Food attitudes, misinformation, and the media

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I probably shouldn't even start this because all it's gonna do is piss me off.

It's a list of things that fall under the same umbrella:
In no particular order,

1. Doctors who parrot misinformation because they are too fucking lazy to keep up with research.

2. The media, who continue to perpetrate faulty information about health dietary habits, even though their info has been proved wrong time and time again.

3. People in general who ignore hard evidence.

4. Drug companies who know that, for instance, statins are a sham and what we've been told about cholestrol is horseshit, yet contine to peddle their snake oil regardless of the harm they do.

5. People who ask me how I stay slim and healthy, and then when I tell them, go "Oh, you jsut have a high metabolism." Um, no, I don't. I just told you how. Thanks for calling me a liar.

6. People who say "well, you can't eat a fatty diet long term, it will kill you." Really, asshole? When's that gonna happen? About the time your low fat diet starts working for you? Can I put that on my calendar? Cuz I HAVE been doing this long term.

See, I'm getting worked up just thinking about this stuff.

[the_std]

People just say those kinds of things to feel better about themselves... I wouldn't put too much faith in it. But it is ridiculously frustrating, none the less. My sister is one of those people. She works out constantly and is always looking for the next diet that will take her down a few pounds. Never mind that she's got tons of muscle and that's what makes her heavy, not the fat on her body. Never mind that you need SOME fat to stay alive. It was so depressing living with a gorgeous sister and hearing nothing but bitching about her looks.

And, well, I'm not surprised that people will continue to sell that shit. It's all about the money. It's sad, but it's how people are, unfortunately.

[AFPheonix]

Heh. We have a fairly new pharmacist on staff who made the mistake of buying one of those "system cleansers" back with us in the pharmacy.
She couldn't answer me when I asked her what toxins exactly she was planning on flushing out of her system.

She's a bloody Pharm D and SHE buys into that crap. Holy hell.

[Boozy]

5. People who ask me how I stay slim and healthy, and then when I tell them, go "Oh, you jsut have a high metabolism." Um, no, I don't. I just told you how. Thanks for calling me a liar.

This one pisses me off, too.

I was at a work gathering and passed on dessert. This was during the Christmas season, and I had been eating a lot of crap in general. My co-worker says to me, "Oh, you don't need to skip dessert! Look how skinny you are!" I told her I stayed slim by passing on desserts every so often.

You should have seen the look she gave me. Like I killed the enjoyment she was going to get from that cake. Women can have such complicated relationships with food.

Regarding the detox fad: My boss does a three-day fast once a season. She can't name the toxins it removes from her system either. She also thinks plastic water bottles give you cancer, and she won't even go near a microwave.

Pseudo-science pisses me off in general.

[DarthRetard]

The only thing I have to disagree with here is the science behind cleansers....I know that working at GNC doesn't make me some kind of certified pharmacist or nutritionalist or expert, or anything, but it really does all depend on the consumer doing their own research.

Personally, at my store, we made a pact to never sell it if it didn't work, cause it only would fuck us over in the end anyways with returns and more work.

It really is recommended to do a cleanser every 6 months (it's not necessary, and I don't personally recommend any more than that), and I do them, and it really does help, especially if you'e trying to kick certain habits, like caffeine, etc. It really did help me break my caffeine addication, by doing a 7 day cleanser that we sold, and I was only trying it to see if it really did work.

Other than checking the ingredients for certain things, a good cleanser will provide the probiotic replacement supplements as well. If it doesn't, it's a crock of shit.

[powerboy]

What I hate, is when I tell the reason why I do something and have that person jump me for it.

[AFPheonix]

A live culture yogurt will give you probiotics, too. But hey, if you like the way it makes you feel, more power to you. I just happen to suspect that there's a bit of placebo effect going on.

The main problem with reusing single-use water bottles is that we really can't get them very clean, and they can harbor bacteria from your backwash pretty well.

The harder plastic, like from Nalgene bottles do leach a certain kind of hormone into the water, especially if you've filled it with boiling water, so that can be an issue. The safest ones are the soft-sided plastic reusable containers and stainless steel ones.

[DarthRetard]

I have one of those Brita water filters, and it works great for me.

[lordlundar]

I saw a comedian who does a great George Burns impression (almost identical to the real McCoy) who had the joke "I met a man who was a real health freak, he ate only organic food, exercised every day and all that jazz. He died at 54 of absolutely nothing." Yeah, I know, I can't deliver. That's not the point.

My point is that doctors, nutritionists, etc. all say "this is bad for you, that is bad for you, this will kill you, etc." and six months later do a complete flip-flop. To date, I haven't found a single food item that they say won't kill me. To that point, I say "To hell with it, I die happy."

[Nekojin]

It really is recommended to do a cleanser every 6 months (it's not necessary, and I don't personally recommend any more than that), and I do them, and it really does help, especially if you'e trying to kick certain habits, like caffeine, etc. It really did help me break my caffeine addication, by doing a 7 day cleanser that we sold, and I was only trying it to see if it really did work.

Just a random statistic: Caffeine has a short addiction/withdrawal cycle. If you go cold-turkey on caffeine, you'll usually have extreme headaches (not migraine level) for 3-5 days, then you'll be free of the addiction. If your diet while taking the cleaner included abstaining from caffeine at the same time, then the cleaner didn't do anything for you that your own self-discipline didn't.

