“You’ll be reassured to know that you don’t have to eat carbohydrates to live. It’s not an essential nutrient.
“It’s one of the first things we learn in nutrition is what does the body not make and what you HAVE to eat.
“You won’t find carbohydrate on this list.”
~Eric Westman, There’s no such thing as an essential carbohydrate
“Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients.”
~Denise R. Ferrier, Biochemistry
“Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients.”
~Simon W. Walker, Peter Rae, Peter Ashby, & Geoffrey Beckett, Clinical Biochemistry
“Carbohydrates are not considered essential.”
~Carie Ann Braun & Cindy Miller Anderson, Pathophysiology: Functional Alterations in Human Health
“No specific carbohydrates have been identified as dietary requirements.”
~Michael Lieberman, Allan D. Marks, & Alisa Peet , Marks’ Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach
“In the absence of dietary carbohydrate, the body is able to synthesize glucose from lactic acid, certain amino acids and glycerol via gluconeogenesis.”
~Jim Mann & A. Stewart Truswell, Essentials of Human Nutrition
“Even when a person is completely fasting (religious reasons, medically supervised, etc.) the 130 g / day of glucose needed by the brain is made from endogenous protein and fat.
“When people are “fasting” the 12 hour period from the end of supper the night before until breakfast (“break the fast”) the next day, their brain is supplied with essential glucose! Otherwise, sleeping could be dangerous.”
~Joy Kiddie, How Much Carbohydrate is Essential in the Diet?
The lower limit of dietary carbohydrate compatible with life apparently is zero, provided that adequate amounts of protein and fat are consumed. However, the amount of dietary carbohydrate that provides for optimal health in humans is unknown. There are traditional populations that ingested a high fat, high protein diet containing only a minimal amount of carbohydrate for extended periods of time (Masai), and in some cases for a lifetime after infancy (Alaska and Greenland Natives, Inuits, and Pampas indigenous people) (Du Bois, 1928; Heinbecker, 1928). There was no apparent effect on health or longevity. Caucasians eating an essentially carbohydrate-free diet, resembling that of Greenland natives for a year tolerated the diet quite well. However, a detailed modern comparison with populations ingesting the majority of food energy as carbohydrate has never been done.
They base the carbohydrate requirement of 87g-112 grams per day on the amount of glucose needed to avoid ketosis. They arrived at the number 100g/day to be “the amount sufficient to fuel the central nervous system without having to rely on a partial replacement of glucose by ketoacid,” and then they later say that “it should be recognized that the brain can still receive enough glucose from the metabolism of the glycerol component of fat and from the gluconeogenic amino acids in protein when a very low carbohydrate diet is consumed.” (Meaning, ketosis is NO BIG DEAL. In fact, it’s actually a good thing and is not the same as diabetic ketoacidosis that type 1 diabetics and insulin dependent type 2 diabetics can get.) The RDA of 130g/day was computed by using a CV of 15% based on the variation in brain glucose utilization and doubling it, therefore the the RDA (recommended daily allowance) for carbohydrate is 130% of the EAR (estimated average requirement).
Mankind has survived without isolated, refined sugar for almost 2.6 million years.48 The body—in particular, the brain—has been thought to require upwards of 200 g of glucose per day, leading to the often cited dogma that glucose is ‘essential for life’.1 While it is true that glucose is essential for sustaining life, there is no requirement for dietary glucose, as fatty acids can be turned into brain-fuelling ketone bodies, and amino acids and glycerol are gluconeogenic substrates.49 Indeed, in the relative absence of dietary glucose, ketone bodies may supply upwards of 75% of the brain’s required energy, with the remainder supplied by gluconeogenesis provided by amino acids (from dietary protein or catabolism of body proteins) and from glycerol (provided by the breakdown of triglycerides in adipose tissue).33 Thus, exogenous glucose (eg, from added sugars) is not essential for sustaining life in humans, and in most people, restricting dietary carbohydrates seems to produce no ill effects.49 In fact, according to the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies of Sciences, ‘The lower limit of dietary carbohydrate compatible with life apparently is zero, provided that adequate amounts of protein and fat are consumed’.50
Administration of fructose or sucrose in humans has been shown to cause each of the abnormalities that define the metabolic syndrome (eg, elevated triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, elevated blood glucose, elevated blood pressure and weight gain (specifically around the abdomen)),30 51–55 as well as features found in patients with coronary heart disease (eg, increased platelet adhesiveness and hyperinsulinaemia),56 57 all of which can be reversed entirely upon reverting to a diet low in sugar.47 52 56 58–60 Consumption of added sugars at current levels of intake is proposed as a contributing factor in a multitude of other diseases associated with early mortality, such as cardiometabolic disease,61–64 obesity,30 61 65–68 β-cell dysfunction and type 2 diabetes,6 20 69–71 hypertension,51 64 72 non-alcoholic fatty liver7 and atherosclerosis.6 73 74 Because of this, added sugars cannot be considered food.
