We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The problem with this, of course, is that most respectable medical research turns out to be wrong too. I recently read that coronary bypass has no value compared with the alternatives, but they are done constantly. I also read that prostate cancer surgery may be pointless after age 65 or 70, yet they are performed constantly.
...while coming up with eye-catching theories is relatively easy, getting reality to bear them out is another matter. The great majority collapse under the weight of contradictory data when studied rigorously. Imagine, though, that five different research teams test an interesting theory that’s making the rounds, and four of the groups correctly prove the idea false, while the one less cautious group incorrectly “proves” it true through some combination of error, fluke, and clever selection of data. Guess whose findings your doctor ends up reading about in the journal, and you end up hearing about on the evening news?
When politics gets involved, it all gets worse. If you need a doctor, get one with grey hair (who has seen it all) and a male (not bound by all the idiot rules).
We have said here at Maggie's, for years, that a "healthy diet" cannot be defined without evidence, and there has never been any evidence. "Healthy" has just been bias, old-wives tales, and happy-sounding ignorance like "eat your peas and kale and fruit". All nonsense.
It's a big deal that even the slow-witted government finally comes around to what we have all known. America, go easy on the carbs, eat veggies only if you like them, use butter and olive oil, enjoy a fine steak when you can afford it, and do not become food-obsessed.
Sorry, Whole Foods, food quacks, and food faddists. You have been wrong all along. Docs finally now feel free to share the real facts, which they have known for years. I've never known a doc who would refuse a rare ribeye steak or filet mignon. Never known a vegetarian doc either, or a scientist who ate organic food. In fact, the biological scientists I know like to go to fancy French and fancy Italian restaurants as often as possible.
I am not recommending this as something to take. It's just interesting. Would I try it before all studies are done? Perhaps, just for fun. You can always stop.
Doctors have known that dietary fats are harmless, for years. Most were a bit afraid to say so, though, for fear patients would view them as ignorant.
I have been preaching low-carb, high-fat/high protein diets for ten years or more. It just goes to show how behind the government is, in most things. Not to mention the ultimate fate of most "expert opinion."
What other past superstitions disappear with this? The supposed special healthiness of fish and tofu, the evils of bacon, butter, red meat, eggs, cream, and chicken skin - and lots of others. It's about time, but it's tragic to think of all of those wonderful meals so many people passed up over the years because of junk science.
Photo is a wholesome American breakfast. Grains? No, except for a slice of bread to soak up the egg yolks. A little carbs are ok if you aren't on a diet.
There's an ignorant nut always ready to believe anything: The Food Babe: Enemy of Chemicals - How one woman mobilized an army against food additives, GMOs, and all else not "natural."
The human species should be thanking God for GMOs.
The town of Roseto, Pennsylvania, had very low levels of coronary artery disease. The population smoked, ate lots of fat, and mostly worked hard manual jobs. The experts went to study it, and came up with a cultural hypothesis to explain it all.
How Ebola Roared Back. For a fleeting moment last spring, the epidemic sweeping West Africa might have been stopped. But the opportunity to control the virus, which has now caused more than 7,800 deaths, was lost.
Had to visit my friendly local dentist early this morning for what I term a "cosmetic emergency." Mrs. BD did not want me going through the rest of the holiday season looking like a Halloween pumpkin - or like a visitor from England (famous for its rotten and/or missing teeth).
He did give me one tip while I was there: he advised me to use interdental brushes instead of flossing. He said they are best for your gums, and clean better between teeth.
They come in different sizes to fit your tooth spacing. These things are news to me. I always avoided flossing and these are easier to use. He gave me a demo.
"I'll go on a diet after the holidays." Right. Sure you will, just like last year.
Being fat in the US is highly correlated with social class. Like academic degrees and choice of clothing, being heavy is a social marker of sorts for men and women.
In a sexist way, men are given some leeway for a few extra pounds but only if they are wealthy, powerful, or brilliant.
Black women, recent immigrants, working class and lower middle-class, and the poor seem to display the most consistent overweight. (In the midwest US, fat in women seems to be near-universal outside of urban centers. What is that about?) Cause, effect, coincidence, or what? I have no idea what it is all about.
There was a time, over 100 years ago, when prosperous men displayed their prosperity in their bulging bellies. Fashion and expectations change. In eastern Europe and Russia, fat was good. It meant you had more potatoes than the next house. In the 1600s, fat was popular in western Europe too - see Rubens. Today, see a WalMart aisle. It used to be difficult to be pudgy and today it is difficult to be fit. Fortunately for us, we do live in a fitness-oriented world despite our (mostly) daily lack of manual labor. Fitness makes everything in life better and longer, reduces indolence, lethargy, and fatigue, and puts old age farther into the future. Nothing but sinful laziness stands in our way.
In the Western world today, with its abundance of cheap and tasty carbs, thin has been in for 100 years and being fat has been a public sign of giving up on an energetic life in many aspects: sex, romance, social attractiveness, sports, fun, agility, and overall vitality.
