Maggie's Farm

I would welcome good science based information about food. There isn't any, well... there is a lot, well it claims to be science based. Well... it's really all opinion. Some people claim carbs and sugar cause diabetes but the evidence refutes that. Diabetes is a genetic disease and you either have it or you do not. The confusing part of this is that for many people diabetes does not show significant symptoms often until the person reaches their 20's or 30's so it does indeed 'appear' that they just 'caught' it. So much like the fantasy that vaccines cause autism (because autism shows itself in children about the same time they are of age to get their vaccines) it is assumed that it was your diet that caused your diabetes. never mind that everyone else is eating the same diet somehow YOUR diet caused YOUR diabetes.

Then there is the belief that carbs/sugar cause you to be fat or obese. Well, there is a little truth there. But your weight is also genetic and if carbs will cause you to be fat so will fats and proteins. However IF your genes dictate that you will be thin to normal weight the very same carbs (fats and proteins) will NOT make you fat. Go figure.

Is salt bad for you. Well, without it you go into a coma and die but other than that not really UNLESS you have a genetic illness that can lead to early death and THEN cutting back salt will help control the disease. So is it the fault of salt?

In fact like it or not we have conducted the world's largest experiment on the foods common to the West. In the U.S. about 330 million people eat this food and except for the minority of people with genetic diseases we flourish on it. Science has spoken now it is simply a matter of understanding what it has said. IMHO all of the food sold in supermarkets today is healthy and spending twice as much for organic or natural or whole foods is plain stupid.

As for being overweight; I think it is less about health and more about personal choice. The 'obesity paradox' is that people who are overweight have better health outcomes than people of normal or lower BMI's. On the other hand it seems obvious that people who are obese (the traditionnal measure of obesity where the iindividual weighs 350-500 lbs not the BMI measure of >30) do have more health problems. But obesity is genetic and many of the health problems that come with that obesity are genetic as well.

The bottom line is you are free to eat only meat if carbs scare you and you are free to eat vegan if meat scares you. But you are not free to claim that meat or carbs are bad for all of us because the data doesn't support that myth. It is all just food. Everything sold in the supermarkets is simply good food nothing more, nothing less. Eat what you like and don't eat what you don't like.

Diabetes is different in different people. It can kill you before your 21st birthday or it can require constant medication and it can take your sight and your limbs OR it can be easily "controlled" by diet. It is very unlikely that any of these quacks can "cure" diabetes and I would certainly love to see them try with a diabetic patient about to have his feet amputated. What they do is cherry pick (either intentionally or by chance) those patients with manageable symptoms. And sure enough with the right diet and exercise you can alleviate or even eliminate the symptoms. Are they cured??? Not on your life.

Take any of these patients who were "cured" by TED speakers and feed them the same crap that I eat everyday and their symptoms would return. You either have diabetes or you do not. If you have it and follow your doctors dietary and medical advice you can (usually) live a long and otherwise healthy life. You cannot "cure" it.

IMHO it is pure quackery for a medical professional to make these claims. It is dishonest, unprofessional and harms the patients and families of diabetics. As for the whole "pre-diabetes" thing that too is quackery and not supported by science. I suspect some legitimate and well meaning doctors get sucked into the "pre-diabetes" meme because they want to motivate a patient to adopt a more healthy life style. Fine, if that's what it takes to get a patient to lose 100 lbs and stop eating junk food more power to them. BUT that does not mean thinking intelligent people should start acting as though the "pre-diabetes" thingy is real.

As I have said before when I ran marathons and half marathons I would bet the lab tests would label me as "pre-diabetic" (whatever that means). I literally ate 20 pancakes with extra syrup and butter the morning before a race and 3 lbs of pasta the night before. My blood sugar would probably scare one of these TED quacks out of his lab coat. Now 45 years later still eating junk food and just about anything I crave I still don't have diabetes.

Diabetes is a disease you get from your parents/ancestors NOT from your food.

I love science. I think the scientific method is the gold standard for understanding the unknown. Scientists throughout history have answered the basic questions that our technology and economy is based on. But the fools and knaves use science or pseudo-science for their own end. The natural course of human knowledge is rife with misunderstanding and incomplete proof. This makes it ripe for the hucksters and for the simple ignorant to make their own "science". All of this is made worse by the lack of decent education in the sciences in our K-12 schools. The majority are ripe to be taken in by a good story and a slick presentation. And the intelligent educated elite are not exempt from this tendency to believe in pseudo-science and their influence sustains the frauds and complicates the effort to understand the facts. Perhaps this is just the way it will always be but that does not mean we shouldn't try to correct the record and understand where the facts lead us. There will always be differences of opinions and if someone can prove their case or show significant exceptions to what is understood to be true than these issues can be reevaluated.

My advice to anyone on this is to follow the money. Too many people are sucked in by slick frauds. The entire AGW community is drowning in money from governments and special interests and any scientists/activists who strays from the politically correct agenda is shunned/fired. Why? Because there are billions of dollars in play and the potential for trillions more. Stay skeptical my friend.