Wednesday, May 13, 2015

why are careful eaters considered a bunch of nutters?

I actually have an answer -- this question is NOT "rhetorical" as are so many in article titles;  it's NOT an exploration of possibilities that leaves the reader complaining that the article didn't actually address its purported issue, but left him/her as clueless as before reading it.  You may not agree with me ... but i'm used to that.  ;-)

There are actually a lot of answers to the question, and I won't try to foist a be-all-and-end-all solution.  There are as many answers as there have been "reelly stoopid" eating plans.  Here is just one example, which yanked my chain the moment I set eyes on the graphic:  http://www.hollywoodhomestead.com/bone-broth-botox-alternative/

AAAAAARRRRGHHHHH.

Ever since magazines started printing beauty advice -- no, long before that -- ever since the first prototype spa/salon started up, in the Far East or Mesopotamia or ... Ancient Atlantis, for all I know, there have been rumors about what you can eat or drink or rub on your skin to make you more attractive and desirable.  This article is just another in a LO-O-O-O-ONG series that isn't going to end any time soon.

Who is bloody ignorant enough to imagine that, if your skin has deteriorated to the point you'd contemplate using a product like botox, you could possibly dial back the damage of decades by drinking broth instead?  Obviously some people must, or headlines like this wouldn't happen.

OH, you say, no, they aren't suggesting an old crone like your authoress can benefit -- it's much too late for that!  They're talking about FORESTALLING the need for such desperate measures thirty years down the line! 

(...by which time, you'll have forgotten the glowing promises which never came true, and botox will no longer exist anyway.)

And you'll never get cancer if you're a veg*n, cuz it's the meat rotting in your colon that will lead to nothing but disaster.

No -- no!  You'll never get cancer if you never let your meat be cooked at a high enough temperature to get that luscious caramelized crust on it.

NO!!!  You'll probably get cancer anyway, but it's all in the luck of the draw!  It's ALL in your genes unless you're a smoker, or you wash your hands with benzene, or ....

Good diets and good lifestyle choices are NEVER a bad idea, but you have to do your due-diligence.  Just because an idea sounds like "common sense" does not make it reasonable.  Just because the suggestion some "authority" makes has a degree of appeal and you WANT to believe it, doesn't make it any more likely to be true than something your great-grandmother said a century ago.

The biggest reason that our nearest-and-dearest roll their eyes at us, when we say we don't eat sugar/gluten/soy/aspartame/MSG etc is because we've all been lied to so many times.  Nobody believes our "conspiracy theories" about the addictive properties of wheat or snack foods or sweets, because we all drank tap-water out of the garden-hose when we were kids, and lived to tell the tale. 

Funny, they believe smoking is damaging, despite the fact that their Uncle Floyd smoked like a chimney all his life and died in his bed at age 97.  The also believe that saturated fat and fried foods DO make you fat, diabetic, and unhealthy -- cuz TV! -- despite the fact that Great-Grandma Jones lived on eggs, bacon, and fried chicken till the tractor fell on her when she was 104....

Exaggerating ridiculous minutia is what makes names in the food-fad business as well as in the highest echelons of obesity research.  If they told us the truth, it would not be noticed ... or at least we'd turn away in distaste, because we don't WANT to live the rest of our lives eating ONLY what is good for us.  We don't WANT to get evolutionarily-appropriate levels of exercise and rest -- "we" want big muscles that impress the other bros, and a hormone-killing body-fat-level and six-pack to impress the other "gals" (gawd, I hate that word).  "We" want to text our buds while watching the showtime-series-du-jour, not to read to our kids before bedtime, and hit the hay soon afterward ourselves.  "We" want to hit the gym at 5:30am instead of cook breakfast and pack lunch.  We want to be cool;  we want visible results and we want them NOW.

To tell the truth, the bit with the bone-broth article is another thing that irritated me about a few books in my library, whose contents didn't live up to their titles.  Deep Nutrition tells us why some of us have been physical wrecks all our lives, but doesn't offer much hope for OUR futures -- just the futures of any children we may yet have!  Oops, too late.  The Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous Project is only for people who can already look at photos of themselves and manage to not have an inferiority complex.  Defying Age with Food:  Reclaim Your Health, Energy & Vitality! was a complete crock from start to finish;  the thirty-something author may think that it was miraculous that she could "defy her age with food" but someone my age thinks she's a dumb pup and JUST WAIT....

[evil grin]

The point is, it's only the instinct toward religious-thinking that people have, that makes them believe things that are too outlandish to be true.  People want to believe in super-foods, and that more CAN be accomplished than is reasonable, with ketosis or aerobics or supplements or whatever.  Often, the best that we can achieve is to stave off the misery of those of our friends and relatives who DON'T watch what they eat.

