Why the federal government has been afraid of it.
History will view this as one of the biggest public-health disasters of all time, and (as with climate) based on junk science.
Category Archives: Culinary
Still On The Road
We started heading back from Denver yesterday. Spent the night in Durango (where we had what seems to be a new Colorado cuisine — Nepalese), and heading down through Monument Valley this morning, with plans to end up for the night at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Not sure what connectivity will be like there.
[Sunday-morning update]
I had connectivity in the park via my phone, but decided to just relax. If you have only been to the south rim, I highly recommend the north. It’s more spectacular, in my opinion, and much less crowded, due to the fact that it’s much more remote, and can’t just be driven through. In Phoenix this morning, and headed back to LA a little later. Back to business as usual then, except I’ll be headed up to the New Space conference on Wednesday.
“Progressive” McDonalds
I think this is stupid. I’m not a huge customer, but as a result, I’ll probably start using alternatives. There are plenty of them.
In fact, one of the chains should go back to frying in tallow. It would save them money, and be in your face to nutrition quacks.
Federal Dietary Guidelines
…are based on “pseudoscience.”
I think that’s being kind. They’re based on junk science. And they’re deadly:
The confluence of self-interest, institutional inertia, and scientific incompetence has led us to where we are today. The federal government has massively increased spending on nutrition and obesity research over the past few decades, and now spends over $2 billion of taxpayer’s money per year. Unfortunately, the people that control that funding are the same researchers that use these anecdotal methods, train the next generation of researchers, and control the publication of scientific papers. As such, new methods and innovative research is stifled. The same researchers are getting funded to do the same research year after year after year. This inertia and self-interest are exacerbated by the exorbitant amount of grant funding established researchers receive. As with many things in life, follow the money.
Say, isn’t there another field of science with profound public-policy implications that operates under the same incentives and pressures?
Another All-Beef Diet
Of course, despite the results, she gets “warned” by “nutritionists.”
Potatoes
It won’t be perfect until they can reduce the glycemic issues. Via @Instapundit.
But Will They Do The Dishes?
Chimpanzees would cook if given the chance.
Treating The Obese Like Smokers?
The worst thing about this piece is this:
Americans are fat because we eat large portions, and because we eat foods that are high in sugar and fat. Americans are fat because we eat large portions, and because we eat foods that are high in sugar and fat. Perhaps it’s time for the surgeon general to put scary warning labels on sugary and fatty foods.
That is a profoundly ignorant statement, nutrition wise. People don’t get fat from eating fat
Crap Nutrition “Science” In Journals
I wish I believed that the situation was much better than this in climate science, but really, I have little reason to.
Cholesterol
Matt Wridley has a brief history of how it’s not bad for you. And this is worth repeating in the context of climate “science”:
If challenged to show evidence for low-cholesterol advice, the medical and scientific profession has tended to argue from authority — by pointing to WHO guidelines or other such official compendia, and say “check the references in there”. But those references lead back to Keys and Framingham and other such dodgy dossiers. Thus does bad science get laundered into dogma. “One of the great commandments of science is ‘Mistrust arguments from authority’,” said Carl Sagan.
Similarly, mistrust people who talk about “consensus” and quote fake statistics on how many scientists believe something.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, link is fixed now.