The War on Moderation

It hasn't been that long, but a timely bump ...

While I have your attention, the Hartwigs have a seriously warped view about food.  You see, when someone creates a product they can sell on their site by dubbing it Whole30 Approved, the usual rules go out the window.

In addition, no Paleo-ifying dessert or junk food choices. Trying to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold will ruin your program faster than you can say, “Paleo pizza.”  This means no desserts or junk food made with “approved” ingredients—no coconut-flour pancakes, almond-flour muffins, flourless brownies, or coconut milk ice cream. Don’t try to replicate junk food during your 30 days! That misses the point of the Whole30 entirely.

Unless we can make money selling it as W30 compliant.  Boggles the mind.

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Original Publish Date:  8/14/13

Recently in a Facebook Ad, the Whole9/Whole30 couple, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, linked to the following post:  PLEASE STOP SAYING EVERYTHING IN MODERATION (all caps preserved).  Because of a ton of information and thoughts on this topic and recent Facebook posts from Melissa, I read that piece and just couldn't help but comment.  

NO food can possibly be as unhealthy as perpetuating this EATING DISORDER. This article reads like some sick mix of pro-ana and religious cult.

Reading that on Beth/Weight Maven's blog , I must admit it sounds rather hyperbolic.  So I'd like to flesh out the context.  For starters, the Whole30 is a program of 30 days of uber strict "clean paleo" eating:  no grains, legumes, dairy, sugar/sweeteners.  They wrote a book about it, It Starts With Food (which I personally can't recommend more strongly against).  In Chapter 1 [Kindle locations 151-154]  of that book they write:

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Gary Taubes' Diet Doctor

Since it's the day after turkey day ...

And since I thought I'd lighten up the mood a bit ...

Flashback!  Remember when Gary Taubes had his cholesterol test done by a quack diet doc?!    Enjoy!!

Turns out now he's selling alpha-keto glutarate anti-binge packs.  Very interesting the company some keep ...

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope all of my readers have a wonderful day today.   I'm uncharacteristically not too busy, as I am not hosting for a rare change.  But I have stumbled upon a bit of bad timing with my last post.  It requires followup and that will be forthcoming sometime this weekend.  But not today.  

Enjoy your self.  Enjoy your family, your friends, your pets, whatever.  The only thing I plan to do today regarding food is to make sure my stuffed mushrooms and shrimp-deviled eggs are perfectly delish, and that I leave room for my sister's amazing, once-a-year-at-T'giving, pecan pie.  I hope you will do similar whatever and whomever you are.

Be HAPPY.  Be THANKFUL!

Paleo™ ApprovED ... Enough.

11/29:  Another minor update.  There has been a ton of feedback both here and on Facebook and I'm personally quite touched that the overwhelming response has been positive.  These subjects are never easy to broach.  I will be posting an update as I have had many questions as to why I removed the picture that I did and inserted my sarcastic graphic in its place.  That too is a serious and extremely tenuous/touchy issue to address, but it really needs to be as it goes to the heart of this issue.  

In any case, just so everyone is aware, yesterday the MDA post was updated as follows:

This response is disheartening to say the least.  I think that most would agree that most if not all comments were respectful.  One of the last comments that was allowed was from one guy berating another for saying that she looked better before.  I don't see that as being any less appropriate than comments congratulating her for her after appearance.   Mark could have just closed the comments, but instead he (or whomever really runs that place in his name) attributed the term *trolling* to those who expressed concern.  No, name withheld here should not have to defend herself because someone over at MDA should have had the good sense not to publish this at all.  This is yet another characteristic of this community that is troubling.  I read many expressions of concern for this young lady's well being, concerns I share, and Mark's comments here will only serve to deepen her denial.  Shame on you Mark Sisson.  Shame.

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11/28:  I hope all of my readers have a wonderful day today.   I'm uncharacteristically not too busy, as I am not hosting for a rare change.  But I have stumbled upon a bit of bad timing with my last post.  It requires followup and that will be forthcoming sometime this weekend.  But not today.  

Enjoy your self.  Enjoy your family, your friends, your pets, whatever.  The only thing I plan to do today regarding food is to make sure my stuffed mushrooms and shrimp-deviled eggs are perfectly delish, and that I leave room for my sister's amazing, once-a-year-at-T'giving, pecan pie.  I hope you will do similar whatever and whomever you are.

Be HAPPY.  Be THANKFUL!

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Minor Update 11/28:  You may also wish to read:  When Orthorexia Goes Bad  It fleshes out some background and some additional thoughts on ED in general.

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Original post ...

Blogstress note:  I had not intended to spend time on this until after my "desk clears" of projects in the works and my real life job.   I had to make an exception, as I am genuinely angry, and this is where I can express that anger.  This will read a bit disjointed, but I ask that you give this a full read before responding and bear with this aspect of it.  It's not my most concise or well written effort, for which I apologize but ... time ... or lack thereof is my excuse.  Some of this was written a while ago, the rest yesterday and today.  It got too long so I am publishing it up blemishes and all while it is timely, and hope to post a Part II shortly.