I could be worse off.  The number of friends near my age and younger who have contracted debilitating or fatal diseases has been shocking.  I may struggle with allergies, hormones, energy, and even mood sometimes, but I rarely catch viruses and I haven't had a round of antibiotics in decades.  I use no pharmaceuticals, unless you count my vitamins and herbs.  I drink a lot more mineral-water than alcohol, though I consider the latter to be therapeutic.

But my diabetic relatives and friends think I needlessly eliminate "whole food groups" from my diet, and the lame and obese and sugar-addicted around me believe that forgoing bread and dessert and condiments with toxic ingredients is being "too picky."  I hold my tongue more and more all the time (to their faces), and just rant to my poor readers as an abreaction.  :-)  I want to say, "LOOK AT YOURSELF!  Do you think you look healthy?  Don't you realize that the reason my belly is flat and my eyes are clear and my skin is as good as it is, is because I DON'T eat what you do?  Believe me -- my genes are not that good."

Okay -- I got that off my chest!  ;-)  Sorry, gang, sometimes the stoopid just gets to me.  So many promises that are obviously empty but believed anyway;  so many real possibilities for improvement that require just-slightly-less-tasty eating-patterns and habits that are sneered at....  It may take several months to see a difference, and that difference won't be mind-blowing, just a boost.  People who hate swallowing pills might just benefit from taking some;  people who hate liver might need to bite the bullet and learn to bear it.  Progress CAN be made, but expecting that botox will EVER be made superfluous by drinking your bone broth?  Don't count on it.

35 comments:

  1. Robb Wolf and Mark Sisson both talked about this at Paleo Fx 2015. How "modern dietetics" has repeated the moderation scheme so, so much, that only today is eating whole, real foods considered an eating disorder. Both are tired of that false message. Total BS.

    And yes, almost all of the people I meet just can't put down their low points treats or cut anything out but it's okay to have the same multiple health problems day after day- year after year. Because cutting something a "food group" is just NOT RIGHT. But having lots of preventable diseases is "normal". WTH!!??

    After 40 years of binge eating, many years of morbid obesity, people are still sh*tting the bed that I don't eat any grains. It's only been 4 years. Have they forgotten? I won't ever, that is for sure.

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    1. Robb and Mark are two of the most sane voices out there (even though the latter gets on my nerves a bit). ;-) what passes as "normal" these days is enough to make one run screaming into the night!

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  2. The fine lines at the corner of my eyes really diminished after I got over my infection. Hyaluronic acid is great, too, and so is LCHF. But it's mostly a whole *set* of lifestyle factors, not one super-thing that'll make up for partying and eating crap.

    The part about hitting the gym at 5:30 reminds me of a friend. Her rheumatoid arthritis diminished after three days on a wheat-free diet, but she won't stick with it. I just don't think she sees herself as the sort of person who likes meat and doesn't mind skipping an infinite number of workouts. She just won't quit seeing herself as mostly vegetarian and very active...even though she still has RA, sees doctors and spends a ridiculous amount of time on exercises and soaking her sore hands and doesn't seem to get to the gym very much. Lack of insight, correct?

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    1. I think you're right on the money there -- one tweak isn't going to make up for complete-lifestyle error (even though it was glutathione which was MY miracle...). I feel so sorry for people like your friend! She could be much better, but cultural paradigms get in her way -- and i'll bet her doctor doesn't "believe in" nutrition as therapy either. :-( was it Lierre Keith who wrote of people becoming so involved with their identity as vegetarians, they brainwash themselves not to notice their deteriorating health?

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    2. Actually, it was a doctor who finally got her to try a wheat-free diet after I'd suggested it for three years...because I don't know anything about it. But yes, most doctors would say wheat doesn't have anything to do with inflammation if you're not celiac.

      I hadn't thought about Lierre Kieth, but that's true--and it extends beyond eating. It's the complete-lifestyle thing again and it gets in her way in a lot of areas. I think she sees herself as artsy, free-spirited, spiritual and a healthy eater, and that's partly true, but the hippy-boho thing can become a trap at a certain stage of life.

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  3. Unfortunately you can't take the good of the internet without being regularly punched in the face by the crazy.

    Given the amount of meat I eat, I'm pretty sure I'd know if it was rotting in my colon. Maybe I'm deluded.

    Living in the tropics, it is common sense that you do not leave your car outside overnight, and if you do, you wash the fruit bat poo off your car asap. I therefore conclude that eating lots of fruit is like drinking paint stripper. Sounds reasonable.

    Cheerio.

