Wednesday, November 11, 2015

the fad fad

In an age when such large proportions of our populations are sick and/or overweight, when the medical industry is more interested in prescribing pharmaceuticals than counselling about proven health-enhancing habits, when media sources of advice for improving well-being are mostly wrong and very contradictory, people have to do their own "research."  We read countless sources of information that we think might possibly help, and tweak our own practices to try to get it all better.

The world at large calls our trials of low-carbing, gluten-avoiding, fast-food-eschewing, processed-junk-refusal, and farmers'-market-frequenting ... FADS.

Sometimes they're called CRAZES.

If someday i go on a murderous rampage, i think i'll go after ignorant health advisors even before i go after the lawyers and politicians.  ;-)

Yeah, those FADS -- we see people who were PERFECT followers of conventional wisdom fail miserably, and then when they go on Atkins, effortlessly lose significant amounts of weight.  We see them go on fasts and manage to discontinue medications.  We see people drop problematic dietary items, and intractible DISEASES go into remission.  But oh, we mustn't consider doing them ourselves -- we mustn't follow one of these "extreme" practices for more than a couple of months, say the "experts" -- because they're FADS which are untested.

Right.  A multi-year, many-participant, expensive-food RCT!  Why oh WHY is nobody doing these studies???!!!  Why has nobody yet proven the existence of God?!

The ultra-conservatives in American politics didn't invent the system of code-word use to subtly slam ideas they don't like, but they were far from being the first.  Don't have evidence that those ideas are actually BAD, but want to manipulate your ignorant voter-base?  Use words like "everybody knows" and "short-term gains" and ... "fad," "craze."

Whole-food eating is a fad.  We're crazily not eating things which we know make us feel bad.  We're parroting and slavishly following these DANGEROUS regimens which clear up our allergies and bowel complaints cuz bread is SO NUTRITIOUS....

Anti-science is a big problem in America on so many levels.  Anti-GOOD-science even more so.

And don't get me started on how i feel about using the word "movement" when it comes to a LOT of people following a "fad" like the removal of problematic food additives.  (It always makes me think of BOWEL movements....)  ;-)

12 comments:

  1. You know, the realization that your food profoundly influences your health may cause and anxiety, and avoiding something entirely without an appropriate allergy could be qualified as an eating disorder. If you don't practice a moderation, than you follow some sort of a fad diet, unless you are a vegetarian, of course.

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    1. :-) it amuses me so much when authorities tell low-carbers it's dangerous to "cut out an entire food group" and then go on to promote vegan diets!

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    2. I guess authorities in a nutrition feel some religious component in a vegetarianism, and no one in a right mind in US dares to discuss reasonableness of religious believes. Besides, most foods dense in nutrition are viewed with a suspicious eye. An ideal food should contain mostly water, a lot of fiber and a lot of antioxidants. Vegetables are perfect from that point of view, and meat is not..

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  2. G'day Tess. Every post like this seems a bit nude without a stooge in the comments section suggesting that fads are bad because good health isn't rocket science - everything in moderation.

    So...

    Good health isn't rocket science. Enjoy everything in moderation. Mostly plants, with a moderate dash of break fluid dressing and a small side of plutonium.

    Have a good one.

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    1. brake fluid.

      Damn, I should probably scale back the plutonium.

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    2. that plutonium will eat your lunch EVERY SINGLE TIME! you really ought to switch over to hemlock juice with just a few yew-berries blended into it -- cuz plants are HEALTHY! everybody knows that!

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    1. :-D thank you! that's one of the nicest things anyone has said to me today! (first prize went to my granddaughter, who told me she thinks i'm pretty.)

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  4. Yes, I was listening to Jimmies' Cruise podcast with Dr. Eric Westman, etc... there some wonderful inspiring speakers.. I'm in the same boat as Dr. W if I give the advice that will heal them I'm a fadist. If I don't I'm not practicing really good medicine. So I FAD away. I also, sleep at night. plus I'm a fad eater for 35 years...no gluten for me!

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    1. You at least have a Legitimate Genuine Diagnosis (tm) of CD. The millions of us who are gluten-sensitive (crazeee) ... well, it's just obviously all in our heads! ;-)

      Interestingly, on Halloween evening J and i went to a special tour of an historic St. Louis house where we were told the death-stories of a Victorian family in which 13 children were born but only three survived into adulthood. Most died in early childhood, some as pre-teens, one in his early twenties. Two made it to middle-age, but one of those was schizophrenic and was taken care of by family because of the appalling mental-healthcare of that era. As we were watching the short film which told of what killed each, it occurred to me that celiac disease might have been behind all those deaths. After all, they were an affluent family who could get the best medical care available in the post-civil-war era, in the fourth-largest city in the nation....

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    2. It could be. Sometimes I wonder how a natural selection allowed the existence of a CD till present time, but humans are amazingly resilient.

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    3. It kinda looks like CD is increasing significantly in these days -- a combination of the latest hybrids of wheat being particularly pernicious, plus the increasing amounts being consumed these days is turning a problem into a PROBLEM. Cultures eating a couple of pieces of bread per day have changed to eating wheat as a huge part of their daily intake. I could visualize the problem (for most people) being the sheer volume of a troublesome foodstuff the western world is consuming.

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