Nihil obstat.








Anyone wunna guess who I stole that from? Anybody? Sixclaws, there in the back? No one?

Very good.

Churchiepoo?

(I peeked.)

The Church of Blog (Cosh).



Specifically: Taubes is essentially right about everything. A few years ago —because of a few minor exaggerations and the weight of the most popular but least-meaningful scientific consensus— I argued with you about this, a lot.

I shouldn't have. Taubes was right, and I, and most everybody else, was wrong. If people had lived and dined by the insights of Taubes & Lustig, even in the few years since we had those squables, hundreds of thousands would still be alive.

I personally have taken a few of the insights to heart, extending my life by (probably), y'know, weeks. (Too little too late for a measurable health outcome.) But the increased enjoyment in mealtime has been incalculable.

Mostly what I'm ashamed of is the recent articles describing the Hell Taubes went through, socially and professionally, as his work was so coarsely disregarded. It was all fucked up. It was like the humiliation of Tiger Woods or Hugh Grant goosed by an order of magnitude, and for nothing. I feel bad.

In my defense: It as the Lustig lectures, with their 100-level biology Powerpoint slides, that really sealed the deal for me.

I got onto this early because we have diabetes in the family - my dad was experimenting with Pritikin and other extremely restrictive diets throughout my youth. My mom stopped creeping weight gain and remained slim by switching to meal-size salads with protein and veggies - while her increasingly heavy friends followed the trendy advice to "follow oriental wisdom and substitute soy and pasta for beef" and "eat like an Italian peasant".

Except nobody was *working* off the pasta, beans, and bread like an Italian or Chinese peasant.

I only eat bread once a week - Challah on the Sabbath.

Israelis look at me like I'm crazy - the "staff of life" stuff was promoted very strongly during the Socialist days of austerity, because that's all that was available. Israelis with pot bellies still insist that every meal must have pita or 2 slices of bread - usually with hummus, and in addition to another carb serving. This made sense back in the bad old days when hummus was THE protein in the meal.... but no longer.

That said - I think giving up fruit is a bit extreme. My impression is that the digestion of the fiber in fruit slows down the sugar rush that causes the insulin see-saw. I don't get the lethargic overfull feeling from eating a piece of fruit that I get from soda or the oversweetened "fruit drink" that they sell here.

Taubes was right, and I, and most everybody else, was wrong.

I admire you for saying so.

Also, the truth is, I went, at Gary's invitation, to watch him give a lecture, complete with highly persuasive slides, to a conference of childhood obesity researchers at USC. I was horrified by what happened. I talked to a few afterward, who conceded that what he said was extremely persuasive (can't remember the exact words), but that they would go back to doing what they'd always done (and surely, what their grants and careers were based on) -- feeding these terribly obese children the high-carb, low-fat diet that was making them so terribly fat.

Michael Shermer, his Skeptic.com newsletter just now:

Have you ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are contrary to their deepest held beliefs they always change their minds? Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against them. The reason is related to the worldview perceived to be under threat by the conflicting data.

Like your third grade teacher used to say, when you cheat, you are only cheating yourself.

However I agree with Ben David and don't think the fruit thing is necessarily totally correct.

Vine and tree ripened fruit is sweeter than the factory farm stuff but it wasn't available in the massive quantities we see in stores today,

And I can't live without an Aomori apple a couple of times a week in season.

Exercise has all sorts of benefits besides keeping you thin. Our ancestors had to work pretty hard just to survive. They needed the carb calories. Most of us don't.

I would add only one thing to Amy's comments on low carb dieting. You must ensure you get enough salt.

In the interest of keeping my salt low, I never got into the habit of salting my food. I would eat salty things, sure, but I would never add salt to anything.

So, some years ago, I tried low carb dieting for myself. And the results were far from ideal. Constipation like you wouldn't believe. Sitting on the toilet and straining like I was passing cement.

Absolutely no energy whatsoever. When I went to the grocery store, I used a shopping cart even if I didn't need one, and shuffled about like I was 90 years old.

After living like this for a week, I announced on Amy's blog that "Taubes is well and truly full of it."

Dr. Michael Eades, a proponent of low-carb eating, happened by Amy's blog that day, and responded none-too-favorably to my withering assessment.

And to be perfectly frank, I thought Amy and Dr. Eades had both taken complete leave of their senses. Because they both kept demanding I produce scientific evidence.

I don't need scientific evidence. My own experience is all the proof I need of what works for me. Even Taubes concedes that not everyone will succeed with a low-carb diet. Most people? Yes. Everyone? No. One's personal experience with low-carb eating is all the proof one needs to determine what works for you.

(I once saw Taubes on Dr. Oz, and he pointed out that Dr. Oz can do the high-carb, tons of fruit diet, but most of can't.)

Fortunately, Taubes himself happened by Dr. Eades' blog and saw him post about his interaction with me on Amy's blog. Taubes then came to Amy's blog, read my experience, and contacted Amy.

And he applied some much needed common sense. "He's right, you know," Taubes said, referring to me. "He doesn't need scientific studies to know what works for him."

Um, duh?

