Ladies and Gentlemen I present .... The new Gary Taubes. Nina Tiecholz
BA, MA politics and history ... or so she tells us on Twitter.
It is a really tough watch, but she manages to mangle the Pima and the Masai, says Atkins ate like a Masai warrior, calls Keys by his first middle and last name like a child needing scolding, oh .... and she drags out Shai. I'll fill in some links tomorrow if I have time.
Book reviewed by Wheat Belly, Grain Brain and Eades even came out of retirement to promote the book Big Fat Surprise. Amazing.
Comments
Also, the demonization of Keys in the Paleo/LC/Keto community is disgusting. Fact is - K. Rations, Minnesota Starvation Experiment, and making it too 100 are nothing less than amazing.
"Starvation in Man" [NEJM (1970) 282 (12) 668-75] is widely regarded as a masterpiece of scientific writing.
Keys' chief experimental finding [Tucker; p. 193] was that the most important element in the rehabilitation of persons suffering from calorie restriction was [wait for it]--more calories. As in give 'em more food to eat. Compare this revelation with the results of Cahill's meticulous studies of fuel utilization during starvation: this is where the world found out what really occurs in the human body under prolonged fasting. As in zero food. Actual starvation, not starvation so-called. Some folks nevertheless maintain that Keys was a world expert on starvation because, well, didn't he do that famous "Minnesota STARVATION experiment"?
No question--Ancel Keys was a prodigious worker. But it appears that his well-known boundless personal ambition ["I'll show those guys..." , as Henry Blackburn recalled him saying prior to designing the Seven Countries Study] occaisionally got in the way of scrupulous science. Remarkable how those occaisional steps outside the bounds of scrupulous science continue to bamboozle.
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1347.full.pdf+html
The Future of Carbohydrates in Human Nutrition
George f. Cahill, Jr, MD
"Primitive people subsisted on high-protein, high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets. It is now clear that protein intake does not have to exceed 15 percent of calories, that fat intake should be reduced to 30 to 35 percent of calories, and that carbohydrate intake should be increased to 50 to 55 percent of calories. Complex carbohydrates are re-emerging as an important dietary component."
As to the caloric intake in Keys' study, that was the average reported at onset with the goal of losing 25% weight. These men began the experiment at normal weight, and calories were adjusted downward if weight loss was not sufficient. To imply that they weren't starved is absurd -- they were emaciated. I don't know that this experiment gave us a whole lot of insight in the end vis a vis famine relief, but it has actually provided invaluable information in the understanding and treatment of eating disorders.
I think it is strange how much people put into Henry Blackburn's comments in interviews. Can anyone find a speech or first person accounting of this?
1. Cahill studied actual starvation--zero food intake--out to 40 days. I would not, as apparently you would, describe 40 days without any food as "short-term metabolic starvation" (as if it weren't "real" starvation). I didn't imply that Keys' volunteers weren't starved. I stated it. Prolonged fasting--zero food intake--of course leads to certain death. Confusion occurs when "starvation" is used as an adjective. As in the phrase "starvation wages" or "starvation diets". Do the aforementioned low wages lead to certain death? No they do not. Does a "starvation diet" containing 1,570 kcal/day lead to certain death? No it does not. That's the difference that makes a difference. In everyday parlance we know very well what's meant by such loose phrases. I object to their use in matters of science because they are misleading. Empirical rigor suffers from their use.
By "diet" is meant a person's habitual food intake. So whereas we can eat a hypocaloric diet, a hypercaloric diet, a eucaloric diet, a low-carb or low-fat or paleo or calorie-restricted diet, we cannot eat a starvation diet because said diet would denote a zero food intake. Which is not a diet at all. A "starvation diet" is not one kind of diet among others. Grammatically, it purports to be a kind of diet, but unlike those other kinds of diets, a "starvation diet" is no more a kind of diet than a counterfeit passport is a kind of passport. The former is not a genuine diet ( no habitual food whatsoever), just as the latter is not a genuine passport at all.
2. Regarding Blackburn's comments on Keys. You ask: "Can anyone find a speech or first person accounts of this?":
"...the skeptical response by Keys's colleagues to his presentation at the 1955 World Health Organization conference in Geneva represented a humiliating but important moment for him: "THE pivotal moment in Keys life," remembers Blackburn. After the confrontation in Geneva, "[Keys] got up from being knocked around and said, "I'll show those guys"...and he designed the Seven Countries Study." [Nina Teicholz: the Big Fat Surprise (2014) p. 36] Referenced as [p.348] "Henry W. Blackburn, interview with author, July 22, 2008]
I didn't make it up. If you suspect that, like Keys, Nina has a boundless ambition that has led her to write up a, shall we say, less than accurate report, I suppose one could phone Dr. Blackburn to find out if Nina is lying and just made the whole thing up. He's 89 now. Don't happen to know his number, or if he's still in Minnesota. It should be possible to get to the bottom of things by going straight to the source. Find out if she was lying about this. Or not.
http://mbbnet.umn.edu/hoff/hoff_ak.html
"In Italy, if I had a private fortune, I'd like to put it to use in
vocational training. We need plumbers and electricians. We don't need
all these eggheads."
And this:
"Most diet fads don't do a great deal of harm -- lamb chop and
pineapple, that sort of thing. But such things as the Zen macrobiotic
diet definitely are harmful.
I was doing macrobiotics as a teenager ~1970. I ate so little, I swear I was turning into a Ringwratih. It was my very own Minnesota Starvation Experiment, though I was doing it in Detroit.
I'm curious how she got her gigs to be frank. At least Taubes has a hard science (physics), engineering and journalism background.
I have read your probably 10 different posts in your blog. I refuse to subscribe to any "diet" or "lifestyle" and really feel your site and your obvious intellect could be put to greater use by building something, anything, instead of ripping down every error you can find in others' work.
If you have thoughts about what IS good for humans to consume for a healthier way of life, I am not finding it here. The easiest thing to find on this site is vitriol and verbal abuse.
"Despite all these changes, the men, in their own minds, didn't perceive themselves as being excessively skinny. In fact, they began to think that everyone else looked too fat, rather than they themselves being too thin. Researchers later noted that this is the same mindset displayed by anorexics."
Thank you for your advice, but since I don't know you, nor you me, I'll file it with the rest of the "well meaning" comments over the years as to how I should go about my blogging.
Look around and you will see that I have built something. If you don't read daily on here about how what I do has helped people, it is because I don't sit around patting myself on the back or feel the need to remind folks that I *help people*. Sigh.
If you are in search of what IS good for humans, you'll find that here as well, but you will have to look a bit because this is not a nutrition blog per se. How ironic though, as the gurus who do spend most of their time telling you what NOT to eat. Here you will find the truth about many of those foods, particularly because many of them contain carbohydrates -- see the banner on the top of the blog.
I consider what Nina Teicholz is disseminating to be dangerously misrepresented and downright made up "science". I wasn't around in 2007, but I intend to do my part in educating people what her various sources and historical figures, etc. really say and did.
Are you interested in a particular topic? Rather than waste my time with useless advice, perhaps ask me a question and I'll be happy to point you in the right direction.
The 2015 Dietary Guidelines give eggs a break and lightens up on ingested cholesterol but is still going to be politically motivated with enviornmental concerns about methane production and sustainable agriculture.
Teicholtz has nailed it and did a great job too.
syndrome will be the coup de gras for this economy.
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