What to Eat: The Ten Things You Really Need to Know to Eat Well and Be Healthy by Luise Light, pp. 18-21,
The alterations that were made to the new guide would be disastrous, I told my boss, the agency director. These changes would undermine the nutritional quality of eating patterns and increase risks for obesity and diabetes, among other diseases. No one needs that much bread and cereal in a day unless they are longshoremen or football players, and it would be unhealthy for the rest of us, especially people who are sedentary or genetically prone to obesity and diabetes. […]
At stake here, I told him, was nothing short of the credibility and integrity of the USDA as a source of reliable nutrition information. Over my objections, the alterations were included and the guide was finalized. I was told this was done in order to keep the lid on the costs of the food stamp program. Fruits and vegetables were expensive, much more expensive than breads and cereals, and the added servings of grains would, to some extent, offset the loss of nutrients from fruits and vegetables, the head of our division told me. However, the logic of that rationale escaped me.
Refined wheat products are what we called in the nutrition trade “cheap carbos,” stomach-filling food preferred when other, higher quality foods are unavailable or not affordable. They do little—if anything—to boost the nutritional quality of people’s diets and tend to add not only starch, but also fat and sugar to the diet. It was curious that there had been no discussion of the cost constraints of the food stamp program in any previous discussion over the many months we had been working on the guide. Intuitively, I knew I was being “played,” but other than stalling and requesting additional outside reviews I felt stymied.
Later, I remembered a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) nutrition survey I had participated in during graduate school. One of our findings was a high rate of obesity among women in a particular region of the Caribbean country we were working in that had the lowest employment and per capita income. It puzzled me that the poorest region would have the most obese people until one of the physicians on our team explained that the prevalence of obesity was consistent with what he called an “impoverished diet,” too little nutritious food that caused people to feel hungry all the time, and with only cheap carbohydrates available to them, their hunger was never appeased, so they ate and ate and became fatter and fatter.
Was this inflated grain recommendation, I wondered, setting us up for a third world obesity scenario in our own country? Historically, the food guide was used to calculate the cost basis of the food stamps program. Did that mean we needed to develop two different sets of standards for nutrition, one for poor people and another for those better off, or did it mean that what was affordable in the food stamps program would determine what was best for the rest of us? Neither of these Hobson’s choices could be justified on scientific or ethical grounds. The changes that were made to the guide meant that any food product containing wheat flour, from white bread, Twinkies, Oreos, and bagels to pop toasters and Reese’s Puffs, would be considered nutritionally equivalent, which was not the case.
With my protests falling on deaf ears, the serving suggestions in the revised guide were incorporated into the regulations for the food stamps program, as well as the school breakfast and lunch, day care, and all other feeding programs administered by the USDA. Later, Congress set the serving amounts into legislative “stone” so it would be against the law not to serve the expanded number of grain servings that were in the new guide, a change that meant a financial windfall for the wheat industry. The new rules for school lunch programs increased the amount of bread and cereal products purchased for the program by 80 percent. For children in grades K through six, it meant eight daily servings of breads, cereals, and pasta, and for grades seven through twelve, ten servings.
For wheat growers, this meant an increase of 15 million bushels of wheat sold annually worth about $50 million and a retail sales boost of $350 million from additional sales of cereals, breads, and snacks. That didn’t include the extra sales resulting from the government subsidized food stamps program or revenues from the industry’s own efforts to shift public consumption toward more bread, pasta, and baked goods because of the new recommendations. Throughout the nineties, Americans increased their consumption of refined grain products from record lows in the 1970s to the six to eleven servings suggested in the new guide.
