I think worshiping local foods is stupid; our ancestors were all locovores, of necessity (unless you call hauling a mammoth carcass miles an import). Their diet generally sucked.
But I’m amused to see how rife with fraud the movement is.
I think worshiping local foods is stupid; our ancestors were all locovores, of necessity (unless you call hauling a mammoth carcass miles an import). Their diet generally sucked.
But I’m amused to see how rife with fraud the movement is.
How many lives would have been saved over the past four decades if this study had been interpreted properly?
It may reduce risk of Type II diabetes.
Reduced-fat milk is an abomination that no one should be drinking, least of all growing kids. The low-fat fad has probably created most of the Type II diabetes over the past few decades.
A sad history of nutrition junk science:
At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worst, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe. Naturally, then, a search for culprits has ensued. Scientists are conventionally apolitical figures, but these days, nutrition researchers write editorials and books that resemble liberal activist tracts, fizzing with righteous denunciations of “big sugar” and fast food. Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats.
Nutrition scientists are angry with the press for distorting their findings, politicians for failing to heed them, and the rest of us for overeating and under-exercising. In short, everyone – business, media, politicians, consumers – is to blame. Everyone, that is, except scientists.
But it was not impossible to foresee that the vilification of fat might be an error. Energy from food comes to us in three forms: fat, carbohydrate, and protein. Since the proportion of energy we get from protein tends to stay stable, whatever our diet, a low-fat diet effectively means a high-carbohydrate diet. The most versatile and palatable carbohydrate is sugar, which John Yudkin had already circled in red. In 1974, the UK medical journal, the Lancet, sounded a warning about the possible consequences of recommending reductions in dietary fat: “The cure should not be worse than the disease.”
But it was. And it’s sickened and killed millions, probably including my father in the late seventies.
[Update a few minutes later]
Then there’s this:
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, in a 2008 analysis of all studies of the low-fat diet, found “no probable or convincing evidence” that a high level of dietary fat causes heart disease or cancer. Another landmark review, published in 2010, in the American Society for Nutrition, and authored by, among others, Ronald Krauss, a highly respected researcher and physician at the University of California, stated “there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD [coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease]”.
Many nutritionists refused to accept these conclusions. The journal that published Krauss’s review, wary of outrage among its readers, prefaced it with a rebuttal by a former right-hand man of Ancel Keys, which implied that since Krauss’s findings contradicted every national and international dietary recommendation, they must be flawed. The circular logic is symptomatic of a field with an unusually high propensity for ignoring evidence that does not fit its conventional wisdom.
Gary Taubes is a physicist by background. “In physics,” he told me, “You look for the anomalous result. Then you have something to explain. In nutrition, the game is to confirm what you and your predecessors have always believed.” As one nutritionist explained to Nina Teicholz, with delicate understatement: “Scientists believe that saturated fat is bad for you, and there is a good deal of reluctance toward accepting evidence to the contrary.”
I could rewrite this only slightly: “Scientists believe that fossil-fuel use is bad for for the planet, and there is a good deal of reluctance toward accepting evidence to the contrary.”
Also, if we learn nothing else from this tragic episode, it is that a physician is the last person you should ask for dietary advice.
[Update a while later]
This seems related, somehow: Scientists united against science museums.
As I’ve noted in the past, any field of science that has major public-policy implications is doomed to become politicized, and both climate and nutrition fall in that category. There’s not a lot we can do about it except be aware of it, and especially cautious of “scientific” findings in those fields.
I agree, it’s largely a scam. I buy “organic” kale at Ralph’s, but only because, for some reason, it’s the only way they sell it, and it’s reasonably priced.
I’m not as shocked that cholesterol-reduction drugs don’t alleviate heart problems as these “scientists” are. There’s plenty of good science out there, but it doesn’t fit the orthodoxy, and encouraging better (not low-fat or low-cholesterol) diets don’t generate revenue for drug companies.
One other point: Nowhere in that article is the fact that taking CoQ10 can alleviate muscle pain from statins discussed. What a bunch of crap.
The Air and Space Museum has started a breeding program for the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek. As I noted on Twitter, there’s not a lot of meat on them once you get all the hair off. Basically not good for much except pizza toppings.
I don’t know if this is true, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all: It apparently increases risk of heart disease and cancer.
This topic came up in comments at yesterday’s nutrition post, but new research indicates that tampering with them may significantly reduce the risk of stroke.
The government is threatening to fine schools for not following Michelle’s child-abusive lunch program.
I wonder if someone could file a lawsuit demanding to see the science behind her recommendations? Because there is none.