The diet that was tested for blood pressure

Most diets are sold. This one was tested, by the government, on blood pressure, and it worked.

In 1997 the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute published a trial called DASH, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. Four hundred and fifty-nine adults were fed, in a controlled setting, one of three diets: a typical American diet; one with more fruit and vegetables; and the DASH pattern, rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy, with fish, poultry, beans and nuts, and low in red meat, sweets and saturated fat. In eight weeks, the DASH group's blood pressure dropped by amounts comparable to medication, most of all in people who'd started high.

A second trial, DASH-Sodium, tested the same pattern at three salt levels, including the ones you'll see on the guidelines now: 2,300 milligrams a day, and 1,500. Lower salt lowered pressure further, and the combination of the DASH pattern with the lowest salt had the biggest effect of all.

It's on this shelf for a reason beyond blood pressure. DASH is what the table keys look like when nobody's selling anything. No book, no guru, no residential center. A government institute, a controlled kitchen, and a result. It's also the most moderate pattern here: meat is allowed, dairy is included, and nothing is forbidden. For a great many people it's the realistic version of everything the plant-based keys were pointing at.

And it closes this stretch of table keys with the number you wrote on day four. The cuff. DASH is the eating pattern with the best evidence for moving it.