In my view, you can be too thin, you can be too heavy, but you can't be too rich.
As I have been saying here for years, forget about it. Dietary fat has nothing to do with cardiac disease. Lowering saturated fats does no good. This video h/t SDA
Keeping thin is a good idea, though, for many medical reasons. Yes, people have been conned. Low-fat is foolish, and science and politics is always a mess. Junk science, indeed. Carbs make you fat and harm your arteries, joints, energy, and everything else.
Governments try to control what kids eat, and they'd like to control what you consume also.
However, government planning rarely can do anything right not only because central planning can never work but because government is plain dumb.
Dietary fats do not cause vascular disease, and dietary fats do not make you fat. From The Last Anti-Fat Crusaders - The low-fat-diet regimen is turning out to be based on bad science, but the USDA has been slow to catch on:
The most current and rigorous science on saturated fat is moving in the opposite direction from the USDA committee. A landmark meta-analysis of all the available evidence, conducted this year by scientists at Cambridge and Harvard, among others, and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that saturated fats could not, after all, be said to cause heart disease.
Doctors get used to death. As with pastors and undertakers, it's a routine aspect of life.
What are the things which most emotionally engage ordinary Americans? I think love and family, sex, God, money, freedom from government - and death. Two deathy links:
Many years too late, the MSM and the government are getting the obvious message which docs have known all along. Unless you do manual work all day and are skinny, you don't need hardly any carbs to be fit and healthy. What carbs to eat very sparingly, if at all, to be strong and lithe? See below the basic list ofthe bad things which few Americans need to thrive:
All fruit (except strawberries and blueberries). Fruit is just flavored sugar, as are fruit juices All root vegetables - potato, carrot, beet, etc etc All grains (including rice, brown rice is especially bad as is quinoa) All bread, cereal, pasta. It's junk food, but good enough for manual laborers or the starving in Africa Most dairy (eg milk, ice cream, etc. Fatty cheeses are fine, as are eggs)
Carb-produced fat on your body is the worst thing for your heart, your joints, some cancers, your sex drive, and your youthfulness, vigor, and energy. If you are skinny and fairly muscular, ignore this.
Unless you are too skinny or healthily-skinny, I suggest one to one and a half smallish meals per day, mainly meat, eggs, greens, and vegetables. Why Westerners decided three meals daily was needed is a historical mystery, and very wrong unless you were a farmer or a growing child: most people used to be farmers, who worked until they dropped and their little kids helped all day too. Being overweight was a sign of wealth, and now it sort of functions as a sign of poverty and the underclass.
OK, a sugary dessert once weekly as a special treat. Alcohol as desired. Your hunger and your stomach will shrink quickly, as will your burdensome lard.
You will feel better and more vigorous, if that is what you want. Some people want that, some do not. Our current prosperity gives us that free choice, in the Western world.
We have commented on the subject of the human diet and health before, but it's time for another comment, because the NYT Science Times has written on it.
"Healthy food" has been an on-and-off American obsession, comparable to the obsession with flavor in France.
Since Rev. Sylvester Graham, a minister, vegetarian, and food-obsessive invented the Graham Cracker in the 1820s to provide "digestive fiber," Americans have been food faddists and vulnerable to food quackery.
More famously, Dr. John Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan, an 1870s charlatan with a diet fad, fooled Americans into thinking that cereal was breakfast food. It is not. In Yankee-land, breakfast is eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, potatoes, fruit and apple pie.
Eat what you want, and be happy. All humans are prone to "magical thinking" - aka "wishful thinking." We'd like to imagine that we have some control over things like health, and that things we put in our mouths will make a difference. There is essentially no evidence for that idea, assuming absence of a disease, or a problem like high cholesterol, or pregnant, etc.
Even being fat doesn't seem to make any significant difference to health. (Being obese is a bad plan, though.) I advise patients to eat plenty of salmon, trout and char for their magical properties, and whatever else they want; to exercise and work out if they want to be strong and fit but not because they will live forever; to lose weight if they want to look better and feel less tired; to eat all the salt and steak they want; and to avoid magical health diets. Vegetarian? Fine. Leaves more lamb and steak for me. Just don't imagine that it's about health. What's a healthy diet? Any average mix of stuff, but most of all - enjoy it, and don't fuss about it too much.
(Image from the excellent medical blog Kevin, MD. That steak could be a bit more rare, if you ask me.)
Doctors have known that dietary fats are harmless, for years. Most were a bit afraid to say so, though, for fear patients would view them as ignorant.
Had to visit my friendly local dentist early this morning for what I term a "cosmetic emergency." Mrs. BD did not want me going through the rest of the holiday season looking like a Halloween pumpkin - or like a visitor from England (famous for its rotten and/or missing teeth).
That is, unless you are on a low- or zero-carb weight loss diet.
We have commented on the subject of the human diet and health before, but it's time for another comment, because the NYT Science Times has