By the early 1900s, the modern diet had long been a growing concern, as it already was a topic of public debate going back a century, such as obesity and conditions like ‘nerves’. This public health issue became a moral panic with tuberculosis and neurasthenia that was linked to diet. Much of the focus was scientific study. Many vitamins and micronutrients were being discovered and researched.
Also, the industrial seed oils were being linked to ill health right from the start; although not yet understood as oxidative, inflammatory, and mutagenic. The initial observations were being made on farm animals being fed “on by-products from margarine factories”, as advised by feeding experts. It would be decades later that a mass experiment would be initiated on humans when, in the 1930s, industrial seed oils replaced animal fats as the main source of fatty acids in the American diet.
The following decades after that in the post-war period would begin the public health crisis of skyrocketing rates of metabolic syndrome: obesity, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, etc. But long before that, the health decline was already becoming apparent to many, such as Dr. Weston A. Price and Dr. Francis M. Pottenger Jr, and even earlier with Dr. Claude Bernard, Dr. William Harvey, Dr. James H. Salisbury, etc. Another example of someone on the leading edge was Dr. M. J. Rowlands.
My clinical investigations began as far back as 1912, when I installed an X-ray apparatus with the idea of trying to find out what similarity there was in the lesions amongst my cases. In the war during 1914 and 1915 stationed at Netley. The blood-cultures and joint punctures I carried out proved sterile.
Owing to ill-health I had to relinquish the Service for some time; I returned to it again in 1916 and was given the pathological charge of three hospitals of some 2,000 patients, where I could place as many rheumatoid patients for whom I could find beds, an order being posted in the London area that all true rheumatoids were to be sent to one of my hospitals. In this way I was able to accumulate some 200 rheumatoids and keep them for investigation. But with all this opportunity and all the advantages of able assistance and cordial help for over three years, until May, 1919, nothing of great value was discoverable. In 1916 I wrote a paper which was published in the Lancet1 giving the results of my investigations up to that time.
After the war I again took up the investigation of this disease chiefly owing to my farming instinct. The question of vitamins and the work of Hopkins, Funk, Plimmer and Drummond, was being published. I began to experiment with pigs, as I found that a large number of my pigs which were bred on the open-air system were from time to time suffering from marked stiffness and swollen joints. I began to feed my animals on a full vitamin diet and the result of these experiments was marvellous. There was a complete change in the condition of my herd and I decided to show my experimental animals at the largest Fat Stock Show in the world-namely, Smithfield. The result of the first time of showing was every possible prize that I could have won as well as the Cup. This gave me ample proof that in animals’ malnutrition lay the seat of investigation. In 1921 I read a paper before the Farmers’ Club at the Surveyors’ Institute discussing my experiments. Professor T. B. Wood, of Cambridge, and Dr. Crowther, Principal of the Harper Adams College, who opened the discussion, ridiculed all my experiments, and the whole idea of vitamins, and, in fact, the only member of the audience who agreed was Lord Bledisloe. To-day I think both Professor Wood and Dr. Crowther are aware of the value of vitamins and now admit their use to the British farmer. […]
I had by me all the notes of an experiment I had carried out a few years previously. Feeding experts were constantly advising farmers-and are doing so to-day-to feed their pigs on by-products from margarine factories, such as palm kernels, coco-nut, earth-nut, soya beans, etc. So I placed three pens of pigs on these foods as a test, using against them a food containing meat, yeast, cod-liver oil and a salt mixture, the carbohydrate content of the diet being the same in all the pens. Within a few weeks it became apparent that the pigs on a diet of palm-kernel and coco-nut were rapidly going downhill; and at the end of the test the pigs fed on my mixture had increased by 143 lb., and for every 1 lb. of increase in weight had consumed 2 * 62 lb., whereas the ” palm kernel pigs ” had increased only 40 lb., and for every 1 lb. of increased weight they had consumed 5 lb. The palm kernel pigs showed a vitamin B deficiency.[…]
