The Carb-Sane Asylum

I really thought this was a joke, and a silent hat tip goes out to the person who brought this to my attention so's that I don't get them on anyone's bad list for contributing to such a post here at the Asylum.  But OMG . How Many Calories Does Mayo Have? ... now that Mark Sisson is whipping up wonderful mayo, I can get to work on the backlog of tuna salad, pea salad, and deviled eggs I’ve been denying myself. ... I thought I’d enjoy some tuna salad with two heaping spoonfuls of Mark’s zippy mayo—call it research for  lower calorie  meal plans for my new business, the FatBurn Factory.  With the addition of a few capers, instant lunch! But I need to know for, for the sake of my patients, ...    WHAT IS THE CALORIE COUNT OF THIS QUICK AND EASY MEAL  . Yeah I know what you're thinking.  What the heck is pea salad, and is there anyone else on the planet denying themselves of this dish?  

So ooooooooo ..... I wrote a post a couple days ago calling out Dr. Cate Shanahan for her blatant misrepresentation of Ancel Keys and his part in the advocacy of a low fat diet.  One could write volumes on the problems with Shanahan's " science "  and ideas, but hopefully this overnight guru phenomenon -- because some minor celebrity shill kingmaker deems them so -- is on the outs.  One can only hope.   The first image included in that post was this one below. Figure in Deep Nutrition

I preface this post with words of wisdom from a science journalist. Long before Nina Teicholz burst onto the scene as the latest Atkins-mouthpiece (Chapter 10 of The Big Fat Surprise , I rest my case), from almost the very beginning of my exposure to the low carb internet community, I've been hearing how Ancel Keys was single handedly responsible for the low fat plague that has made us all fat and sick.  While I'm sure I'd heard the name Ancel Keys somewhere along the way during my formal studies, it never really rang a bell ... and I'd venture to guess that most outside this Incestral Health Community had not either.  This is the enduring legacy that appears to trace back to Gary Taubes' demonization of the man in Good Calories, Bad Calories .  It also appears to have origins in the Weston Price Foundation movement with the writings of Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, for example, The Oiling of America  (2000).

As I mentioned in my "opening post" on the matter of Ancel Keys, one of the inspirations was listening, for the umpteenth time, to a low carber blaming our ills on the "low fat diet" we were all duped into switching to by Ancel Keys.  In this case, it was Dr. Cate Shanahan: Reversing Diabetes ^ Knowledge Summit this past May. This woman wrote a book called Deep Nutrition with her ghost-writer husband Luke who has absolutely ZERO relevant background in the subject matter.  That book is an abomination.  Seriously.  As she possesses an MD (how she's board certified and practicing eludes me at this point!), the misinformation it contains on basic matters is even more potentially dangerous than that put out by some of the other diet gurus out there.   

Forget the paleo diet for a moment here. Let's face it, nothing in the modern interpretations ever really came close to whatever that was anyway. Forget hunter gatherers for a moment here.  Let's face it, these cultures are isolated and generally irrelevant in every way to the "modern" agricultural world. Let's even forget the diets of cultures around the globe from 300 or so years ago on back.  Most corners of the world were "contaminated" by trade and transplantation of foodstuffs, livestock and plant species not indigenous to various regions.    No ... I'm talking about traditional regional diets that persisted in practice from the relatively recent past -- within a few hundred years -- through to a few generations ago.   image link How about such diets in cultures that occupied regions that we now call the United States of America?  One of the most disgusting (IMO) things about the so-called "ancestral" health advo...

I have decided to adopt the paleo template.  As anyone who reads this blog knows, just about any diet that doesn't involve dining with Marie (Callender), Debbie (comma Little), Ronald (McDonald) and Wendy can and will be *fit* into the paleo template!  Let's see there's: WAPF:  Eh, nevermind the sprouted grains and dairy of all manner, we're all on the same team. Vegan:  Well ... it is real food.  We can always try to convert them. Atkins:  What's a Quest Bar between friends?  Swap the Splenda for Stevia and we've got a deal. Zone:  The cause of every eating disorder including potentially Evander Holyfield according to the paleorati, but Sears cites Eaton so there's that. Mediterranean:  Well that's just really paleo low carb right? The Tequila Diet:  It IS paleo.  STFU! Perfect Health Diet:  Grok sooooo ate white rice and coconut oil! Carb Nite?:  Shhhhhhh he didn't really mean to front load junk food during ...

Apparently hypocrisy is ketogenic or something like that, because it is coursing through the veins of the low carb community these days.  You see, hidden beneath the bellyaching title and opening of the blog post,  What’s With The Antagonism About Low-Carb From The Paleo Community Lately? , lay another one of Jimmy's "data dump" posts having the LC "experts" weigh in on the issue of low carb and thyroid function.  As yet another fairly well known low carber jumps the Carnival ship, things are getting more and more desperate in LLVLClue-landia.

Link:   "Dr. Cate" Shanahan Title:  The Paleo Diet vs. Top-Selling Drugs: Who Wins? Ratings: ☼ ☼  ☼  ☼   ☼    Entertainment Value ☼ ☼  ☼  ☼   ☼    Content ☼ ☼  ☼   ☼   ☼    Informational Accuracy ☼ ☼  ☼     ☼   ☼   Overall Summary: Basically, just eat a low carb paleo diet folks and you won't get osteoporosis, schizophrenia and need cholesterol lowering drugs.  While Dr. Cate spends quite a bit of time discussing how diet can cure/prevent diseases, she goes into scant little detail as to what exactly she means by such a diet.  Shanahan's science is very poor.  If I were a parent I think I'd go nuts just worrying over my kid turning into a schizophrenic any day now after listening to Shanahan.  Just go paleo folks and skip all your meds.  Look, I'm on board with America being a WAY overmedicated society where doctors don't...

As often happens with me, certain potential themes for blog series float through my head.  A stream of thought that connects things I see, read and hear about the web.  One of those themes lately has to do with the quality of information coming from a number of bloggers and otherwise-advocates of low carbing who are by all accounts actively practicing physicians.  Many of these physicians routinely chastise, mock and otherwise scorn their fellow practitioners in the course of promoting their views. This series will highlight the more ridiculous claims made by these doctors,  but not so much on the minutia of their entire pro-low carb message.  In other words, a bit less about the overarching erroneous themes, and a bit more about individual "schtick" or just what I would call absurd random statments they make.  And I guess with each installment of this series, I would ask: Why would (s)he even say that?