The junk science. This pseudoscientific nonsense has been killing millions of people for decades.
Category Archives: Culinary
Random Thoughts
“Obama ate a dog” edition. This is like a permanent employment act for people like Jim Treacher and Frank J. And of course, the inevitable Dogs Against Obama web site.
[Late morning update]
Just when did the presidents stop eating dogs? Treacher’s having way too much fun with this.
[Update a few minutes later]
Why Barack Obama identifies with the dog eaters. The rest of us are just bitter, clinging to our provincial American cuisine.
Dog
It’s what’s for dinner.
I think it’s another campaign backfire by the Obamaites. They’re probably regretting picking on Romney about Seamus about now.
An Old Fireplace
Sorry, raw foodies, we’ve been cooking for longer than we’ve been human.
Another Reason To Eat Chiles
They reduce blood pressure and cholesterol. This kind of thing always makes me question such studies, though:
Chen and his colleagues turned to hamsters for the study, animals that serve as stand-ins for humans in research that cannot be done in people. They gave the hamsters high-cholesterol diets, divided them into groups, and supplemented each group’s food with either no capsaicinoids (the control group) or various amounts of capsaicinoids. The scientists then analyzed the effects.
In addition to reducing total cholesterol levels in the blood, capsaicinoids reduced levels of the so-called “bad” cholesterol (which deposits into blood vessels), but did not affect levels of so-called “good” cholesterol. The team found indications that capsaicinoids may reduce the size of deposits that already have formed in blood vessels, narrowing arteries in ways that can lead to heart attacks or strokes.
Capsaicinoids also blocked the activity of a gene that produces cyclooxygenase-2, a substance that makes the muscles around blood vessels constrict. By blocking it, muscles can relax and widen, allowing more blood to flow.
Emphasis mine. The assumption is that one gets high cholesterol from dietary cholesterol, when in fact there’s little evidence to substantiate that. But in this case, I don’t think it invalidates the research, fortunately.
Speaking of nutrition myths, here’s one that says bacon is good for you, but still gets it wrong:
Nutritionist Zoe Harcombe says: ‘Typically, about 45 per cent of the fat in pork is unsaturated. Most of that is oleic acid, the same healthy fat found in olive oil, which is known to help lower cholesterol levels.
‘Of course, the rest is unhealthy saturated fat, so moderation is key.’
Repeat after me: there is nothing wrong with saturated fat. In fact, it is much healthier than seed oils with their high omega 6s, which is where we got too much of our dietary fat. The key is to cut back on the high-glycemic carbs.
Bad Cholesterol
…is there no such thing?
I’m kind of amused by the commenter who fantasizes that he’s making some kind of point by claiming that “Eades is not a scientist.” What does he think a scientist is, or does?
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of nutritional science, this is junk nutritional science:
“Overall, we found that obese rats fed a high-fat, low-carb diet — comparable to that humans would consume — had larger, more damaging and deadly heart attacks than rats fed the control diet,” Lloyd says. “Our findings also suggest that, at the cellular level, a high-fat, low-carb diet impaired recovery of heart function in obese rats immediately following a heart attack.”
Only one problem. You can’t extrapolate dietary results for rats to humans. We have a different physiology and natural diet. Actually, there’s a lot of junk science based on rat research.
[Update a while later]
Link was missing. Fixed now.
Test-Tube Hamburger
This could be a useful breakthough in terms of a cheaper protein source. Via Natural News, who is naturally whining about it.
[Update a few minutes later]
This seems sort of related: Red meat makes you happier. The science is settled!
A Trade-Deficit Solution
There seems like a big market opportunity here. Put people to work by fishing, and sell the proceeds to China. You could do it canned, frozen and fresh. I know that when I was a kid growing up in Michigan we’d never eat carp, and considered them junk fish, though the blacks would eat them (and dogfish, too — I remember dogfish runs by the dam near our cottage on the Muskegon River, where people would just pull them out with nets and cover the banks with them). Not sure what the difference is between Asian carp and the native variety, or if it’s tastier. But the Asians definitely do know their carp (which is what koi and goldfish are).
Red Meat
More junk food science (not junk-food science).
People who do these studies don’t seem to understand statistics, or know how to do studies.
Nitrates And Nitrites
…a 2005 study by scientists with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute with investigators supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, found that sodium nitrite infusions led to the production of nitric oxide which increased blood flow and protected the hearts and livers in mice undergoing experimental heart attacks and liver injuries, reducing heart muscle and liver tissue damage.
All of this experimental research is preliminary but does illustrate that in the past 15 years, “we’ve gone from considering all of these things to be toxic and carcinogenic to realizing that [nitrites are] playing a fundamental homeostatic role,” said Dr. Ferric Fang, M.D., professor of laboratory medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle. They’re a normal, natural part of a healthy body and not chemicals to fear.
So, hotdogs and processed meats are condemned as junk food because they contain nitrates, which they don’t, while vegetables are declared health food because they’re free from the same chemicals, which they’re not. It may be awhile before people will get to the point of calling bacon and hotdogs health food.
Woody Allen’s notion in Sleeper is looking more and more prophetic.
[Update mid morning]
Some disgusting anti-bacon propaganda.