In a particularly funny episode of "Raymond" Debra gives Ray a withering look during an argument about their sex life and asks, "What does 'all night long' mean to you?The biggest lie that most of us low-carbers hear all the time is that "High protein diets will damage your kidneys! You have to have some carbs! Bread is a staple, for heaven's sake."
No. It's not.
I've been reading an awesome book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by science reporter Gary Taubes. It's no "diet" book. It is an in depth deconstruction of every major diet and nutrition study conducted around the world since the late 1800's. It is a remarkable piece of research, and extremely eye-opening about the origins of what many doctors and nutritionists still believe is a "healthy diet" composed of mostly starchy carbohydrates, little protein and very, very little fat. Taubes shows how the studies that supposedly "prove" this type of eating healthy are based on assumptions.
That's right. Assumptions. Sound like science to you?
Just today conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was talking about a large group of scientists who share a "consensus" that man-made global warming exists. This group won't even begin to examine any reported errors in their study design or any studies that refute the idea that man is causing global warming. He pointed out that "consensus" has NOTHING to do with science. Man-made global warming is about politics and so is the so-called healthy diet based on the food pyramid.
Real science is about provable fact. It is cut and dry. Obviously there are phenomena that exist which science hasn't yet been able to explain. But that doesn't mean there isn't a logical, factual reason behind these phenomena. There were no cars or factories at the end of the last ice age to "create" global warming; and our ancestors survived just fine on meat, leafy greens, roots and fruit.
Think of it this way: police officers cannot go out, decide someone is guilty of something, THEN set out to find evidence to prove their chosen suspect guilty. That kind of "investigating" has an inherent bias that would lead the officers to ignore any evidence that disproves their original theory. The evidence must lead to the suspect, not the other way around.
In the case of a healthy diet, many nutritionists, doctors, dietitians and the like ignore anthropological evidence that show our earliest ancestors ate little to no starch or sugar in their diets, were disease resistant, and did not exercise 24/7. If their diets had been deficient, we wouldn't be here. It's just that simple.
I highly encourage you to read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and learn about this for yourself. It could make a huge difference in your life and your health.
Now, if only someone could get Taubes to write a book called "Good Climate, Bad Climate" this whole man-made global warming thing might get cleared up, too.
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11 comments:
I really like how Taubes lays the evidence, and lack of evidence, out there. I really hope this book makes the difference it's capable of making. That will require people to listen! Thanks for recommending it.
OYB
My blog: Kimorexia
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Another thing you and I agree on....global warming is a crock.
Oh Bamagal!
You've made my day!!
Got to say that while I also find Taubes book really interesting, and have personally tested a low-refined carb diet with success, I really don't think there's an analogy to be made with global warming. From what I've read, there's a ton of credible science, endlessly reviewed, that establishes that it's actually happening and we're causing it. To be on the other side on this one is to be on the same page as people who think the world is flat or that it was made in 7 24 hour periods. That said, if someone actually could do a book that took a critical look at the scientific consensus, and, without recourse to oil-company or oil company proxy funded studies, showed I was wrong, I'd be very interested in reading it. But Limbaugh? Seriously? You like him. And Taubes? At the same time? Wow. I don't think much of Limbaugh. Don't see how you can mention him and Taubes in the same breath.
Since I like Taubes and Rush, guess that makes me pretty open-minded in your POV, wouldn't you say?
In any case, several world-reknown climatologists including the one who founded The Weather Channel think man-made global warming is a crock. I would also welcome an OBJECTIVE look at the data. But I have to say you're placing the "flat eather's" on the wrong side of the argument. One-hundred years from now people are going to be chuckling over this whole thing and see it for what it is - a LIE by the political establishment to enable raising taxes, keep us from drilling and refining our own oil, and to please the FAR left part of their constituents.
The food pyramid ia a government created nod to basically the same crowd, according to Taubes. McGovern was trying to co-opt the dietary thinking of the day and make his animal-rights constituents happy without angering beef, pork and poultry farmers too much.
Politics. Simple, but NOT so pure.
Excellent post! Haven't read Taubes book but am a fan of Global Cooling :D
Somebody says "From what I've read, there's a ton of credible science, endlessly reviewed, that establishes that it's actually happening and we're causing it. To be on the other side on this one is to be on the same page as people who think the world is flat or that it was made in 7 24 hour periods."
