That’s the ultimate goal of most turkey recipes: to create a great skin and stuffing to hide the fact that turkey meat, in its cooked state, is dry and flavorless.
–Alton Brown
Pay no attention to that quote. I put it there as an illustration of what not to do. Your turkey doesn’t ever have to be dry and flavorless. If it is, you ain’t doing it right.
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
― Aristotle
You may recall that back at The Beginning I mentioned drinking a version of “bulletproof” coffee. As I mentioned then, the real thing is done with MCT oil, but I was using plain old coconut oil and dodging spears from the Bulletproof Faithful for my heresy.
Then a few posts back, I went on and on about coconuts and coconut oil. If you recall, I mentioned that drinking coffee with butter and coconut oil resulted in feeling full and energetic. When we ran out of coconut oil and then got some more two weeks later, I was able to narrow down that it was likely the coconut oil that made the biggest energy difference.
Tradition is an explanation for acting without thinking.
–Grace McGarvie
He’s at it again! SOMEONE STOP HIM.
I’m talking about Dr. Oz trying to scare you about eating high fat foods. This time he was on with Piers Morgan talking about the untimely demise of an actor: James Gandolfini. Mr. Gandolfini died recently of a massive heart attack.
First I would just like to say that I find it highly reprehensible to use the tragic death of a relatively young man–who left behind a widow and two children, one of them an infant–in this way. Mr. Gandolfini’s death also apparently occurred while he was on the toilet, something which hardly anyone would even know had not Mehmet Oz (which is an awesome name for a comic book villain, by the way) told the entire world about it on Piers Morgan’s show.
Continue reading Holy Partially-Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Batman!
….someone else has noticed. Noticed the complete idiocy of calling obesity a disease. TIME, specifically.
I especially appreciate their noticing, and stating, the following things:
1. It’s insane to say that people at a BMI of 29 are fine, but once you cross over to BMI 30 you suddenly “have a disease.”
2. Yes, there are certain health risks associated with obesity. Metabolic syndrome things, like high triglycerides and high blood pressure. But how can obesity be causing those things when 25% of “normal” weight people also have those symptoms, and 50% of “overweight” people and 30% of “obese” people don’t have them at all?
Obesity isn’t a cause, and it isn’t a disease. It’s just one of many symptoms.
Full article here.
But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule.
–Plato
Not long ago, I wrote a post about the miracle obesity drug, Belviq. Then I wrote another one about bariatric surgery and the new “obesity as disease” pronouncement.
Little did I know how closely they were linked. Follow the money too far and you might end up with half your intestines cut out.
I love to eat–Kit Kats or cookies-and-cream ice cream. I need sugar like five times a day. –Kim Kardashian
Doesn’t that quote rattle your brain a little bit?
I mean, would anyone argue that a diet like that is healthy? I don’t think so. And yet do people publicly denounce Ms. Kardashian as unhealthy, or suggest she needs to change up her diet? No. Why not?
Dare I suggest it’s because she’s not fat?
The best Doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet and Dr. Merryman.
–Jonathan Swift
Did you see the exciting news? Obesity is now a disease! O Happy Day! Our problems are solved.
I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
― Michael Crichton
In the previous post I got all worked up over a news article claiming that eating red meat raises the risk of developing diabetes. I may still be slightly worked up, so you might want to go have some chocolate and get back to me tomorrow.
The article was biased from the outset, was not a real “study” at all, relied on notoriously inaccurate data, and ignored important variables altogether. Not to mention that no hypothesis was formed for the purpose of testing and truth-finding. No, we skipped that inconvenient step completely and just jumped to calling it a full-fledged theory and telling everyone how to eat based upon it.
Continue reading Pardon Me; Your Bias is Showing 2
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.
–Konrad Lorenz
It’s science today, folks. If you want to run screaming for the door, now’s the time.
I noticed two headlines in the news today. One illustrates total bias in the way something is reported; the other shows proper scientific reporting of a finding that may generate a hypothesis worth looking at. The first is designed to frighten you, the second is designed to inform you.
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.
― Garrison Keillor
Last week the Roommate’s colleague rescued some kittens out of the trash. The poor little things were so tiny that anyone could see they were way too small to be taken from their mother. The lady had heard them crying in the dumpster.
She pulled the pathetic things out of the garbage. The garbage was behind the local restaurant…which didn’t bode well for Mother, I should say.
Ask Me How It Happened 