"How Dumb Are You?" Public Relations
Jill Le Brasseur, the "Communications Specialist" from the "Produce for Better Health Foundation" (a "non-profit" sponsored by big biz fruit and veggie sellers), must think I'm a drooling moron, because she sent me this ridiculous press release:
Moms Agree, Eat Fruits and Vegetables to Stay Healthy!All Forms of Fruits and Vegetables Count
Hockessin, Del. - Moms report various reasons for eating fruits and vegetables, but 86 percent of Gen X moms agree that eating fruits and veggies can help them stay healthy. Other reasons for eating fruits and vegetables given by a majority of moms include; they like the taste, to feel well, to lose weight, and to prevent weight gain.
Yes, the fact that you have working ovaries and gave birth qualifies you as a dietary science expert.
Press releases get more and more idiotic, just as we're inundated with more and more of them.
Here's what an actual doctor, cardiologist Dr. William Davis, has to say about fruit. More here.
Ah, yes. Tree candy. Thanks to your blog, I tend to eat such stuff sparingly, if at all.
mpetrie98 at June 28, 2011 11:59 PM
I claim no expertise in nutrition, but if you're trying to say that fresh fruits and vegetables are somehow unhealthy, I don't care what doctor you quote, I don't believe you.
If you're talking about massive excess of fruits, yeah, that may become a sugar problem. Maybe you should make a "Super-Size Me" style documentary where you eat nothing but 24 plums a day for a month and wind up in the hospital -- thus proving that plums are unhealthy. I would do it, but I'm off to get a big mac.
whistleDick at June 29, 2011 3:18 AM
if you're trying to say that fresh fruits and vegetables are somehow unhealthy, I don't care what doctor you quote, I don't believe you.
You could just click the link and read the evidence.
I don't eat fruit because I realize that sugar is unhealthy. I also don't eat high-carb vegetables like corn or potatoes.
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2011 4:58 AM
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/foods/grains/gigl.html
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2011 5:02 AM
From the Davis link above, since eating fruit has apparently left you too weary to click the link yourself:
Yes, it's hard when conventional wisdom you've clung to all your life is challenged, but it's good to actually click that link and look at the evidence instead of continuing to cling.
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2011 5:03 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/06/29/how_dumb_are_yo.html#comment-2312557">comment from Amy AlkonTaubes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/health/28zuger.html
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2011 5:13 AM
> Yes, the fact that you have working ovaries and gave birth qualifies you as a dietary science expert.
The fact of the matter is that huge numbers of mothers love to be pandered to (heck, who doesn't?).
So, the market (for PR BS) is delivering what the "consumer" wants - flattering nonsense.
Not much different, in a way, than all the ads in woodworking magazines that show gritty, tough, chiseled-handsome young guys wearing hard hats and driving pickup trucks or using drills. The readership demographic for these magazines is chubby white-collar white guys in their 40s-60s.
...and 90% of them want to be flattered that they're real men, in the mold of the folks who built the railroads and won WW II.
Silliness is endemic to marketing.
TJIC at June 29, 2011 6:36 AM
This is what happens when you let interns do your press releases.
You know which fruit is surprisingly low-carb (comparatively, I mean): Peaches. Yum.
ahw at June 29, 2011 7:51 AM
I work in a hospital and you do not want to talk about low carb eating with a "dietary science expert". One of our dietitians overheard someone ask me how I had lost so much weight. When I started talking about low carb, she pursed her lips and said, "We don't approve of that."
Steamer at June 29, 2011 8:22 AM
There are many friends and family members of mine as well that don't want to hear this carb business.. even though they ask how I lost "fat". I work out so didn't lose pounds.. and didn't want to, however, the fat content on my body was beginning to bother me as I have been rail thin, hard to gain all of my life.. until now in my 40s. So I started cutting the carbs and upping the protein and BEHOLD!!! The fat just melts away. They ask I tell them, they tune out. It really is kind of amazing how they just tune out..
Melody at June 29, 2011 9:49 AM
Steamer, I would of turned and said: "what, you don't approve of the weight loss? or you don't approve of the empirical evidence?"
Even more interesting about all this, is you actually have to figure out what works for you... it isn't one size fits all, and that's the problem, people don't want to have to figure it out for themselves...
and interestingly, even IF peoole say they "don't believe what the government says" about stuff... in this case they do. Follow what they actually do, and not what they say.
"But the science is settled!" Yeah? So where frontal lobotomies. Want one?
SwissArmyD at June 29, 2011 10:41 AM
Even more interesting about all this, is you actually have to figure out what works for you... it isn't one size fits all, and that's the problem, people don't want to have to figure it out for themselves...
Actually, there's a great deal of evidence that sugar, flour, and starchy carbohydrates (which provoke the insulin secretion that puts on fat) also have negative longterm health effects.
Look up "wheat" and "whole grain," for example, on Heartscan blog.
Weight loss isn't the only reason to avoid these things. I'm interested in having a healthy mind and body as long as possible.
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2011 10:48 AM
Steamer, I would of turned and said: "what, you don't approve of the weight loss? or you don't approve of the empirical evidence?"
Their education and careers are based on the idea that small servings of lean meat and lots of fruits, vegies and grains is the proper diet. I'm happy to talk about low carb if people are interested, but I doubt the dietitians would hear anything that conflicts with their "truth".
Steamer at June 29, 2011 11:57 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/06/29/how_dumb_are_yo.html#comment-2313288">comment from SteamerI doubt the dietitians would hear anything that conflicts with their "truth".
They'll tell you their truth and waddle away afterward.
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2011 12:13 PM
The Goddess writes: You could just click the link and read the evidence.
Your source did not say fruit was unhealthy. Only in excessive amounts.
That said, that smoothie that she made would send me running to the bathroom. Sounds like a sure-fire cure for constipation.
Patrick at June 30, 2011 6:43 AM
Probably as much as it qualifies you as an expert on over-the-counter medication ("Dr. Mom").
Conan the Grammarian at June 30, 2011 8:54 AM
Fructose in fruit is a lot different than processed sugar. Not an all you can eat food (what is, really?) but fine for you. "Modern" fruit is probably no more different from our ancestor's fruit than dry cured salami and smoked bacon are from whatever wild beast they managed to track down.
http://freetheanimal.com/2011/05/connecting-dots-fruit-is-real-food-eat-it.html
Sam at June 30, 2011 4:54 PM
Fruit is not going to make you fat. Maybe it's keeping you from losing those last 10 or 15 pounds, but no one ever got to be 300 pounds because they ate too many apples. Yes, I understand why you'd want to cut it out of your diet if you're specifically practicing a low-carb lifestyle. But the majority of Americans should probably think about cutting carbs in the form of cookies, donuts, sugary cereals, french fries, soda, chips, doritos, pasta, etc before they start worrying about fruit. And if someone who eats those foods on a regular basis replaces them with fresh fruit and veggies then yes they will undoubtably lose weight along with being and feeling healthier in innumerable ways.
Shannon at July 1, 2011 6:04 PM
Ah yes, good old argumentum ad populum. If only we could discern truth by simply holding a referendum. What's really scary when you think about it is that the majority of people got through our education system without learning to recognize such incredibly basic errors in reasoning.
Lobster at July 2, 2011 11:24 PM
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