Why is common sense so uncommon? He also noted that I had all the classic symptoms of what is commonly known as "Atkin's flu" (although, of course, it's not a flu at all).

What was my remedy? Salt. Amy forwarded me his email to her. And he explained that he usually recommends people drink a cup of chicken broth every day. Or perhaps eat a pickle.

When I read Amy's email, I went to the grocery store and picked up some bouillon. The regular kind, not the low sodium, went home and prepared a cup.

I don't exaggerate when I say the results were almost instantaneous. I took my first sip and all at once my energy seemed to shoot right up. I finished the cup and let's just say, without getting graphic, that the constipation was relieved at once.

It's hard for me, I have to admit, to do the low-carb thing. Meat is so bland without seasoning, and I'm not really good at cooking it.

And I can't help but feel that this is not what nature intended. We don't have the claws, dental hardware or the digestive tracts to consume meat. Our nearest relative in the animal kingdom, the bonobo, or pygmy chimp, is an omnivorous frugovore. Almost no meat at all.

And please, stop it with pointing out that we have canine teeth. That's a fucking joke. We have four canine teeth and in meat-eaters, canines are supposed to grow longer than the surrounding teeth. Ours stop at the same length as the surrounding teeth. Even deer have canine teeth.

And look at the way we evolved. We walk upright and we have hands, not paws, plus our eyes can see color. What does that suggest our natural food is? Fruit. We have evolved with all the mechanics to pluck fruit from the trees. And as natural hunters, we suck. Not only do we lack claws and fangs, but our natural run-speed would barely let us catch an arthritic tortoise.

We have no protein receptors on our tongues, which is why meat is so bland without all those seasonings. A carnivorous animal's stomach acids are ten times more powerful than ours. Eating raw meat would kill us. And don't even try it with sushi and steak tartare. Those meats are prepared for consumption. Eating steak fresh off the cow would likely kill you.

But, as Isab points out, we no longer live like our primitive ancestors. We don't need to exercise for our food beyond pushing a shopping cart. So, arguably, it's time for the human diet to deviate from nature.

To say nothing of what we've done with hybridizing fruit over the years.

I've never tried an Aomori apple. Must be good. Apples with peanut butter is still my favorite snack.

Patrick,

We're also darn close to chimps, which hunt animals for food whenever they can, and consume insect protein regularly.

Also, we evolved to be able, especially cooperatively, to run anything into the ground. We're not sprinters, but we are perhaps the best long distance runners in the animal kingdom. After literally hours of being chased, the exhausted antelope (for instance) ends up just standing still as it is finally speared.

Finally, the use of fire to cook animal protein really opened the door to human consumption of meat -- which in turn allowed our brains to grow larger.

Omnivore is a good thing to be!

I tried to Google Aomori apple and I found Fuji. Are they the same thing? If so, I have tried them. Tasty!

And while Amy might not approve of eating fruit, apples are "tricklers" when it comes to absorption. In other words, it's not like eating white bread or hard candy, in which the sugar is absorbed all at once. An apple releases its sugar very slowly.

I tried to Google Aomori apple and I found Fuji. Are they the same thing? If so, I have tried them. Tasty!

And while Amy might not approve of eating fruit, apples are "tricklers" when it comes to absorption. In other words, it's not like eating white bread or hard candy, in which the sugar is absorbed all at once. An apple releases its sugar very slowly.

Patrick at January 18, 2017 3:34 PM

Patrick, the Fuji apple does come from the Amori Apple research station, but Amori itself is the northern most prefecture on the island of Honshu.

We went on an Apple picking trip there in early November. Came away with three varieties. Fuji, Hokotu, and Orin. They were all so wonderful I couldn't begin to tell you which ones were the best,

The Fuji apples in Japan, taste almost nothing like the ones in the US grocery stores.

Something about the growing conditions, and volcanic soil in northern Japan.

From late July to December you can buy them at any local farmers market in Aomori.

Wish I could sneek some back into the US but that isn't allowed.

I wonder if you could smuggle the seeds back in and grow your own.

Patrick: First, meat is easier to digest than most plant material. Carnivores have short, simple digestive tracts. Herbivores, and even ommivores that get much of their calories from plants, have to devote much more of their body weight and volume to digestion. For example, chimpanzees don't have that huge belly because they are fat, but because they have a much longer digestive tracts than we do - but nothing approaching the complexity of the digestive tracts of a cow or horse. We can handle a diet high in plant matter with such a simple digestive tract only because we cook, grind, and otherwise process nearly everything that's more difficult to break down than fruit. (Fruit are easy to chew and digest because they evolved as bribes for animals that spread the seeds. For everything else, the use of fire goes back over 250,000 years and the mortar and pestle to grind hard grains and nuts dates back at least 35,000 years.)

Humans don't have large fangs because we have better ways to kill our prey. We also have pitiful molars for a plant-eater. There's a trade off between teeth and speech capability, and speech was more important in our evolution than either fighting teeth or grinding teeth. It's how we cooperate to hunt meat and to gather and process plants for food, and we can use our hands to create tools that not only perform the functions of large teeth, but do each particular job better.

"Asskale" — ha!