The Carb-Sane Asylum

Over the past few years, I've accumulated quite the collection of older books, ranging from texts to mass-media diet books.   Thank you Amazon which is my source for 90% of these finds.  I'm not sure why I hadn't gotten it before, I did purchase  The Stone-Age Health Programme around a year ago, but for some reason I only just now got a copy of The Paleolithic Prescription . My Stone-Age has gone temporarily missing, but these appear to be the same book, or contain similar tables and such, and I'm pretty sure Stone-Age is/was a British version of Prescription .   Here's a cellphone snap of Table XVII, a day's worth of "Paleolithic" Food from the other book that I had tweeted out last March (it is identical in the two books).  Here's a direct link to the image .  It's blurry, I didn't have much luck quickly getting a better image from this book, so it will just have to do.  You'll have to zoom in with your browser, but you'll be...

Summary: If A and B are significantly correlated, then: A  MAY  cause B, or B  MAY  cause A, or Any number of other factors could correlate with A and B such that these two variables "track" together. If A and B are not correlated, then it is exceedingly improbable that any of the above are true.    Shorter Summary: Correlation does not equal causation, but without correlation, there's no causation.

Hello all, and Happy New Year! What?  It's the 18th already?  Yeah ... well ... that's about par for the course for me lately. I haven't updated much personally on this blog for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, because this is not a blog about my personal journey.  I realize that some of my critics don't seem capable of grasping that point, but that is what it is.  In addition, while threats to my security, that began to develop almost 3 years ago, have abated somewhat in the past year, they have not disappeared entirely ... and the internet, for better or worse, has a long memory.  Hopefully things continue to improve on that front, and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you'll never have to!

All posts thus far in the series specific to checking references in Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.   (To be bumped and/or added to periodically) GCBC Reference Check ~ Part I of ? ~ Metabolic Adaptability & Energy Balance GCBC Reference Check ~ Part II of ? ~ Insulin Resistance (again) GCBC Reference Check ~ Part III of ? ~ Is glycerol phosphate rate-limiting? GCBC Reference Check ~ Part IV of ? ~ Kipnis GCBC Reference Check ~ Part V of ? ~ Insulin Resistance: Taubes v. McGarry GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VI of ? ~ The Massa GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VII of ? ~ Julius Bauer's Lipophilia Hypothesis GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VIII of ? ~ The Paleo Diet GCBC Reference Check ~ Part IX of ? ~ Every Woman Knows Carbs Are Fattening

  Every woman knows that carbohydrate is fattening  Most wouldn't even need to do a search on that phrase and Taubes to recall how frequently Gary Taubes mentions this quote.  Here is the highlight in Good Calories, Bad Calories . {Kindle Location 7624} Taubes repeated this quote in relatively recent editorials in the New York Times , and even the British Medical Journal .   Innumerable others have dragged it out in their own iterations of Taubes' so-called Alternate Hypothesis.   It was indeed a quote published in the British Journal of Nutrition.  So far so good.  What is not featured prominently, per usual for Mr. Taubes, is the nature of the source:   Observations on the respiratory quotients and weight gain of man after eating large quantities of carbohydrate .

In the Incestral Health Community, HG stands for Hunter-Gatherer .  If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times over the years:  humans are hunter-gatherers at heart.  True enough.  We are, after all, animals and at some ancient point we behaved just like any other wild animal seeking sustenance.   Fast forward, and most in the IHC think Jared Diamond was correct when he wrote The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race .  In that 1987 article, Diamond lays out his case for why human domestication of both plants and animals for food was not, as is commonly held, progress for our species after all.  In keeping with the HG acronym, the human transition from Hunter-Gatherer to Herder-Gardener has been nothing short of a disaster according to Diamond. Of course the irony is totally lost on the paleos as they sit down to a meal of prime rib topped with ghee and that kale and avocado salad on the side.  Perhaps some 90% cacao...

Several months ago, I began writing a post entitled Paleo Schneckenfeude, inspired by the concept of schadenfreude and the misfortunes brought on one faction of the paleo community by other factions, and vice versa.  I never published it up, because the "sell by" date had definitely passed before I had the time.  But I will use the title here, with the addition of the term Payleo™ to the IHC lexicon, courtesy of the latest high profile Guy to jump ship. Schadenfreude  [shädən froidə]   from the German:  schaden  (damage) and  freude  (joy).   Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others Yes, it is fair to say that there is no love lost between me and most in the paleo wing of the IHC, and I am experiencing a tinge of guilty enjoyment in watching the coconut fed chickens coming home to roost yet again. Schneckenfeude  ... The Evolution of Schnecken?