Face-Palm Thursdays: Because two million years of evolution is obviously wrong

I should start a new trend where I publish things that make me face-palm on Thursdays. Actually, in this subject I could probably find enough things to make me face-palm every day of the week, possibly multiple times a day. US News has the skinny on what will make you skinny. Not really.

Face Palm: Best Diets for the New Year 2012

Top of the list? A diet, called the DASH diet, developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). You guessed it, eat your recommended number of carbs plus all those "healthy" whole grains, and just don't eat salt and saturated fat and you'll lose weight, especially if you cut back on calories! How does that work anyway? And they say that "rigorous studies" showed that this diet can lower blood pressure. Funnily enough, they don't quote exactly which "rigorous studies" they're referring to.

I'm not going to list all of the craptacular diets they put at the top of the list, (and believe me, I know all about craptacular diets having been obese for most of my life and trying repeatedly to lose the weight and being unable to), but they put Atkins towards the bottom. While their "rigorous studies" obviously prove that cutting back salt and eating whole grains defeats heart disease (really! I'm super cereal! pun totally intended) they dis Atkins because all the studies were too short and the data was not statistically significant. You can read that again, but I assure you, you didn't misread it.




Now, the Vegan Diet did better than Atkins and the Paleo diet despite the fact that it "may not provide enough of some nutrients." No kidding. But it ranks higher than ones that are better for you? Well, I believe that's called cognitive dissonance.

And what did they put at the bottom of the list? The Paleo Diet. Because 2 million years of evolution is obviously wrong. To whatever quack job wrote the article on US News, go live with the Inuit for a year like Stefansson did and get back to me on the lack of dairy and grains. Here's what they say about the nutritional breakdown of the Paleo Diet:

Fat. At about 39 percent of daily calories from fat, a sample Paleo menu exceeds the government’s 35 percent cap by a bit.

Protein. The government recommends 10 to 35 percent of daily calories come from protein; the Paleo diet clocks in around 38 percent.

Carbohydrates. At 23 percent of daily calories from carbs, it’s far below the government’s 45 to 65 percent recommendation.

Repeat after me, THERE ARE NO ESSENTIAL CARBOHYDRATES.

Health Writers

Who do they get to write these articles? Ninth grade high school drop-outs? I'd say so, except I believe that could be an insult to ninth grade high school drop outs.

The latest article I've come across that is as full of garbage as a neolithic midden, is one from the Miami Herald. I think that a monkey, yes just one monkey, in a room full of type writers could compose better literature than this crap.

"[Trans-fats] act as saturated fat once inside the body...

This expert recommends limiting the consumption of these industry-made foods and to treat the trans fat in them as saturated, equivalent to that of red meat that is so harmful to cardiovascular health...

Researchers at the University of Colorado say that 'it is important to read the nutritional information on all products, including foods marked free of trans fat, since some manufacturers are replacing trans fat with tropical oils from sources such as coconuts and palms, which are also rich in saturated fat.'"

First of all, I doubt seriously that trans fats act anything like saturated fat once in the body. I'm an artist, not a biochemist, but I ain't stupid. First of all, trans fat and saturated fat have different chemical bonds. Trans fats do have something in common with saturated fat, in that they have had hydrogen atoms added to their structure. However, their structure is not the same.

Also, whereas saturated fat is natural and your body has use for it, trans fat is man-made and it's "molecules have unnatural shapes that are not recognized by enzymes such as cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase." Those enzymes are used in the metabolism of fat. Your body cannot metabolize it and it does cellular damage. To imply that saturated fat, something we have been eating for millions of years, causes damage is to declare that evolution and mother nature are idiots. To paraphrase what Tom Naughton said in Fat Head, mother nature is not a dunce! The writers of these articles may be dunces, but evolution is not.

And they go on to malign red meat, and even coconut oil! It's absolute drivel, with nothing to back it up, masquerading as truth. And unwitting people believe it, because they read it in a major newspaper.