In dealing with the deficiency of vitamin B in cases of rheumatism, Dr. Rowlands’ paper was convincing and dramatic, but the relationship between this deficiency and the various forms of rheumatism was not clearly shown. Whereas it was probably a factor in rheumatoid arthritis, the co-relation was not evident in either osteo-arthritis, with its prevailing characteristic of robustness, or in the climacteric type associated with thyroid deficiency. Possibly there were other vitamin deficiencies-an “A” deficiency and probably a “D” deficiency-concerned in the control of phosphates, […]
Rheumatoid arthritis was certainly a deficiency disease, and the deficiency was connected with the assimilation or utilization of phosphoric acid and other phosphates, so that probably vitamins B and D were often associated with it. Rheumatoid arthritis never attacked the bon viveur or the alcoholic, but was the disease of the total abstainer, the vegetarian and the careful liver. […]
An important point which none of the discussers had mentioned was the great change in our diet, not so much in our own choice of food, but in the food of the animals on which we depended so much for our own. For instance, cows used to be fed on ground oats, ground wheat, ground barley, ground rye; all these contained the essential vitamin B. To-day very few farmers gave such food to their cattle; instead, they gave cotton-seed cake, linseed cake, and all kinds of patent foods which were deficient in vitamin B, and therefore. milk was not now so good as in former days. Chickens, again, were now fed on all sorts of material, and were the subjects of intensive culture, with the result that the egg-yolk was not of the same value as formerly. Vitamin B was not an animal product, it must be supplied to the animal from some outside source.
“Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship…To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic…, and have no place in a republic…The Constitution of this Republic should make special provisions for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.”
Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of Declaration of Independence, member of Continental Congress
“The efforts of the medical profession in the US to control:…its…job it proposes to monopolize. It has been carrying on a vigorous campaign all over the country against new methods and schools of healing because it wants the business…I have watched this medical profession for a long time and it bears watching.”
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), Populist leader and lawyer
“Medicine is a social science and politics is a medicine on a large scale…The very words ‘Public Health’ show those who are of the opinion that medicine has nothing to do with politics the magnitude of their error.”
Rudolf Virchow, (1821-1902) founder of cellular pathology
“The profession to which we belong, once venerated…-has become corrupt and degenerate to the forfeiture of its social position…”
Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, first president, AMA, 1848
In 1922, Herbert McLean Evans and Katharine Scott Bishop discovered vitamin E. Then in the following decades from the 1930s to the 1940s, Drs. Wilfred and Evan Shute treated 30,000 patients with natural vitamin E in their clinic and studied it’s health benefits. Despite all of the documented evidence, they had little influence in mainstream nutrition and medicine. They had the disadvantage of promoting a vitamin right at the beginning of the era when pharmaceuticals were getting all of the attention: “Better Living through chemistry.” Responding to the resistance of medical authorities, from his book The Heart and Vitamin E (1956), Dr. Evans Shute wrote that,
“It was nearly impossible now for anyone who valued his future in Academe to espouse Vitamin E, prescribe it or advise its use. That would make a man a “quack” at once. This situation lasted for many years. In the United States, of course, the closure of the JAMA pages against us and tocopherol meant that it did not exist. It was either in the U.S. medical bible or it was nought. No amount of documentation could budge medical men from this stance. Literature in the positive was ignored and left unread. Individual doctors often said: ‘If it is as good as you say, we would all be using it.’ But nothing could induce them as persons of scientific background to make the simplest trial on a burn or coronary.”
“The American Medical Association even refused to let the Shute’s present their findings at national medical conventions. (p 148-9) In the early 1960’s, the United States Post Office successfully prevented even the mailing of vitamin E. (p 166).” Over the decades, others have taken note of the heavy-handedness of mainstream authorities. “The failure of the medical establishment during the last forty years,” wrote Linus Pauling in his 1985 Foreword, “to recognize the value of Vitamin E in controlling heart disease is responsible for a tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering and for many early deaths. The interesting story of the efforts to suppress the Shute discoveries about Vitamin E illustrates the shocking bias of organized medicine against nutritional measures for achieving improved health.”
