few months, and then dropping off entirely.

So, as you look at your way of eating, think about the ideal, but also think about what you’ll be able to enjoy and sustain. And remind yourself: in nutrition, the perfect is pretty often the enemy of the very good.