The first time I started to wake up to government one-size-fits-all health policies was back in my 8th grade health class when we were being taught about the food pyramid, and this one kid asked the teacher why hamburgers are considered junk food when they pretty much fit into the model food pyramid. I remember the teacher being stumped and uttered out a barely comprehensible response after an awkward moment.
At first I thought that kid was a smartass, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he wasn't wrong. I've you've got an American hamburger with all the fixin's, although its proportions aren't exactly like the food pyramid, it's close enough that it's hard to classify it as being unhealthy unless it's laced with extra cheese and barbecue sauce and whatnot. Yeah, there's fat in the patty, but the whole fat being bad thing is pretty much one of the biggest forms of bullshit ever invented by health policy.
This isn't to say that I actually think hamburgers are health food, but that the food pyramid is kind of a farce, especially in the sense that it implies that grains are some sort of nutritional necessity that should be consumed in greater quantities than everything else.
> Don't worry, in 5-10 years it will be good for you again.
I don't know about that, it it looking more like Alcohol is heading down the path of cigarettes where the more unbiased funding and studies that are done, the worse it appears. There have been several convincing reviews[1] recently that showed an increased risk of cancer at any dosage.
Yeah, it’s really a myth that science is changing so much.
You can look at dietary recommendations from the 70s, and they’re fine. Eat your plants and don’t eat garbage. The food pyramid was more a product of lobbying than science. The doctors advice wasn't that bad, although there would be less knowledge of the dangers of refined carbs.
People want it to be true that the doctors don’t know what they’re doing, but it’s not (or these are bad examples of).
Honestly, I find it baffling when people think that doctors know what they're talking about when it comes to nutrition. Maybe things have changed in recent years, and that would be great, but in my experience and from the anecdotes of others, my conception of what doctors understand is the opposite of what you describe.
Granted, I do agree that the science actually hasn't changed that much, and that doctors who do research know ath they're talking about, but your average MD is pretty clueless about nutrition and fitness because that's really not a subject that gets priority in med school. There are even doctors today who still give advice along the lines of the Food Pyramid and My Plate. I've heard more than one account in my social circles of doctors telling people the myth that dietary fat flows freely through your blood vessels and clogs them exactly the same way that bacon grease can clog drain pipes.
> People want it to be true that the doctors don’t know what they’re doing
Also, the root of this statement is something I am surprised by. People want their doctors to not know what they're doing? In what universe is that true? Maybe that fits your experience, but this is a phenomenon I've never encountered in the slightest.
Doctors often don’t have to know that much about nutrition, beyond telling you to eat your plants, and some stuff targeted at people who need specific diets.
You say they’re clueless on fitness and nutrition, but I don’t know what information they should be expected to know. Your talking about topics riddled with bullshit, when you look at public discourse.
Honestly, there’s not much to know other than to eat food that’s pretty famously healthy (plants), and avoid sugars. Now they definitely want you to limit meat, excessive fats, and refined carbs, too; but the basics are really simple.
There’s lots of studies out there, but there seems to be very little that’s clear other than those basic guidelines. You can really run around in circles with how complex this subject is, yet ignore the basics.
> People want their doctors to not know what they're doing?
No, you're right, people who go to a doctor certainly don't want their individual physician to be incompetent. I believe parent was talking about a less specific, somewhat "anti-establishment" point of view. Folks who feel that they've been failed by medical doctors, for example -- a chronic condition that they can't get help with. Or people who have other reasons to believe that the medical profession is ossified, or beholden to interests that don't serve patients -- critiques of that sort.
Yeah, OP is spot on. It's not really EVERYONE either, but I'd say the majority of people I know really like some version of the "doctors don't know what they're talking about" argument. Things are weird now with COVID and the politics around this stuff.
You'll probably see more of these attitudes on the right, but the idea that doctors don't know what they're talking about, and change their recommendations all the time is incredibly popular. So it's not like 100% of people, or probably not even 95%, but I think it's more than eg. 30-40%.
I've found this is one area where (far) left and (far) right overlap, actually. Maybe not in the exact specifics, but in a general mistrust of professional medicine.
While the grains thing was particularly stupid advice, recommendations haven’t changed as much as you’d think. The guidelines from reputable sources as far back as the 60s and 70s were fine. They didn’t understand how deadly refined carbs were, but recommended eating fruits, vegetables while limiting desserts and too much fatty meat; now you might be eating a bit too much carbs without understanding the risks, but you should be perfectly fine with that diet.
