If your guru's ideas have an expiration date, maybe it's time to find one whose ideas have a longer shelf life.

Have you just stumbled upon an old book, blog post, interview, etc. from your favorite guru only to have someone exclaim how old that is and how your guru's opinions have changed?  It might be time for a new guru.

Quick background here.  First, no I haven't dropped the Paleo ApprovED issue, but there are some things related and lots of stuff unrelated going on that have eaten up time and energy to blog on the subject.  It is a sensitive issue and needs more "care" than your run of the mill blogging.  It is also rather stressful and defeats one of the purposes of this blog as an outlet for my sarcastic side -- for which a post such as this is perfectamundo!    So that said, as I was looking for a post on Robb Wolf's blog (this one) my search also popped up the following post:

Insulin: Anorexic?

Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims

It's not often I share journal articles without comment here anymore, but I just wanted to share this with my readers.

Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims  from Nature.

A hypothetical.

I don't often appeal to emotion here.  I'm not sure this hypothetical technically qualifies as such but here goes anyway.

The Hypothetical:

Imagine if you will your daughter or sister ... feel free to substitute any young woman ever, that you have been close to and cared for in what one might describe as a protective way.   She's off to college soon.  You worry that if she gets in trouble, and struggles a bit, that she'll have a good support system so far away from home, friends and family.  No matter how strong those bonds, you recognize that at that age, some may even disregard those closest to them from "their past".  Also, you recognize that at that age, being out from under a parent's ever watchful eye, they may act out of a little rebellion.

DIets and Disorders

This is going to be a quick post.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but there are some I-don't-care-what-the-Latin-phrase-is debate tactics that creep into too many of the discussions on eating disorders from all sides.   One such tactic is to accuse me, and others, of blaming the paleo diet or saying it causes eating disorders.  I didn't do that.  

A scenario:

You look in the mirror one day and don't like what you see.  Where did this gut come from?  Step on the scale, 10 lbs since a year ago!  Yikes!!  New Year's Resolution:  Lose 10 lbs.    The approach you choose is a standard one:  Establish a calorie deficit of 500-1000 cal/day , mostly calorie counting but adding a 40 min-1 hr walk 5 days a week.  Before you know it the pants are less snug, the belt tightened not just one but two notches.  Feeling good ... looking good!  Goal reached.  Hey, maybe I'll look and feel even better if I lose 5 more pounds!  Step on scale after a week.  No loss.  Another week.  No loss.  Still one more week.  No loss.   

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:

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 ...

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.

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. 

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