Let’s get Diabetes!
http://www.letsmove.gov/learn-facts/epidemic-childhood-obesity
Has facts that aren’t facts, but are plain wrong. Science doesn’t back them up. Logic doesn’t back them up. Most of what is there is pure poppycock, written in correct grammar.
I suspect that Michelle Obama’s genetics let her eat whatever she likes, in copious quantities, and not gain weight. I’m similar. I’ve put on a bit of weight after my pituitary failed due to an accident, but I’ve spent most of my life eating everything I could and staying the same weight. Others aren’t so genetically fortunate.
About 60,000 generations of humans shaped human evolution during the Stone Age. Perhaps 10 have occurred in the Industrial Age. Maybe 600 in the age of agriculture. Put another way, 99.something % of our human evolution and adaptation happened when we were hunter gatherers.
What do hunter gatherer’s eat? Meat. The fattest yummiest meat they can get their hands on. In percentages ranging from 80% to 100% of their daily nutrition. When they eat fruit it, it is typically during a short period of the year, prior to “hard times”, also known as “winter”. The plant material they gather is not dense in nutrition and is wrapped, generally, in hard to digest fiber. Hunter gatherers are not fat.
Hunter gatherer’s do not have “western” diseases. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s are unheard of in their cultures. Yet, when they begin eating like us their rates of those diseases hit Western levels quickly.
So it would make sense, logically and historically, to want to eat as they do. And science backs that logic up. When you eat like a hunter gatherer you don’t get fat, you lose fat if you are fat, you are not lethargic, and your risk of many Western diseases such as diabetes and heart disease disappear.
So why would Michelle, and the USDA, and other parts of our government recommend this food plate:
Why would they recommend this really bad advice:
Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
● Make at least half your grains whole grains.
● Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
Why? Do they want us to get diabetes? Do they want us to have heart failure? Do they want us to be fat, lethargic and tired?
I don’t think they want us to do have those problems. But I think they care less about us than about their preconceived notion of how the world works. They treat nutrition like they treat economics – what works need not apply.
So my advice to the nation…. if you want to live a happy, healthy, economically prosperous life… DO EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT MICHELLE OBAMA and YOUR GOVERNMENT TELL YOU.
Eat this folks:
Fatty meats, some seaweed, and a few veggies
Or this:
(minus the corn chip)
or this:
Whatever you do… AVOID what Michelle and her USDA buddies recommend!
August 13th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Could there be any holes and convenient assumptions in the eat-meat story?
How much detail do we really know about the hunter-gatherers from which we descended (if you accept evolution as a fact)? How much meat and calories per person could be reliably obtained before agriculture, livestock tending, and supermarkets? Hunting was dangerous and kills I think were not an everyday affair. What was their life expectancy and what role did their diet play in life expectancy? All we can be sure of is that they got enough calories to be able to hunt, reproduce, and slowly improve their lives.
“The specific plant to animal food ratio in the Paleolithic diet is also a matter of some dispute. The mean diet among modern hunter-gatherer societies is estimated to consist of 64-68% of animal calories and 32-36% of plant calories,… The animal-derived calorie percentage ranges from 25% in the Gwi people of southern Africa, to 99% in Alaskan Nunamiut. ..”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet
There’s also the element of cost since one pound of meat costs something like 5-7 pounds of grain. Protein from beans is a lot cheaper than filet mignon. The average American would have to devote a much larger fraction of its food spending to dine regularly on meat. Meat works for cats, not for people.
How many total skeletons from Paloelithic times does science have on which to base definitive conclusions on diet for our generation?
And why would we reject modern nutrition science in favor of a model based on scarce data? We have no shortage of qualified scientists who have studied nutrition chemistry and the effects of diet on health, disease
resistance, and longevity, and have divined an optimum diet for the average American who does not have the life style of the hunter-gatherer. They did so from a wealth of data.
Hunter-gatherers I think avoided cancer, diabetes, and heart disease by not living long enough to develop them. They are diseases that mostly appear after fifty years.
Estimated percent of people over 20 with diabetes: age 20-44 3.7%; age 45-64 13.7%;’ age over 65 26.9%. Since life expectancy in the hunter-gathers was low, only small fraction would have had the disease. Source: 2005–2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
Nearly 70% of people diagnosed with lung cancer are older than 65; fewer than 3% of all cases are found in people under the age of 45. http://www.asbestos.net/diseases/lung-cancer/lung-cancer-facts
Since we have had decades of scientific investigation on diet and nutrition, I’d like to see the analysis behind the claim that “Science doesn’t back them up.” and have it be subjected to peer review. I will concede that vested interests no doubt tried to get their products into the mix, but the scientists wouldn’t let that be a large factor in their recommendations. If there is evidence of politicization of the plate, then we should be wary of its honesty. Lacking such evidence, though, I’ll go with the nutrition scientists.
And Michelle’s metabolism is irrelevant since the diet is targeted at average humans and she is merely a well-known spokesperson.
August 13th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
The numbers I used were for hunter gatherers that exist today (230 different ones) that were actually measured not estimated. From the book Why we are Fat and What to Do About It.
And I don’t know why you keep demanding I write epic fact filled posts. AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN. Get used to it. I read, condense, opine. Done. I’ve read various articles and books by folks that surveyed nutrition science and what they report is that concurrent our obesity uptick, nutrition science went off the deep end. Sort of like Economics and Environment science.
What’s odd about your request for “science” is that the peer reviewed studies actually SHOW WHAT I”M SAYING. It’s the energy in/energy out ones that fail. No matter… they just keep on trucking, just like environment science, theoretical physics and other failed sciences.
And I’m not claiming politicization – just stupidity.
August 13th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
“model based on scarce data”… you really should back your comments up with facts. Don’t you think?
September 27th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
So wait, you think all the nutritionists, doctors, medical organizations and medical schools that support and teach Michelle Obama’s plan are all wrong because you read one book? You think you are qualified to make that kind of a judgement that goes against what the vast majority of medical professionals say? What exactly is your background in nutrition and/or medicine?
December 19th, 2011 at 5:21 am
You made a few fine points there. I did a search on the subject matter and found most folks will consent with your blog.