A healthy diet is not just a list of proteins and leafy greens. According to Spanish endocrinologist Dr. Iris Mercedes de Luna, one of the most common mistakes people who think they eat well make is that they consume food that is "superficially healthy but poor in nutrients". And that is exactly what wrecks their hormonal balance.

"Hormonal balance depends on a whole system, not on a single macronutrient," she says. In other words: if you add protein to everything in the name of a trend, no matter how much, you are not doing your body a favour. There are many hormones - insulin, glucagon, leptin, ghrelin, thyroid, sex hormones - and each demands a different kind of food to function properly.

Mistake number one according to her: a breakfast of just coffee. Many of us do that - on the run in the morning, coffee in hand, off to work. Even when you think it is "light", over time that combination shakes both cortisol and insulin. A balanced breakfast, she says, should include eggs or yogurt, oats or legumes, whole fruit and nuts - fibre, protein and complex carbohydrates together.

Another key line: "Sex hormones are produced from cholesterol." Sounds trivial, but it leads to a clear conclusion - diets that completely cut out fats (specific fatty acids and sterols) damage oestrogen and testosterone over time. Bread with a bit of olive oil is not a sin. It is infrastructure for the hormones.

"Nutrients need a nourishing context to deliver their benefit," she adds. Vitamin D is not absorbed without fats. Iron without vitamin C is only half as efficient. Calcium without magnesium is wasted time. Isolated "superfoods" are a marketing invention - food works as an ensemble, not as a soloist.

Where do we stand in all this? Balkan tradition had this solution long before the nutritionists showed up: eggs with tomatoes in the morning, lunch with legumes and oil, fruit between meals, walnuts and yellow cheese on the table. When our grandmothers cooked, they did not know what a "macronutrient" was, but their hormones worked better than ours do now. No wonder. The wonder is that today we need an endocrinologist to tell us what every grandmother used to know.