This paper investigates the concept of 'nutritional redundancy' – the observation that while individual food intake varies greatly, the overall nutrient intake remains relatively stable. Analyzing five cohorts with diverse dietary data, the authors demonstrate this stability and attribute it to the nested structure of the food-nutrient network. A new measure of nutritional redundancy (NR) is introduced, showing no strong correlation with existing healthy diet scores but comparable predictive power for healthy aging. Higher NR is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Xu-Wen Wang, Yang Hu, Giulia Menichetti, Francine Grodstein, Shilpa N. Bhupathiraju, Qi Sun, Xuehong Zhang, Frank B. Hu, Scott T. Weiss, Yang-Yu Liu