Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go. ― Agatha Christie
“Paging Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz to the ER, stat.”
Nurse, what’s wrong?
Doctor, thank goodness you’re here. One of your patients is doing very poorly.
Oh no! Which one?
Lipid H. Po. Thesis
NO!
One of these nuts is a meal for a man, both meat and drink.
– Marco Polo
I’m going to talk for a little bit about the glories of the coconut. Feel free to turn away at this point.
I never grew up eating them. East Tennessee is remarkably free of coconut trees. I saw some in China when I moved there, but I didn’t know much about them, didn’t know how to open them, and didn’t really bother looking into it.
Then in the course of studying up on my high fat, moderate protein diet, I kept running across coconuts and coconut oils. Lots of people swear by it for energy, for skin care, as a cancer cure, as an HIV cure, for curing the plague, for regrowing limbs, etc. Some of the claims were so far fetched that I didn’t pay much attention to this little fruit.
But I did note in my reading that some of the people groups whose traditional diets involved very high levels of saturated fat–and yet who did not have heart disease, obesity, diabetes, or cancer–got their saturated fat from a daily diet of coconuts rather than seals or cattle. The Tokelauan diet in particular was over 50% fat, most of it saturated. If you look at the very end of the study I linked to, you see that when the Tokelauans migrated to New Zealand their overall and saturated fat intakes sharply declined: and then they started developing arteriosclerosis.
If the mind, that rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to trample on its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite the oppressor.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If you’re not familiar with the term “calories in, calories out,” or CICO, it refers to the dearly held belief that somehow the laws of thermodynamics demand that if we eat X number of calories (energy in) and expend Y number of calories (energy out) that our weight will change by Z according to how much we over- or under- ate our caloric needs. This formula is trotted out as the ultimate answer for obesity.
And it’s idiotic.
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
–Charles de Gaulle
And that’s about the quality of the information we can glean from The China Study.
The China Study is a book by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell that purportedly proves without a doubt that the eating of animal foods causes all the chronic diseases of civilization, like heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. It’s supposedly based on the results of the China-Cornell-Oxford Project which was, interestingly enough, directed by T. Colin Campbell and involved China, Cornell, and Oxford. As you can probably guess, the study followed Chinese people in rural areas of China and recorded what they say they ate, when they got sick, and how they died.
And The China Study is pretty much the “inspired by actual events,” made-for-TV movie version of the China-Cornell-Oxford project.
Now if you haven’t heard of this book, you obviously don’t have any vegan friends because this is their favorite thing in the world besides tofu. This proves, proves mind you, that if you get cancer it is entirely your own fault for insisting on eating chicken.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
–Mark Twain
The Roommate’s latest suggestion for a post is to reflect on why people might try ditching the gov’mint approved Food Pyramid (we’re 100 certain!) and then after a while give up on this new way of eating.
And by “ditching the Food Pyramid” I don’t mean going on the cookie diet.
As “Dr.” Siegal says, “Hunger Wrecks Diets®©™,” so order all your cookies and shakes now and don’t ever stop eating. That’s the key. And also don’t forget to take all the nutritional supplements, since cookies apparently don’t provide all the nutrition you need.
If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.
—Phil Pastoret
I was pretty sure that my lamb shoulder was something wondrous:
But I arranged a consult for a second opinion:
The experts concur.
Plato says he’s hungry
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I don’t want any vegetables, thank you. I paid for the cow to eat them for me.
–Doug Copeland
I’m going to say some things about vegetables now. It might hurt their feelings, but I’m not going to say it to their faces. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t repeat it to your asparagus, either. Hang on, here we go:
That’s not a lie. It’s a terminological inexactitude.
–Alexander Haig
If we hadn’t all been fed a bunch of never-proved hypotheses about fat, calories and exercise as incontrovertible fact; by people who thought we were too stupid to be healthy and wanted to stick their big noses in and tell everyone else what to do, we would never have ended up with something like this:
She seems like a sweet lady, and I’m sure she thinks she’s helping people. But this isn’t useful, it could be dangerous–especially for large people–and she didn’t get thin doing it. She was already thin and is active because she’s thin. She’s not thin because she’s active.
Dare I say it? If God had meant us to prance like horses, He would have given us four legs. We’re not meant to eat like horses, either. Put down that grass drink and go grill up a steak.
Plato says he’s hungry
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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
–Albert Einstein
I woke up this morning to see similar headlines blasted all over the web. I would love to quote it for you, but I just can’t decide which particular headline to use.
The upshot of all the headlines is that the FDA has finally approved a new obesity drug, Belviq, for sale in the USA. And there are so many things to mock here that my head is swimming. It’s like that time I got dragged to go “fishing” at a fish farm. The pond was about 3 feet deep, 20 feet widem and 10 feet long and contained approximately 1,546,453 fish.
You could just put on your apron, grab one with your bbq tongs, and stick it right on the grill.
Fat is not the problem. If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases.
–Dr. Walter Willett
I’d say the biggest of all questions I get is an objection to the amount of fat I eat. I totally understand this: even if you aren’t paying attention you still can’t help but have noticed that it’s blamed for all society’s ills.
Ask Me How It Happened 