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| | From:  JamieDH4 (Original Message) | Sent: 6/18/2007 5:47 AM |
Hans-
I don't know if you ever witness this in "science" or on the "news", but I witness it all the time. What it is is when a person or corporation (administration, group, association, etc) opposes a particular idea they generally try to "debunk" the other's ideas. Frequently, what they do is they address points that the people they oppose aren't even making. I am just going to post some general examples, with no real references because it's not really neccessary for the point I am making.
- I see talk of this "Meditterean" diet a lot, and it usually in a very encouraging manner. They usually say that the meditterean diet is high in legumes, canola oil, cereals.... etc. It's not though. I spent an entire week in the Meditterean sea this past January and I saw not one bottle of Canola Oil, no one single dish with any beans in it (except for soup), and not a single solitary person eating "cereal".
On the contrary, these people were eating a lot of butter, and olive oil, cheeses, breads and a whole slew of things that we consider to be "bad" in the US.
- Back in about 2003/2004 there was a lot of talk about the Dr. Atkins diet. I personally was a huge fan of his at the time and I read his books myself, with my very own eyes. I would get very uspet when I would see a "nutritionist" speaking against his books and teachings and they weren't even accurately representing his diet. I am not saying his diet is healthy, thats besides the point, but they would address points that I never once saw him make in any of his books.
They would call his diet a "No-Carb Diet" which is wasn't. Dr. Atkins diet was initially very restrictive on carbohydrates, but he did not encourage this restriction for more then two weeks. After these two weeks he encouraged adding back carbs in the form of berries and vegetables. They never would include this little fact though in their reviews of his diet. So while it is true that the first weeks were very resterictive on carbs, this was only for the first few weeks and they were therefore misrepresenting the points he was trying to make. His diet was never a no carb diet.
They would talk about how Dr. Atkins encouraged gorging on limitless amounts of food. If you read his book though, he explicitly states that you should only eat until you are satisfied, and that the fact you don't need to monitor calories does not mean it's a licence to gorge.
- If you read any review of the AIDS "denialists" you will see that the person trying to "debunk" their questioning always tries to say that the "denialists" are denying that people are dying of AIDS. I have never once seen a "denialist" deny that anyone has died. I have seen "denialist" question WHAT it is that the death was caused by, but never that the person actually died.
I just can't stand this. I wanted to start a thread where we can post examples of how people trying to make one point get their viewpoints misrepresented in the media or scientific communities. |
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I created a thread about ideology dominating science, so you could have posted this there, or else it should be in the nutrition forum. Try to do this in the future so we can keep this well organized.
The canola oil thing is especially bad because the difference between eating a lot of canola oil as opposed to the highest quality olive oil is extreme, and yet because both contain more MUFAs than any other fatty acids (and not all the MUFAs are even the same), they are both classifed as "monounsaturated fats." When I was young, the advice was to consume as much "polyunsaturated fat" as you liked, because it was the "healthy" oil, and yet now the advice is to consume "monounsaturated fat," though we were never told what was wrong with the old advice. Basically, I think of these people as "academic losers." They are not very intelligent people, in general, though they may do well on multiple choice tests because they force themselves to memorize a lot of information. I used to be like this myself (in high school), so I know it first hand. It was in my last two years of college that I really began to critically examine statements (such as those found in textbooks). In any case, the Med diet stuff could be true, in that eating a lot of beans is better than a typical American diet, but that is not saying much at all. Then there is the issue of what is done with the oil. Unless the oil is highly saturated, it can be made into a dangerous substance if it is cooked in certain ways and eaten with certain other foods, as I demonstrated in one of the essays. Usually, the more unsaturated bonds in the fat source the less healthy it is. The Atkins diet was just not necessary. I've found that I can maintain my weight (which is on the low side of "normal") simply by making sure I eat enough protein-rich food. If I do, I then don't eat much in the way of calorie-rich high-carb food. Moreover, Atkins didn't tell people to stay away from the PUFA-rich common oils, and so that can be a major problem with these low-carb diets. |
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