For your humorous reading today, you might want to check out this post at RealClearScience on the incredibly silly federal dietary guidelines for Americans. Here’s a snippet:
Recently, my colleagues and I published research in Mayo Clinic Proceedings that examined dietary data from almost 50 years of nutrition studies. What we found was astounding; these data were physiologically implausible and incompatible with survival. In other words, the diets from these studies could not support human life if consumed on a daily basis. The reason for this is simple; the memory-based data collection methods (M-BMs) used by nutrition researchers are unscientific because they rely on both the truthfulness of the study participant and the accuracy of his or her memory. Stated more simply, these methods collect nothing more than uncorroborated anecdotal estimates of food and beverage consumption.
Importantly, vast amounts of taxpayer dollars are directed away from rigorous scientific investigations and squandered every year on the collection of uncorroborated anecdotes via M-BMs. Approximately 80% of the data in the USDA’s National Evidence Library consists of uncorroborated anecdotes as well as 100% of the dietary data from every major epidemiologic study over the past 50 years (e.g., Nurses’ Health Study, Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, REGARDS project, and EPIC study). In other words, most of what nutrition researchers call “scientific evidence†is in reality a vast collection of nearly baseless anecdotes. Nevertheless, despite a century of unequivocal evidence that human memory and recall are woefully inadequate for actual scientific data collection, the data from these methods are used to create public health policy.
Read the whole thing. And weep. Of, if you’re of Irish descent, laugh. The federal dietary guidelines, since their beginnings in 1980, have been an improbable combination of marketing, science, anecdote, folklore, and political hobbyhorse. It underscores why I’m so skeptical of technocracy. “Technocracy” is supposed to mean “rule by experts”. In practice what it means, has always meant, and will always mean is “rule by idiots who think they’re experts”.
I’ll only add one thing. There is abundant paleontological and anthropological data supporting the reality that human beings preferentially seek out the highest fat-containing food source in their environments. It has been that way for tens of thousands of years, is that way today, will continue to be that way as long as we’re human beings and there’s nothing we can do to change it. We’re hardwired for it. It’s part of how we’re built. Whether it’s good for us or not is irrelevant.
I’ve recently come to an understanding with my physician that I need to lose 17 pounds, and with all of the modest bravery I possess I went about making modest, sustainable changes to diet and exercise.
I tried to look at alcohol for low-hanging fruit, and was surprised to learn that studies have consistently found that alcohol, if anything, tended to prevent weight gain: Link
The studies that conclude the opposite appear to be based upon one of two assumptions: (i) alcohol calories are a meaningful measurement of potential weight gain. Alcohol is ignitable, so ounce-for-ounce it has the most calories of anything humans consume, but the body tries to eliminate alcohol, not convert it to fat. (ii) For beer, the malt sugars register high on the Glycaemic Index, though these sugars are mostly “eaten” by the yeast and converted into alcohol or carbon-dioxide. The standard methods of measuring this value doesn’t work because there is insufficient mass in standard servings.
In sum, I didn’t change anything, at best there was no evidence of anything to go on, other than moderation for reasons other than weight loss.
One complication of most weight-loss advice is that the target audience for much of this advice is women and, unbelievable as it might be given today’s propaganda, men and women have different dietary requirements.
My SO (a female) cut way down on carbs last year, and I (a male) replaced sandwiches with salads for lunch, and we eat far less pasta than we used to. Nothing else changed. Same alcohol intake, same sweets and for me, the same meat intake.
The result–she dropped 15 lbs, and I dropped 10 lbs.
And that article is sort of nuts–is he really saying that Americans underestimate their fruit and vegetable intake? I could believe that with alcohol or chips, but kale and apples?
MM’s comment above brings up something significant. Different people have different abilities to handle carbohydrates. Some can consume them without putting on weight; others have very low ability to consume carbohydrates. One size does not fit all.
I’ve lost weight on very low carb diets and on calorie counting diets. Losing is not the problem for me, keeping it off is. Final victory is not in the cards, just endless low-intensity warfare.
I’ve been calling bullshit on nutritionists since the days when brewer’s yeast was a thing we were supposed to eat. We are omnivores – we became the dominant species on diets of bugs, carrion and low-hanging fruit. As long as we get enough vitamin C to avoid scurvy we tend to do fine, regardless of diet. The nutrition obsession is a secular religion and like all religions, I don’t buy it.
My view is that our bodies are working against us. Human development has brought people to the point of stasis. No physiology was intended to eat a Chipotle burrito for lunch and then perform five hours of hard labor answering email and using Excel. With a break at 3 for a Twix from the vending machine.