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    1. :-) i chuckled out loud over the fruit business.... luckily, in our part of the world, bats eat lots of mosquitos in their insectivor diet -- high-protein, low-fibre leading to less poo? ...but then how does one tell the difference between the bird-poo and the bat-poo?

      J Stanton once wrote a great post about meat NOT rotting in one's colon.... i sure wish he still blogged, but understand why not.

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    2. "Unfortunately you can't take the good of the internet without being regularly punched in the face by the crazy."

      "Given the amount of meat I eat, I'm pretty sure I'd know if it was rotting in my colon. Maybe I'm deluded."

      Classic!! I might have to steal...er...*borrow* these lines for my own blog! (I'll give you full credit.)

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  4. The Prime Directive applies. The Prime Directive prohibits me from interfering, commenting on, criticizing, condemning the internal actions and beliefs of alien populations, including there foods and eating behaviors. They may believe and do what ever they like, regardless the probability of it's truth or fact.

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    1. lol -- you're right! i go through phases of being consciously more detached ... and then something comes along and i get hooked in again! gotta work on that!

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  5. Hi Tess

    I see another "expert" The Paleo Mum is giving it large and keto will kill ya rant etc. Evidently she lost a lot of weight low carbing, then went her version of paleo (no two the same) and is now heading for the obese club, shame. This latest "expert" is looking like a future poster girl for the bloated blogger and the animal to me.

    As always lots of stuff to sell and all the other paleo "experts" orgasmic about the latest book (nothing more incestuous than the paleo mob) all re-inventing the wheel every six months or so. They have to, because nothing is new. The low carb higher fat, whole fresh food lifestyle, can be explained on one sheet of A4, but hey, no money in that.

    I am coming to the conclusion these "experts" can talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk, no names no pack drill. Over the years we have all seen this bollocks rolled out, usually when a book is being promoted and so many with a donate your money to me link.

    Kind regards Eddie

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    1. the "latest nut" at very least inspired Wooo to write a couple of new blog posts -- something that has happened too little lately! :-) even on the occasions when i disagree with her, i enjoy reading her stuff.

      you're so right that there's not much new to write about -- that's why we don't hear from Stanton much (as i commented to Chips).... it's a pity that the more the respectable veterans of paleo bail out, the more their places are taken by these profiteers. :-( REAL scientific-minded people have work to do and personal lives to lead, and the unemployables like CS sit at their computers morning and night, raving about illogical things.... then there's me, a jack of all trades and master of none, with too many interests to distract me. ;-)

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    2. It was not hard to predict that the more starch-friendly paleo approach will result in more expanded waistlines when the "safe starches" eating went into a fashion. I remember ridiculously long comment threads about Inuits being in ketosis or not , I think myself that it is not related to the benefits of ketosis or any LC diet. Here we see the difference between a paleo approach and a LCarbing - paleo is more like a religion, food has to be "real" first of all, but LCarbing is result-oriented - you eat or don't eat this or that because it affects you in a certain way. For paleos the traditional aspect of a food is more important, and it could be absolutely enough for many people, but not for everybody. Wooo started her diet eating almost exclusively salami and cream cheese rolls + sugar-free Cool aid. Now she noticed the difference between the meat grown without hormones and antibiotics and the conventional one, but so called "clean food" absolutely didn't become not her priority.

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    3. it's too bad, too, because the "Neolithic agents of disease" are documentably health-damaging. :-( paleo is essentially a well-reasoned template for a nourishing lifestyle -- especially for children -- but it has been run-away-with by people wanting attention, or to cash in on the concept.

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  6. I hear the same stuff as you do...but 'giving up a whole food group is _____", so I had to many years ago and guess what I'm still here. Go figure! Now my sisters want to look and feel the same as I do, but they are 35 years too late. Same parents, more or less same genes but a huge difference in skin condition and complection. My older sister is more resistant and is still heavy and depressed. I feel sad for her but she is still not changing much.

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    1. like death-bed religious converts? :-) ...i do believe that if you start young, you can do a lot to MAINTAIN youthfulness, but to actually regain it is not fully achievable. most of my supplements are aimed toward replenishing things that the aging body is diminishing, but we "can only do so much"....

      in reviewing a little of Nourishing Broth, though, i thought of you -- are you familiar with Dr. Prudden's wound-healing research, using gelatin and cartilage? if so, what do YOU think?

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    2. I haven't read Dr Prudden, will look it up Thanks!