What is motivating this ‘failure’? And is it really a failure or simply serving other interests, maybe quite successfully at that?
* * *
“Today, expulsion is again mustered into service in a war of ideology. …Modern society makes its heresies out of political economy…Ethics has always been a flexible, developing notion of medicine, with a strong flavor of economics from the start.”
Oliver Garceau, Dept. of Government, Harvard U., The Political Life of the AMA (1941)
“Everyone’s heard about the military-industrial complex, but they know very little about the medical-industrial complex…(in) a medical arms race…”
California Governor Jerry Brown, June 1980
“The new medical-industrial complex is now a fact of American life…with broad and potentially troubling implications…”
Dr. Arnold Relman, Editor, New England Journal of Medicine
“Bankers regard research as most dangerous and a thing that makes banking hazardous due to the rapid changes it brings about in industry.”
Charles Kettering, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Vice President of General Motors, (in Ralph Moss, Cancer Syndrome)
“The system of influence and control..is highly skewed in favor of the corporate and financial system. And this dominant influence is felt not only in universities, foundations, and institutions of higher learning, but also…from media to all other instruments of communication.”
Vincente Navarro, (Professor of Health and Social Policy, John Hopkins U., and other credentials).
“In the feeding of hospital patients, more attention should be given to providing tasty and attractive meals, and less to the nutritive quality of the food.” “People say that all you get out of sugar is calories, no nutrients…There is no perfect food, not even mother’s milk.” “Have confidence in America’s food industry, it deserves it.”
Dr. Frederick Stare, Harvard U. School of Public Health, Nutrition Dept. Head
So, why are the powers that be so concerned with harmless supplements that consumers take in seeking self-healing and well-being? The FDA explained it’s motivativions:
“It has been common…to combine such unproven ingredients as bio-flavinoids, rutin…, with such essential nutrients as Vitamin C…, thus implying that they are all nutritionally valuable for supplementation of the daily diet. The courts have sustained FDA legal action to prevent such practices, and the new FDA regulations preclude this type of combination in the future…Similarly, it has been common…to state or imply that the American diet is inadequate because of soil deficiencies, commercial processing methods, use of synthetic nutrients, and similar charges. FDA recognizes that these false statements have misled, scared, and confused the public, and is prohibiting any such general statements in the future…The medical and nutritional professions have shown strong support of this policy,…” (FDA Assistant General council’s letter to 5 US Legislators, Hearings, US Congress, 1973).
To give a further example of this contorted thinking, consider another statement from an FDA official: “It is wholly unscientific to state that a well-fed body is more able to resist disease than a less well-fed body” (FDA’s Head of Nutrition Department, Dr. Elmer M. Nelson. in Gene Marin and Judith Van Allen, Food Pollution: The Violation of Our Inner Ecology). That is so absurd as to be unbelievable. Yet it’s sadly expected when one knows of incidents like Ancel Keys attack on John Yudkin amidst wholesale silencing of his detractors and the more recent high level persecution of Tim Noakes, along with dozens of other examples.
The advocates of natural healing and sellers of nutritional supplements were criticizing the dominant system of big ag, big drug, and closely related industries. This was a challenge to power and profit, and so it could not be tolerated. One wouldn’t want the public to get confused… nor new generations of doctors, as explained the Harvard Medical School Dean, Dr. David Edsall: “…students were obliged…to learn about an interminable number of drugs, many…valueless, …useless, some…harmful. …there is less intellectual freedom in the medical course than in almost any other form of professional education in this country.”
This is how we end up with young doctors, straight out of medical school, failing a basic test on nutrition (Most Mainstream Doctors Would Fail Nutrition). Who funds much of the development of medical school curruicula? Private corporations, specifically big drug and big food, and the organizations that represent them. Once out of medical school, some doctors end up making millions of dollars by working for industry on the side, such as giving speeches to promote pharmaceuticals. Also, continuing education and scientific conferences are typically funded by this same big money from the private sphere. There is a lot of money slushing around, not to mention the small briberies of free vacations and such given to doctors. It’s a perverse incentive and one that was carefully designed to manipulate and bias the entire healthcare system.
* * *
“[Doctors] collectively have done more to block adequate medical care for people of this country than any other single group.”