[DarthRetard]

While that might be all well and good, Nekojin, I'm quite aware of the caffeine headaches (at my high point of caffeine addiction i was drinking entire 12 packs a day fo regular coca-cola. *shudder*), and yes, the cleanser can help, and it's usually recommended to do the cleanser BEFORE you diet, so the effects aren't as bad.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Okay, this article my sister sent me pissed me off so bad I broke into a light sweat and had to take my fleece off.

If I die of high blood pressure, I can assure you it wont' be because of my dietary habits.

See, this is what I'm talking about. It's not about what's healthy. It's about who gets paid. Check out this shit about the American Diabeties Association. Having likely just missed falling victim to adult onset diabeties myself (If I dont' watch my sugar, I have the pre-diabetic condition described in this article) and also having been diagnosed with gestational diabeties, I know how they try to treat the problem and let me tell you, Constant Reader, we are talking about some serious fuckery and foul dealings. There's no money to be had in people getting well. Read on (an I apologize for the ungainly link):

http://www.menshealth.com/cda/articl...tes%26page%3D0

[Seshat]

That is really, really weird. The advice I get for my insulin resistance is to eat a low glycaemic index diet: essentially, a diet designed specifically to control my blood sugar.

The GI (glycaemic index) researchers calculate the index with empirical testing: I'm not sure of their exact method but it's something like taking a roomful of volunteers who're in a neutral digestive state, getting their blood sugar, feeding them a measured amount of the food to be tested, then tracking their blood sugar until it drops to rest state again. Something with a high sugar spike and a rapid fall-off rate gets a high mark on the GI scale (like high fructose corn syrup, white bread, or sugar). Something with a slow sugar rise and a slow fall off gets a low mark on the GI scale (oat porridge, lean meat, most legumes).

Essentially, I can eat anything I like - but if I want to control my insulin resistance, I should eat foods and food combinations that my body can only digest reasonably slowly. And at about the point my body is finishing digesting the last meal, I should eat my next meal; this will prevent me getting into a sugar low that makes me crave sugar NOWNOWNOW. And if I never eat anything with a high glycaemic index, I never get a sugar spike either.

And a low GI diet doesn't actually exclude any food groups, just specific foods. So it's not a nutrition risk (unless it's done stupidly.)

Anyway: that's what my medical community recommends for diabetics. Do that, do exercise (since exercise also lowers insulin resistance), and if those don't work out, we'll try giving you metformin and insulin as well. (Not instead, but as well.)

It really disturbs me that another first world country's medical community DOESN'T do that.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

In this country, they don't want you well. They want you in a state where you have to buy drugs from Big Pharma.

There's no money to be had from well people.

You're doing it right. Hang onto your doctor. I actually got told to eat more sugar to raise my glucose levels. By a doctor. You know what happens to hypoglycemics when they eat more sugar?

They fucking pass out when their sugar drops suddenly after the initial rush.

I was on another board some time ago talking about the absolute madness and asshatery that I was subject to when I was pregnant. I found it and copied and pasted it because it's long. It's copied from another site, but I wrote it, so...here it is.

I had to leave for a while but I want to post this story that happened to me. I was diagnosed with gestational diabeties when I was pregnant. Of course, the test is that they give you 100 cc's of pure glucose to shotgun, then take your blood sugar at intervals.

I don't consume sugar. So yeah, I drink that stuff,. my body goes "What the f$#k is this???" and goes into a tail spin. You wanna talk about sick? Gaaaah. Anyway, I had to take my glucose levels very frequently for the duration of my pregnancy. My sugar was only high on a couple of occasions:

1. If I ate a very large portion of food, then didn't exercise (on of the things I did learn that was useful was that if you eat too much protein at once, it will actually turn into glucose and affect your sugar. Like an excessive steak or two really large burgers when one would do.

2. If I was in the midst of one of their stupid glucose tests. Yes, I will TEST high...but since I don't eat that stuff, it's never a problem.

So anyway, here I am in the class they made me take on how to manage my diabeties. The diet they recommended would have been far, far more detrimental to my health than the one I normally follow. I told the instructor that. I didn't want to be the jerk in the class, but I had to be honest with her. I had to say, "look, no. I'm not eating the bread. I am not eating the pasta. I am not going to INCREASE my intake of foods that are bad for me that will make this worse."

Needless to say, I was less than popular in that class.

So anyway, I bet most of you are not suprised that they served those packs of unnaturally orange peanut butter crackers as a snack to a bunch of pregnant chicks that had been diagnosed with gestational diabeties. I was thinking "This is some kind of gag. " So of course, I declined. The instructor was scandalized that I wouldn't eat this crapola. She said "I have some string cheese. Will you at least eat that?" So I said, sure, cheese is great. Thanks, I'd love some.

Little while after that, we learned to use our glucose monitors, and we are jabbing away and as it turns out, my glucose level was textbook perfect. Lady behind me was discovered to have sugar low enough to raise concern, so juice was called for.

Wait for it...wait for it...

The person that fetched the juice brought it to me. After all, I'm the hard headed little twit that wouldn't eat. So surely, I had to be the one with the hypoglycemia.

I took great innocent pleasure in telling them no, I was fine. Perfect. The young lady behind me was the one in need of a glucose boost.

Yeah, keep on pushing that damned food pyramid. The drug companies love that thing.

[DesignFox]

I don't know what to say....

I read that article you posted Kinkoid and your story.

I'm...shocked.

It makes sense, though.

Seshat- I'm curious about something. In Australia, do you see drug commercials on TV and in magazines? I mean from pharmaceutical companies for medicine.

We see them all the time in the States, and I find it disturbing. Shouldn't drugs be advertised to the doctors who may require the research in helping treat patients? Why should a patient be asking their doctor about drugs?