It’s a long article, but bottom line is avoid sugar, and don’t worry about saturated fat.
Category Archives: Health
“The Worst Mistake Of The Human Race”
This essay by Jared Diamond is a quarter of a century old, but it’s still worth pondering, particularly as we now know much more about just how bad for our health grains are. I think, though, that he misses a key benefit of agriculture — the fact that it has allowed us to produce billions of people. Minds are a resource, even if we poorly utilize most of them. The more people we have, the likelier we are to come up with new true advances. I’m pretty sure that absent agriculture, technology would not have advanced much, and we’d be nowhere near the position we’re in now — about to finally expand off the planet, and attain the capability of preventing a species-destroying event.
The Real Health-Care Solution
Medical innovation and real cures.
Dense Acellular Carbohydrates
In other words, sugar and flour. A new paper on why a paleolithic diet works.
Being Heart Healthy
I’ve never been a coffee drinker — it always seemed like an addiction to me, and I don’t want become one of those people who can’t function in the morning without it. I’d like to see the numbers on this study to determine whether or not it would be worth taking up the habit, given that I chose very bad parents when it comes to heart problems (though my general lifestyle is much different than theirs as well, since I’ve never smoked, and have a much better diet).
“Low-Carb” Bread
This really is a big problem for people who are trying to eat paleo or reduced carb. Unfortunately, the food that’s the worst for us tastes damn good.
The FDA
…is a mass-murdering bureaucracy. It’s not just drugs and medical devices — the food pyramid is a public-health disaster as well, and that’s just advisory.
The Microbial Garden
An interesting article on the ecosystem that is our body.
Does Exposure To The Sun Damage Your Skin?
Yes.
Food Nannyism
Thoughts from Lileks on the new Puritans:
Let’s get one thing clear: when the TV talk-show people lavish praise on the idea, it has nothing to do with some abstract notion of the costs of obesity. They just don’t like fat people. Fat people, at best, are a rebuke their own finicky vanity – I look good, why can’t you? – and at the worst, aesthetically unpleasant. If they all went away, the trim pert types woudl miss them after a while, and realize that people no longer came pre-packaged in a style that made them easy to dismiss.
A thin woman with three children by three men who can’t get by is an object of concern. A fat women with two kids who can’t get by is a toad, and probably a smoker.
A culture that redefines food choices as moral issues will demonize the people who don’t share the tastes of the priest class. A culture that elevates eating to some holistic act of ethical self-definition – localvore, low-carbon-impact food, fair trade, artisanal cheese – will find the casual carefree choices of the less-enlightened as an affront to their belief system. Leave it to Americans to invent a Puritan strain of Epicurianism.
I do have to agree that sugar is bad for you. But people have a right to eat things that are bad for them. Until the rest of us are forced to pay for their health care, of course…