It seems like every time experts claim something is detrimental to your well-being, they have to retract themselves the following day. AlterNet lists seven things you’ll be delighted to reincorporate into your diet: coconut oil, whole milk, chocolate, salt, popcorn, eggs and coffee. That’s right folks, chocolate and coffee. Apparently both are chock full of antioxidants, and coffee has even been found to help prevent Type 2 diabetes. And although you shouldn’t go out and buy the milkiest, most sugary chocolate around, a few bites of dark cacao can make you thinner … well, sort of.

AlterNet:

In the future, when we’re zipping around the biosphere on our jetpacks and eating our nutritionally complete food pellets, we won’t have to worry about what foods will kill us or which will make us live forever.

Until then, we’re left to figure out which of the food headlines we should take to heart, and which should be taken with a grain of unrefined, mineral-rich sea salt. Low-fat or high-fat? High-protein or vegan? If you don’t trust what your body tells you, remember that food science is ever evolving. Case in point: The seven foods below are ancient. But they’ve gone from being considered healthy (long ago) to unhealthy (within the last generation or two) to healthy again, even essential.

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—Posted by Natasha Hakimi

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