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My review of Sally Fallon Morell's review of Robb Wolf's book and the "Original Human Diet"

Around a month or so ago Sally Fallon Morell, President o the Weston A. Price Foundation, reviewed Robb Wolf's book and gave it a "Thumbs Down".  What's up with her?  Wasn't the response to her President's Message from this past June enough to put her in her place?   I had parts of a post together at that time, but since the full letter wasn't publicly available at the time, and who knows what else was going on, I never published it.  I was going to augment that and include with this, but perhaps another time ... it got too long and convoluted.  Some day ... I make no promises though.  In any case, my link here is now to the full letter for anyone interested, but to sum up she wanted to clear up some myths about WAPF:

• It's not high protein, most do best on 10-15% protein and WAPF diet is small amounts of fatty animal protein, including organ meats, with each meal ... emphasis on fat, while high lean protein depletes Vitamin A.
• It's not low carb.  Some of Dr. Price's studied cultures ate quite high carb diets.
• It's not paleo. 

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All I Want for Christmas ...

A short break to share some things I've been doing "just for fun".  Some people collect classic works of art.  Some literature.  One thing this blog gig has done to me is it has turned me into a collector of old scientific literature!  Thank you Gary Taubes.  Seriously!

Maybe it's my training, but I am a reference hawk.  When I read "new" things, use of quotes to denote that these things are not necessarily new, just new to me, I like to track down sources before proceeding.  This is, after all, the purpose of referencing. 

In 1965, the American Physiological Society published an eight-hundred-page Handbook of Physiology dedicated to the latest research on adipose-tissue metabolism. As this volume documented, several fundamental facts about the relationship between fat and carbohydrate metabolism had become clear. First, the body will burn carbohydrates for fuel, as long as blood sugar is elevated and the reserve supply of carbohydrates stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles is not being depleted. As these carbohydrate reserves begin to be tapped, however, or if there’s a sudden demand for more energy, then the flow of fatty acids from the fat tissue into the circulation accelerates to take up the slack. Meanwhile, a significant portion of the carbohydrates we consume and all of the fat will be stored as fat in our fat cells before being used for fuel. It’s this stored fat, in the form of fatty acids, that will then provide from 50 to 70 percent of all the energy we expend over the course of a day. “Adipose tissue is no longer considered a static tissue,” wrote the Swiss physiologist Albert Renold, who coedited the Handbook of Physiology; “it is recognized as what it is: the major site of active regulation of energy storage and mobilization, one of the primary control mechanisms responsible for the survival of any given organism.” Since the excessive accumulation of fat in the fat tissue is the problem in obesity, we need to understand this primary control mechanism.

Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories 

Kindle Locations 7836-7847

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Just a quick post ...

I don't usually fall off the blogging planet with no new real content here for two weeks without some sort of notice.  Sorry about that!  I've been about social media somewhat, but far less of that too.  Here's why:

1.  I have a project in the works that requires my dedication and is actually working off of recent discussions here on sugar/food addiction.  So ... sorry ... but that is going to get dropped like a hot potato, which was not my intent at all, it's just how this unfolded.  It will be a while before anything on that becomes public I presume.

2.  I went away for a short getaway.

3.  I have been sick this past week like I don't remember ever being ... or it's just been that long!  On my way home from work on Wednesday, after maxing my limit on hot tea therapy for a nagging cough and having chills, I actually had to stop to get soup at a pizza place and stop twice on the rest of the ride home to have some more!  I have been in bed/on couch most of the past 2+ days ... sleeping most of the time.  

4.  Feeling a bit better yesterday I did try to finish up the blog post I started earlier in the week ... it's a mess b/c I should have finished off the old one I never published and written on the related topic in a new post.  Too late now.  Maybe that gets finished today, maybe next week.  Who knows.  Maybe I turn it back into two posts after all ;-)

So ...

Yes, I will be blogging.  Just less frequently, I presume, for the near future.   In the meantime, if you've stumbled on this blog or even if you've been around a while, if there's a topic you are interested in but can't seem to find if I've written on it, please do ask in the comments here and I'll do my best to direct you to content.  

Thanks for your patience!

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Sugar Addiction and Prelude to a Review of The 21 Day Sugar Detox

With apologies in advance for some tangent going ons ...

As a popular paleo (for marketing purposes anyway) author released a paperback version of her 21 Day Sugar Detox this week -- yes, I'm talking about a $400-will-buy-you-a-certificate-that-says-so "holistic nutritionist" aka Certified Nutritional Consultant courtesy of 501c3 Bauman "college" -- I thought this journal article might be of enough interest to the inmates here to warrant a post.

The plausibility of sugar addiction and its role in obesity and eating disorders

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