There’s an obvious and relatively painless way to clean up the “nice mess” left at the end of last week’s column, the question of “What to do?” about contradictory nutritional data. It starts by stating something painfully obvious about you, something you’ve been told dozens if not hundreds of times.

That you’re an individual.

But for the sake of your health and a way to clean up the aforementioned nice mess, you need to add a three-letter prefix to the obvious from this moment on. To now see yourself as a bio-individual.

While this change is relatively painless, it requires explanation. Bio-individuality is the fundamental component to a dietary conviction more and more people hold: That despite the proliferation of bestselling diet books and the millions of people who have followed them with some success, the best way for you to eat is found in none of them.

That the best way is not intuitive or intermittent, keto or caveman, low carbohydrate or low fat. Instead, it’s a commingling of certain ideas in some of the bestsellers.

That’s because you’re an individual with a prefix, which means your best diet is based upon your unique metabolic responses to different foods.

If you find that hard to believe, you’re probably unfamiliar with the granddaddy of bio-individuality study, the one done at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and published in Cell’s November 2015 issue.

That one-week study involved 800 Israelis between the ages of 18 and 70 who agreed to wear continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). None had type 2 diabetes and 22 percent were obese.

A “comprehensive profile,” in the words of the study’s authors, was created about each participant before the study began. It included information about food and lifestyle habits, medical background questionnaires, typical body measurements, a panel of blood tests, and a single stool sample.

During the time the participants were connected to CGMs, they logged all meals, sleep, and exercise as they engaged in “normal daily routine and dietary habits.” Normal except for breakfast. The researchers provided that, one of four different types, and each consisting of 50 grams of “available” carbohydrates.

Afterwards, the researchers analyzed the CGM data, factored in what they found in the stool samples, and combined it with what was revealed by the accrued health information. And they discovered, as study co-leader Eran Segal told Science Daily, “profound differences,” and sometimes “opposite responses” in how the same foods affected the participants.

For a better sense of how profound and how opposite, consider a story the other co-leader, Eran Elinav, shared with Science Daily about one participant in particular. She’s a middle-aged woman with obesity and pre-diabetes who had repeatedly failed to lose weight by “healthy” dieting.

As part of her healthy dieting, the woman consumed tomatoes and did so “multiple times” during the course of the study. And when she did, the CGM recorded something that — according to the glycemic index and past beliefs about it — isn’t supposed to happen.

Her blood sugar levels spiked. Eating a tomato in her particular case was the metabolic equivalent, let’s say, of you or me eating a slice of white bread slathered in jelly.

But let’s also say, “Maybe.”

For while both foods almost always cause blood sugar levels to skyrocket when they’re eaten, the fact that tomatoes aren’t supposed to but did the same for somebody makes the use of maybe necessary. Unless, that is, you eliminate all maybes by wearing a CGM for far longer than the one-week study.

Far longer’s needed because foods are rarely eaten in isolation and in countless combinations. So even if that slice of bread slathered in jelly creates the expected blood sugar spike in you, adding peanut butter alters it.

So does changing the type of bread or jelly or using a different style of peanut butter. To what degree is a matter of your bio-individuality.

Don’t see this as a curse. Take it as a challenge.

In the same way the researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel did. They applied what they learned to 26 new subjects by making “personalized nutritional recommendations” to them.

In just one week, these recommendations led to “reduced glycemic variability.” In other words, fewer unexpected blood sugar spikes like ones experienced by the tomato-eating woman.

In a manner of speaking, this article hammers home that you’re a bio-individual, which means the end of it needs to hit the nail on the head.

It’s a nail you might want to whack as well, assuming you do not have type 2 diabetes and need to use a CGM (an expense typically covered by insurance) as a result. For the out-of-pocket cost of continually using a CGM solely to enhance health is prohibitive.

That nail is to keep a fairly detailed food journal, look for patterns in it, and learn from them.

If you want to use an app instead, that’s fine. Just keep in mind that the more senses you engage in learning, the quicker it takes place and the more likely it is that you retain it.

Which is why pen and paper trumps smart phone and AI in this instance.