President Jimmy Carter
“I think doctors care very deeply about their patients, but when they organize into the AMA, their responsibility is to the welfare of doctors, and quite often, these lobbying groups are the only ones that are heard in the state capitols and in the capitol of our country.”
President Jimmy Carter
“The FDA and much, but not all, of the orthodox medical profession are actively hostile against vitamins and minerals… They are out to get the health food industry…And they are trying to do this out of active hostility and prejudice.”
Senator William Proxmire (in National Health Federation Bulletin, April, 1974
“Eminent nutritionists have traded their independence for the food industry’s favors.”
US Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal
“The problem with ‘prevention’ is that it does not produce revenues. No health plan reimburses a physician or a hospital for preventing a disease.”
NCI Deputy Director, Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention; and of Diet, Nutrition and Cancer Program
“What is the explanation for the blind eye that has been turned on the flood of medical reports on the causative role of carbohydrates in overweight, ever since the publication in 1864 of William Banting’s famous “Letter on Corpulence”? Could it be related, in part, to the vast financial endowments poured into the various departments of nutritional education by the manufacturers of our refined carbohydrate foodstuff?”
Robert C. Atkins, MD, Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, c. 1972
“Although the stated purpose of licensure is to benefit the public…Consumers…have learned that licensing may add to the cost of services, while not assuring quality….Charges…the legal sector that licensure restricts competition, and therefore unnecessarily increases costs to consumers….Like other professionals, dietiticians can justify the enactment of licensure laws because licensing affords the opportunity to protect dietiticians from interference in their field by other practitioners…This protection provides a competitive advantage, and therefore is economically beneficial for dietiticians”
ADA President, Marilyn Haschske, JADA, 1984
“While millions of dollars were being projected for research on radiation and other cancer ‘cures’, there was an almost complete blackout on research that might have pointed to needed alterations in our environment, our industrial organization, and our food.”
Carol Lopate, in Health Policy Advisory Center, Health PAC Bulletin
“Research in the US has been seriously affected by restrictions imposed by foreign cartel members. …It has attempted to suppress the publication of scientific research data which were at variance with its monopoly interest. …The hostility of cartel members toward a new product which endangers their control of the market(:)…In the field of synthetic hormones, the cartel control has been …detrimental to our national interest.”
US Assistant Attorney General, Wendell Berge, Cartels, Challenge to the Free World. – in Eleanor McBean, The Poisoned Needle
“We are aware of many cases in industry, government laboratories, and even universities where scientists have been retaliated against when their professional standards interfered with the interests of their employers or funders. This retaliation has taken many forms, ranging from loss of employment and industry-wide blacklisting to transfers and withholding of salary increases and promotions. We are convinced that the visible problem is only the tip of the iceberg.”
American Chemical Society President, Alan C. Nixon, (in Science, 1973)
Similar to the struggles of the Shute brothers, this problem was faced faced by the early scientists studying the ketogenic diet and the early doctors using it to treat patients with epilepsy. The first research and application of the ketogenic diet began in the 1920s and it was quickly found useful for other health conditions. But after a brief period of interest and funding, the research was mostly shut down in favor of the emerging new drugs that could be patented and marketed. It was irrelevant that the keto diet was far more effective than any drugs produced then or since. The ketogenic diet lingered on in a few hospitals and clinics, until research was revived in the 1990s, about three-quarters of a century later. Yet, after hundreds of studies proving its efficacy for numerous diseases (obesity, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, etc), mainstream authority figures and the mainstream media continue to dismiss it and spread fear-mongering, such as false and ignorant claims about ketoacidosis and kidney damage.
Also, consider X-ray technology that was invented by Dr. Émil Herman Grubbé in 1896. He then became the first to use X-rays for cancer treatment. Did the medical profession embrace this great discovery? Of course not. It wasn’t acknowledged as useful until 1951. When asked what he thought about this backward mentality denying such a profound discovery, Dr. Grubbé didn’t mince words: “The surgeons. They controlled medicine, and they regarded the X-ray as a threat to surgery. At that time surgery was the only approved method of treating cancer. They meant to keep it the ‘only’ approved method by ignoring or rejecting any new methods or ideas. This is why I was called a ‘quack’ and nearly ejected from hospitals where I had practiced for years” (Herbert Bailey, Vitamin E: Your Key to a Healthy Heart). As with the Shute brothers, he was deemed a ‘quack’ and so case closed.
