Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating healthfully

Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by knowtheory on Sunday May 19, 2013 @07:43PM (#5734928)

When it comes to the medical literature, I'm even cautious about doctors claims. Dr. Oz is a doctor, but he's a cardiac surgeon. So when he makes claims about the healthiness of palm oil (which is solid at room temperature, and is only healthy by comparison to lard), he is abusing his credibility as an MD.

Here's a summary of the literature about Celiacs which my wife linked me to: https://www.clinicalkey.com/topics/pediatrics/celiac-disease...

You'll note in the epidemiology section that Celiacs to genetics. The disease is prevalent primarily in western european populations (or populations descended from western europe), and has actually shown a decrease in non-european descended populations.

(My wife also notes that in the Infant Diet section it does say that if you feed gluten to infants it can increase their chance of Celiac's. This is true if you have genes which predispose you to Celiac's. If you do not have the genes, you can't develop Celiac's. And even if you do have the genes, you can go throughout your life w/o developing Celiac's, although apparently being fed gluten early in life does increase your risks. Seems more like a thing about feeding infants than it does about gluten really.)

Edit: My wife also points out that Celiacs diagnoses prior to 1997 were done via biopsy (which is of course, invasive, when we're talking about intestines). After 1997, and the availability of a simple blood screening test, testing for Celiac's has become cheaper, easier, and more prevalent. That certainly must contribute to the increased number of diagnoses.

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by jchrisa on Sunday May 19, 2013 @10:00PM (#5735402)

It's not like skipping gluten is a major hardship. Basically empty calories anyway. Why defend it?

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by knowtheory on Sunday May 19, 2013 @10:29PM (#5735507)

The point is not defending gluten per se. This is defense of sane eating, not allowing fear mongering, and killing dieting fads.

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by elangoc on Monday May 20, 2013 @02:32AM (#5736224)

Well, lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance aren't dieting fads. I silently sneered at those labels, until I realized 6 years ago that I might have been lactose intolerant for the prior 10 years. (Now I know so.) And I felt the same way about gluten intolerance, until... 1 month ago. Now I realize that I have gluten intolerance. My intolerance for lactose is fairly strong, and for gluten, it's fairly weak, but now I know why I get stomach cramps and breakouts on my lower face. 75% of the world has at least some degree of lactose intolerance.

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by Kurtz79 on Monday May 20, 2013 @09:09AM (#5737482)

Maybe because people have been eating wheat based products for the whole extent of human history without having health issues ?

I hate the words "empty calories". It's an oxymoron. Calories cannot be "empty", they are fuel for the body, they always have been.

Only years of fad-diets and food industry advertising could have turned a staple of human evolution as bread as something "evil".

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by mixmastamyk on Monday May 20, 2013 @02:04PM (#5738995)

Bread (and others) have provided the fuel to build civilization, true. However, they are man-made foods. When was the last time you saw a chimpanzee or caveman enjoying a loaf of bread, plate of pasta, etc?

As it has only existed since the dawn of agriculture, your tying of it to evolution is incorrect.

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by Kurtz79 on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @03:27AM (#5742326)

When was the last time you saw a caveman or a chimpanzee flying on an airplane or using a computer?

I was speaking of evolution in broad terms (as in, social and technological evolution as a race) not strictly in terms of darwinian evolution.

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Re:Dear American Consumers: Please don’t start eating health... by zevyoura on Monday May 20, 2013 @12:27AM (#5735888)

It's a major hardship if it's important for you to be able to participate in social situations that revolve around food.

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