While we can admire the hyperbole we resent the heck out of being lumped in with the creationists and flatearthers. Your comments reveal ignorance of paleometeorology. Get a clue -- 2007 was the COLDEST year on record. We're in the foothills of yet another ice age -- a natural cycle.
Consensus does have its place in science, though it's important to distinguish "consensus" from "argument from authority." Science is largely self-correcting, and depends on consensus for this. Peer review aka consensus, in its purest form, is the examination of your work and conclusions by those who are 'versed in the art' (not always a fellow scientist or someone with an advanced degree) and are therefore able to judge the quality of your work and conclusions.
Real science is, as you point out, about provable facts. For instance, it's a provable fact that the earth's temperature is increasing, as have greenhouse gases. The problem lies in the interpretation of these facts. The earth's temperature is increasing, but is this a normal variation in climate, or is it due to the increase in greenhouse gases?
An inherent problem in this kind of science is that so much of it must, by definition, be derived either by inference or by indirect evidence. We can't blast the atmosphere with CO2 to prove or disprove global warming, after all. However, we can look at the historical data both for our own planet and others. Venus, for example, is incredibly hot and has an atmosphere composed mostly of CO2, which 'consensus' largely agree is responsible for its massive surface temperature.
Mars, by contrast, has a very thin atmosphere and is constantly bombarded with solar radiation -- yet it's surface is frigid. It's assumed this is because despite the fact that the Martian atmosphere is also mainly composed of C02, there's simply not enough of it to retain heat from the solar irradiation. Neither planet's atmosphere is affected by biological action, of course, but in studying them we can infer something as to the effect generated by the relative concentration of CO2.
Is global warming real? The current theory may not be correct, and will most certainly evolve over time. But just as all claims require evidence, opposing claims -- such as the claim that global warming is not real -- require the same.
I'm somewhere in the middle. For many reasons, including health, I think it's a good idea to cut down on emissions and limit our impact on the earth but I don't think the situation is so dire as to require everyone to throw away their car keys and start chasing their dinners with pointed sticks, you know?
Elle
I meant to add that the atmosphere on Venus is incredibly dense -- the pressure is something like 90 times that of earth, and that there is a very high concentration of C02 in the Venusian atmosphere compared to earth and Mars.
Elle
Oh, I don't totally discount that global warming exists. It's the man-made part that I discount. It is known that the Earth goes through many weather cycles, such as El Nino, that occur with some predictability. However, there may be longer cycles which the relatively young science of climatology has yet to recognize. I mentioned the end of the last Ice Age. What caused it to end? It certainly wasn't mankind. It bothers me that the hard-core environmentalists act as though humans don't belong on the Earth and that as soon as we came along, pristine nature was forever fouled. That's just nonsense!
Heh, actually, some hypotheses claim that increases in C02 caused at least one of the ice ages to end. Ice traps gases, local volcanic activity, in addition to releasing CO2 in the process of eruption, caused enough melting over time to release enough C02 from the ice to cause gradual warming. Also, certain geologic features, such as the Colorado Plateau, have been postulated to be "C02 scrubbers," capable of removing significant quantities of C02, depending on their condition at any point in time. If covered with ice due to an unusual climactic event, they couldn't perform this function, CO2 gradually accumulated, rinse, repeat.
I'm babbling here, but to an extent I agree with you about the more rabid of our environmentalist friends. Honey, not vinegar, people! Besides, you simply cannot decouple people from nature, we are *part* of nature and while we may be rapidly depleting our resources, we are not alone in this. The other animals which populate this planet do not have some magical sense of conservation -- koala, for example, don't have a Eucalyptus leaf sustainability program, they'll just eat away until there's nothing left.
The difference between us and the koala and all other animals is that we *do* have the ability to plan ahead. That CO2 can increase temperature is not in doubt, nor is the fact that we generate a lot of that. Given this, and in the interest of sustainability -- so we don't chew through all our Eucalyptus leaves and are left standing there, wondering what the heck happened to all our food -- we should try and reduce emissions because of what could happen. We do have an impact on our environment -- CFCs, for instance, they're completely inert at sea level but because they are so inert they lasted long enough to find their way into the upper atmosphere where solar irradiation finally broke them down, resulting in a hole in the ozone layer. Since CFCs were mostly banned, ozone depletion has slowed down, and appears to be reversing.
So yes, we do have some impact on our environment along with all the other animals, but how much is up for debate. We need to be judicious and forward thinking, but we just don't need to be as precipitous and drastic in our actions in addressing this as some people would have us believe.
Elle
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