The last post, 'Epicurius, Diet and great bovine wedges of the stuff ' was in part prompted by the arrival of a book from a recent Amazon order, which I of course did not pay for (how could I?); 'The Gluten Lie' by Alan Levinovitz PhD, although I had not read it before I wrote the post.
The title just prompted me to write about something you humans seem to obsess about. Well, I have now read the book and it should be 'required reading' for all those humans who are fed up (as I am) with the see-saw ramblings of a media obsessed with promoting 'superfoods', cancer-causing, Alzheimers- causing (surely the 'new' cancer as a 'terror weapon'), whatever-causing foods, fad diets and unscientific claims by so-called nutritionists and, dare I say, 'witch-doctor-charlatans' keen only on promoting their bank balance and how such claims oscillate backwards and forwards. Grains and vegetables only diets; meat only diets; rice and fruit juice only diets; living like a Neanderthal diets (Paleo); the Masai diet (meat and milk only); the list is both endless and, more importantly, very often mutually exclusive. They all can't be right, can they?
Dr Levinovitz is not a nutritionist, not a gastro-enterologist, not a neuroscientist, not even a medical professional; he is an assistant professor of religion. So what is Mr 'Objective-Atheist' Penguin doing reading a book written by a religious scholar? Well, you see, Alan's not a creationist nut-job, a jihadi extremist or someone looking to push a new 'fad'; he studies sacred texts, myths, stories and tries to work out what they might have meant to the people that believed in them and just as importantly why they might have believed in them. His field of expertise is in ancient Chinese texts.
So what gives someone who reads the I-Ching for a living the authority to pronounce on diet? And why should I believe anything of what he says?
Actually, Doc L is perfectly placed to comment on the see-saw nature of 'food-fads', diets, and charlatan-claims based on little or no evidence, except the anecdotal, primarily because of what he does for a living. The same features that exemplify the nutritional advice handed down in often unfounded claims through a variety of best-sellers, which incidentally make their authors shed-loads of money from a guilt-ridden, overweight and gullible population (yes, we are talking about America here), are exactly the same features that crop up in the myths and stories which have been told throughout the ages. The myth of a former paradise-like Eden, the fear of the modern, faith unsupported by evidence, a sense of self-worth, the 'we know better' mindset, a desire to live forever (or at least for a very long time).
While much of the book is specifically related to events in the US, (Europe appears to base its assumptions on more recent and replicable research) it does nonetheless hold lessons for all people who desire not to be taken in by spurious, often unfounded, sometimes dangerous claims, which use pseudoscience or isolated, unreplicated genuine research to fool the gullible and to enhance their own wealth; hell some are even medical practitioners, although that is perhaps stretching the term 'doctors' to almost, if not, breaking-point.
So what the hell, I hear you cry. If people want to waste their money on the latest fad, why should I worry? Three reasons.
One, as I pointed out in my last post, perhaps one third of Americans believe themselves to be gluten intolerant; that by the way is mostly self-diagnosis. Is this dangerous? Well, it is if you have children and don't get yourself, and them, tested for coeliac disease, which is inheritable and does cause gluten intolerance, because your children may inherit it and if they choose not to go along with your 'fad' diet, they may end up ill with a whole range of symptoms.
Two, 'exclusion diets', cutting out specific foodstuffs which are largely based on the fat/carbs/protein trichotomy or on excluding specific ingredients, gluten, sugar, salt etc, are notoriously difficult to adhere to in a society which is largely at the mercy of whatever supermarkets or mass-producers of foods deem it profitable to shovel into your maws. (Just look at how many overweight people struggle to adhere to even a 'sensible' diet which seeks to perhaps lose a pound or two a week.) And they may actually make you more unhealthy than you were before, however much you may think you feel better; the placebo and nocebo effects can be quite powerful and they are the reason why double-blind trials of pretty much anything are the only trials trusted in the scientific community at large. (No-one, not the participants nor the researchers, know who's getting the active constituent and who's getting the sugar pill.)
Three, a belief in the kind of pseudoscience which makes up a large part of the nutritional advice handed out, can (and probably does) promote a general belief that such pseudoscience has any answers. The recent withdrawal by parents from the immunisation programme for children over unsubstantiated (and subsequently utterly debunked) claims from a single researcher of a link between the MMR (Measles/Mumps/Rubella [German Measles]) vaccine and Autism could have led to outbreaks of all three diseases far in excess of what we normally see and, if the movement became widespread and extensive, would we now be faced with pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, tuberculosis or polio rearing their ugly heads again; God forbid to epidemic proportions. These are not pleasant childhood or adult diseases and at best can cause long lasting damage and yet parents were willing to risk their child's well-being on crap science or mindless dogma. (There are, I know, a very few number of children that may have an adverse reaction to a vaccine, just as some people are nut or penicillin averse, but is that any reason not to provide widespread protection?)
The best part of Levinovitz's book composes the final quarter. Having successfully debunked the main 'food-fads', he goes on to state that the clue to healthy eating is taking time to eat and prepare your meals once a day, four times a week, no more than an hour for both activities (MG thinks that half of the enjoyment in eating is made up of a meal which you have cooked yourself); do nothing except talk while you're eating, no watching a movie, reading a book, driving; the rest of the time, do whatever you want. Go for a pizza, go to a gastropub, go out to a restaurant; ignore any literature about food, including nutritional information written on packaging. I, personally, would add; only eat as much as you want and don't be afraid to leave what you don't want because you are are full.
Having said this, Alan then states that if this is not for you, then you should try the 'UNpacked Diet', which he then details over the following twenty-six pages; this largely places the culprits for the 'food crisis' firmly in the hands of packaging, mostly plastic, and aluminium, which is supported by a range of evidence. I was initially surprised but the case against packaging was cogently argued and, in the light of the previous chapters in the book, seemed to be along the same lines.
The next twenty-six pages are devoted to 'calling out' every claim made in the preceding twenty-six by repeating the same text and, using call-outs, sidebars, debunking every major claim made! It just goes to show, and this was surely the intention, of how easily we can be fooled when dealing with something in which we have a limited, or non-existent, pre-existing knowledge and how, if you present it in a certain way, we are far more fool than we believe ourselves to be.
So, be vigilant, be aware, be sceptical, don't be afraid not to follow the pack and, most importantly, don't believe everything you read that you have to pay for and which lines someone else's pocket or else contains copious ads for the next food-fad!
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