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Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

michaelpollan.com

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Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#21

Post by wyager »

novia wrote: post #18
wyager wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Mediterranean diet has been linked to longer lifespans Did you read anything I wrote? Every single fad diet in the world has multiple scientific papers showing how great it is. (p = 0.05. Nevermind that there were 1000 research projects about this fad diet that didn't get published because they didn't reject the null hypothesis, so who cares. Nevermind that nutrition scientists don't practice good behavior to m…

It's been a while since I've read Michael Pollan's book, An Omnivore's Dilemma, but if I am remembering correctly, there are several locations in the world where people live an abnormally long time, with good quality of life. Researchers went to those places and found out what people usually eat there. Then, comparing the diets of the different qualifying populations, the diet advice Pollan came up with to live a lon…

> there are several locations in the world where people live an abnormally long time, with good quality of life

There are many equally likely explanations that don't involve whatever those people happen to be eating. Regional genetic tendencies, slightly elevated levels of background radiation leading to radiation hormesis, a social tendency towards exercise, etc. It could be all in their diet, but then again, we don't have any really good evidence that it is.

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#23

Post by zaphar »

cup wrote: post #5
wyager wrote: post #2

Nutrition, as a field, is mostly quackery and bullshit. There's a reason the advice changes drastically every few years, and at any time there are 10 competing fad diets, each apparently supported by some number of reputable scientific authorities. We do not have the predictive power at this time to make authoritative recommendations about what each and every person should eat, except for fairly straightforward thing…

Medicine, as a field, is mostly quackery and bullshit. There's a reason the advice changes drastically every few years, and at any time there are 10 competing treatments, each apparently supported by some number of reputable scientific authorities. We do not have the predictive power at this time to make authoritative recommendations about how each and every person should be treated, except for fairly straightforward…

Medical advice doesn't in fact change every few years. It's pretty steady actually.

Your analogy fails to make it's point in a comparison between nutrition science and medical science nutrition science comes out way way behind. If medical science did change as often as nutrition science and had as adverse an effect overall as nutrition science has had we'd probably all still be going to our local shaman instead.

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#24

Post by umberway »

Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by empiricism: trying to find facts without having theories to support them. Journalists then make hay with the results, hinting at conclusions and advice for the public, using the authority of Science, but really bringing it into disrepute. An awful lot of research money has been wasted in this way and of course much of the work is not reproducible.

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#25

Post by jmknoll »

wyager wrote: post #21
novia wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a while since I've read Michael Pollan's book, An Omnivore's Dilemma, but if I am remembering correctly, there are several locations in the world where people live an abnormally long time, with good quality of life. Researchers went to those places and found out what people usually eat there. Then, comparing the diets of the different qualifying populations, the diet advice Pollan came up with to live a lon…

> there are several locations in the world where people live an abnormally long time, with good quality of life There are many equally likely explanations that don't involve whatever those people happen to be eating. Regional genetic tendencies, slightly elevated levels of background radiation leading to radiation hormesis, a social tendency towards exercise, etc. It could be all in their diet, but then again, we don…

There's a pretty interesting npr program about this. The researcher visits "Blue Zones," areas where people live for abnormally long times, and finds that, if I recall correctly, long lifespans are correlated with strong social support networks, plant-and-fish-based diets, and consistent, low-intensity exercise.

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/408023272/the-fou...

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#26

Post by wallace_f »

wutbrodo wrote: post #3
wyager wrote: post #2

Nutrition, as a field, is mostly quackery and bullshit. There's a reason the advice changes drastically every few years, and at any time there are 10 competing fad diets, each apparently supported by some number of reputable scientific authorities. We do not have the predictive power at this time to make authoritative recommendations about what each and every person should eat, except for fairly straightforward thing…

"Authoritative recommendations" aren't the only thing we get out of science. In the absence of the ability to make them, science's job is to attempt to give us a best guess at what the most likely answer to a question is. In the 50 years between now and your hypothetical in which nutrition is "solved", advice like Pollan's is a good balance between simple and as effective as we can hope for at this pt.

> In the absence of the ability to make them, science's job is to attempt to give us a best guess at what the most likely answer to a question is.

I think it's a pretty important concept for people to keep in mind that if you're not verifying your guesses with experimentation, you're fundamentally not doing science.

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#27

Post by charlieflowers »

umberway wrote: post #24

Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by empiricism : trying to find facts without having theories to support them. Journalists then make hay with the results, hinting at conclusions and advice for the public, using the authority of Science, but really bringing it into disrepute. An awful lot of research money has been wasted in this way and of course much of the work is not reproducible.

>> Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by empiricism: trying to find facts without having theories to support them.

Really? Seems to me there are a ton of theories but precious few facts.

Atkins, low carb, high carb, gluten free, etc. Theories everywhere. But science simply cannot tell us what foods to eat and what to avoid. It's very frustrating to me how limited our knowledge of the human body is.

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#28

Post by ENTP »

When I eat carbs, I put on weight. When I don't, I lose weight. However, other people I know are the opposite. Quite honestly, I think you can't generalise 'diets' or eating advice as, frankly, it would appear that different people's bodies work in slightly different ways. This could explain the vast array of different advice that, often times, seems contradictory.

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#29

Post by [deleted] »

ENTP wrote: post #28

When I eat carbs, I put on weight. When I don't, I lose weight. However, other people I know are the opposite. Quite honestly, I think you can't generalise 'diets' or eating advice as, frankly, it would appear that different people's bodies work in slightly different ways. This could explain the vast array of different advice that, often times, seems contradictory.

[deleted]

Re: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007)

#30

Post by umberway »

charlieflowers wrote: post #27
umberway wrote: post #24

Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by empiricism : trying to find facts without having theories to support them. Journalists then make hay with the results, hinting at conclusions and advice for the public, using the authority of Science, but really bringing it into disrepute. An awful lot of research money has been wasted in this way and of course much of the work is not reproducible.

>> Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by empiricism: trying to find facts without having theories to support them. Really? Seems to me there are a ton of theories but precious few facts. Atkins, low carb, high carb, gluten free, etc. Theories everywhere. But science simply cannot tell us what foods to eat and what to avoid. It's very frustrating to me how limited our knowledge of the human body is.

The 'facts' that I referred to are the results of correlation studies as published in science journals. The diets you mention are mainstream fads.

You're right, though, it is frustrating! My personal opinion is that it is the way we use food for pleasure and comfort that it is to blame. We are literally getting high on what we eat, which is deleterious for health if performed without break for long periods. But there's no obvious way for a scientist to address this idea at present; it would be considered too subjective and thus ignored by the majority.

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