People have been making noise about this issue for a very long time. Doctors know this stuff is poison and causes cancer. It’s always seemed silly that just the right amount of poison is good somehow. Of course, you don’t know without study, but experienced people can see areas where the data doesn’t seem to make sense.
I remember hearing about this stuff a few years ago and it was nothing new, even then. We know that early studies looked good because many “sick quitters” stop drinking due to their failing health. This makes non-drinkers look less healthy. Now this stuff is still actively studied and many of the pro-alcohol people insist it’s still healthy, but the writing has been on the wall for at least 5-10 years; no amount of alcohol is “healthy”.
> It’s always seemed silly that just the right amount of poison is good somehow
Why is it silly? A lot of things are dose dependent. A small amount of tylenol makes you head feel better. A lot of tylenol kills you. Lifting weights is very good for your health, but if you overdo it, you can get seriously hurt. A stressful day here and there is harmless, but if you're under constant, chronic, stress, your health will deteriorate. Four hours of sleep will leave you feeling terrible, 7-8 hours will leave you feeling rested, and 14 hours will likely leave you feeling terrible. I could go on, but I'd argue that dose-dependency is the rule rather than the exception.
It’s not dose dependent though, it’s a dangerous poison that causes cancer. Your other examples are completely different. Tylenol is closest, but you’re really talking about overdose. Drinking a couple of glasses of wine a day isn’t an overdose.
Yes, there may be some nasty chronic effects of tylenol too, but I think you’re trying really hard to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Is there a specific definition of poison you're working with?
You say that there's obviously no amount of poison that's good for you, but by that model of poison why do you assume that alcohol is a poison? Doesn't that become the question at hand?
I meant it more as a figure of speech. Nobody is trying to shoehorn health into random poisons. BTW there are allowable amounts to many poisons. There aren't allowable amounts of things like lead and butane.
The question is why we're trying so hard to make something healthy. The answer is obvious, because we like it. You don't see doctors trying to come up with justifications for why we should drink arsenic or cyanide, just as long as it's tiny amounts.
Alcohol causes cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, anxiety, and many nasty things. It may be one thing to tell people that their glass of wine a day is OKAY, but we shouldn't be telling them it's "healthy" without good reason. The better analogy is smoking, because the harms are more similar than people think.
I sort of figured, but then it wouldn't be much of an argument to claim that it can't be beneficial.
But fair enough, I misunderstood your argument. Your argument is actually that any claims of a fun "poison" being beneficial are highly suspect.
To that end - that would make sense for novel poisons or poisons that are rarely consumed. But this is one that's been consumed by many successful cultures for thousands of years. Animals get drunk on fermented fruit. That makes it seem more plausible to me that there could be something beneficial to it. Perhaps it was only beneficial in the days of unclean drinking water (unless that one is also not actually true! It's hard to believe anything anymore.).
“Good for you” doesn’t make sense. As an analogy for a startup “sales people considered good for the organisation”. Or “meetings shown to be bad for the organisation”. Makes as much sense as “avocado is good for you”. Although a holistic diet, exercise, toxin avoidance, danger avoidance but balancing life goals and mental health regime is probably good for you.
Yep. You don't have to go that far. A decade back it was thought that red meat causes cancer, specifically intestinal cancer. Lots of health guidelines reflected that. It has all fallen apart in the last 2-3 years.
as if the scientific community has demonstrated it - it has not, and your articles do not support that claim. Your articles from 2-3 years ago are about one report, and even your articles call into question that report. So no, it has most definitely not "all fallen apart."
Go figure, right? He also has papers claiming the opposite of well established sugar research, which, you guessed it, was paid for by a industry trade group that tries to undermine health guidelines to make people believe doctors less and eat bad stuff....
When there are decades of papers and different groups with a similar claim, and one group publishes one counter claim, it makes news. It does not mean the counterclaim will stand further scrutiny. In this case, as looking over google scholar at research following the 2019 claim, it has not withstood more scrutiny.
Here is the paper you posted [1]. Here [2] is but one followup paper claiming your paper is basically crap. I can find none supporting the conclusions in [1].
All papers since then I can find still claim meat increases the risk of intestinal and other cancers.
Please don't believe or spread outlier results from news stories.
They shouldn't be most of what you eat, since they have a lot of digestible carbohydrates compared to the amount of fiber, fat, and vitamins, but they are certainly not bad for you.
Your calories (unless you're a genetic outlier) should be relatively evenly split between carbs and fat. If whole grains are where most of the carbs are coming from, that's fine. Science says so.
I still remember being lectured in school on the food pyramid and the importance of getting your 8-10 servings of grains a day.