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  7. I post my first nutrition post in the past month or so...2 days ago, and I get a lengthy response about how no one should cut out an entire food group (bullshite.) Holy hell...it's that, and the response from so-called blog friends when I TRIED zero carbs that nearly make me want to give up blogging or at least stop blogging about nutrition. Not worth the bullshit responses.

    love ya, girlie. :)

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    1. :-) and i love you too! yes, i was astonished at the extreme, emotional comments you got at that point! when what we're doing isn't working (or isn't working ENOUGH), and we try something new, why is it that people get so upset?

      in the 3+ years i've been blogging, i've concluded that there's SO MUCH individuality among us, it's useless to make blanket recommendations -- i can only say "X worked for me; Q did not" and hope that the info might be useful to someone.

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    2. I was really hurt by some of the shit slung at me. Seriously. I think it's a big part of why I've ventured off from nutrition-only blogging. I shouldn't have, probably, but I had to protect my fuzzy widdle heart. Oh well...

      and thanks.

      and I still feel as little grains, sugar, and processed foods as possible benefits everyone, but beyond that, to each their own.

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  8. They think about us as nutters because our abstinence from the health-harming foods makes them feel bad, especially after looking at the mirror.
    I do think that our refusal to be engaged into group activities like eating the cake "to die for" for the sake of others being comfortable could be considered an any-social act, but I value my health and appearance very high.
    At the end of the day it is fair to admit that the existence of a somebody who willingly stays away from cookies and candies must be annoying for a sugarholic.

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    1. It must be especially annoying when their fat, sick friend whom they felt sorry for becomes slim, healthy and full of energy.

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    2. Many make a choice to be the beloved ugly duckling while comfortably rubbing shoulders with fellow junk eaters or fellow vegetarians, and turning other people food down could be tricky sometimes because in a real life a food sharing is so often a jest of a comfort , acceptance, friendship. It is the reason why sometimes I do cave in sensitive situations.

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    3. the REALLY sad part, to me, is that their to-die-for goodies don't really taste that good, once you get used to having a once-in-a-long-while treat that features cream, butter, eggs, nuts, berries, dark chocolate.... over-sweetened restaurant cakes frosted with cool-whip? GAG!!!

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    4. I don't even like going through the coffee aisle anymore because it smells like candy. It smells more like candy than actual candy. And almost anything that smells like fruit (like some perfumes)...blech. I'd rather chew an aspirin.

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    5. :-) when the premium coffees came out with flavors, decades ago, i was very excited about them ... but i quickly palled, because they're so artificial-smelling! back about a quarter-century ago, i could hardly bear to walk down the detergent aisle at the grocery, because of the perfumes. :-P

      "i'd rather chew an aspirin" -- LOL!

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    6. Some of those flavors are made of solvents. You really are better off chewing an aspirin.

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  9. "Great-Grandma Jones lived on eggs, bacon, and fried chicken till the tractor fell on her when she was 104...."

    LOVE IT!
    Love this whole post, in fact. So, so true.

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    1. thank you, Amy! :-) ...i think when we know more about epigenetics, it's going to be GAME CHANGING for the medical world!

      it was a real surprise to me when i had a chance to begin wandering in OLD WORLD cemeteries (i've always enjoyed doing it here in the US) -- people of really advanced ages are buried in Edinburgh, in very-old graveyards. i remember that distinctly; we have this image that people usually died at ages implied by life-expectancy statistics, but no -- these old folks balanced out infant mortality, to make a forty-something LE actually pretty impressive.

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  10. Me, who hasn't had a cold in 4 years, gets lectured by GP that LC/Atkins is "silly and dangerous"' as it eliminates food groups, and yet the sickly vegan suffering from colds and anemia is practically treated like a saint & told to take iron tablets...grrrr....true story

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    1. I am also significantly annoyed by the assumed healthiness of a vegetarianism. Ridiculous self-imposed suffering is revered, while our diet is viewed as a selfish indulgence in animal products.

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    2. I wouldn't mind doctors stuck in 1980s nutritional mindsets so much, if they didn't go around acting like they're dietary experts! [evil grin] LET 'em kill THEMSELVES with Ornish-style diets....

      the problem is, of course, that they tell parents to feed toddlers low-fat and THAT really pisses me off!!!

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    3. Well, certainly--how many toddlers do you see falling over from heart attacks since the low-fat craze started?

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  11. I have a good story to tell. My son went to Edmonton during summer because he had a desire to visit the place where he lived as a small child. Some of my friends still live there. His then playmate has a bothersome psoriasis now, and my son inspired him to try a gluten-free diet (I think it is the easiest food limitation possible unless you have to avoid even tiny crumbs) . Recently I talked by Skype with the young man's mother, and she told me that his psoriasis got much better.

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    1. it gives us a glow when we can help people get better, by sharing our dietary successes -- THIS is, i'm sure, what drives a lot of people to get into medicine. :-) unfortunately, the industry soon starts brainwashing students and they get over-wrought and over-worked as residents ... how ANY of them maintain sanity and altruism is the question!

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