There have been many more examples over the past century, in particular during the oppressive Cold War era (Cold War Silencing of Science). The dominant paradigm during McCarthyism was far from limited to scapegoating commies and homosexuals. Anyone stepping out of line could find themselves targeted by the powerful. This reactionary impulse goes back many centuries and continues to exert its influence to this day, continues to punish those who dare speak out (Eliminating Dietary Dissent). This hindering of innovation and progress may be holding civilization back by centuries. We seem unable of dealing with the simplest of problems, even when we already have the knowledge of how to solve those problems.
* * *
“Relevant research on the system as a whole has not been done… It is remarkable that with the continuing health care ‘crisis’, so few studies of the consequences of alternative modes of delivering care have been done. Such a paucity of studies is no accident; such studies would challenge structural interests of both professional monopoly (MD’s) and corporate rationalization in maintaining health institutions as they now exist or in directing their ‘orderly’ expansion.”
Robert R. Alford, Professor, UC Santa Cruz, Health Care Politics
“…It seems that public officials are afraid that if they make any move, or say anything antagonistic to the wishes of the medical organization, they will be pounced upon and destroyed. ..Public officials seem to be afraid of their jobs and even of their lives.”
US Senator Elmer Thomas, In Morris A. Bealle, The Drug Story. c. 1949 and 1976
“I think every doctor should know the shocking state of affairs…We discovered they (the FDA) failed to effectively regulate the large manufacturers and powerful interests while recklessly persecuting the small manufacturers. …(The FDA is) harassing (small) manufacturers and doctors…(and) betrays the public trust.”
Senator Edward V. Long. 1967
“The AMA protects the image of the food processors by its constant propaganda that the American food supply is the finest in the world, and that (those) who question this are simply practicing quackery. The food processors, in turn, protect the image of the AMA and of the drug manufacturers by arranging for the USDA and its dietitic cronies to blacklist throughout the country and in every public library, all nutrition books written for the layman, which preach simple, wholesome nutrition and attack …both the emasculation of natural foods and orthodox American medical care, which ignores subtle malnutrition and stresses drug therapy, (“as distinct from vitamin therapy”) for innumerable conditions. The drug manufacturers vigorously support the AMA since only MD’s can prescribe their products.”
Miles H. Robinson, MD; Professor, University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt Medical Schools, exhibit in Vitamin, Mineral, and Diet Supplements, Hearings, US House of Representatives, 1973
“The AMA puts the lives and well being of the American citizens well below it’s own special interest…It deserves to be ignored, rejected, and forgotten. No amount of historical gymnastics can hide the public record of AMA opposition to virtually every major health reform in the past 50 years….The AMA has turned into a propaganda organ purveying ‘medical politics’ for deceiving the Congress, the people, and the doctors of America themselves.”
Senator Edward Kennedy, in UPI National Chronicle, 1971
“The hearings have revealed police-state tactics…possibly perjured testimony to gain a conviction,…intimidation and gross disregard for the Constitutional Rights…(of) First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, (by the FDA) “The FDA (is) bent on using snooping gear to pry and invade…” “Instance after instance of FDA raids on small vitamin and food supplement manufacturers. These small, defenseless businesses were guilty of producing products which FDA officials claimed were unnecessary.” “If the FDA would spend a little less time and effort on small manufacturers of vitamins…and a little more on the large manufacturers of…dangerous drugs…, the public would be better served.”
Senator Long from various Senate hearings
“From about 1850 until the late 1930’s, one of the standing jokes in the medical profession, was about a few idiots who called themselves doctors, who claimed they could cure pneumonia by feeding their patients moldy bread. …Until…they discovered penicillin…in moldy bread!”
P.E. Binzel, MD, in Thomas Mansell, Cancer Simplified, 1977
“Penicillin sat on a shelf for ten years while I was called a quack.”
Sir Alexander Fleming.
“(in)”1914…Dr. Joseph Goldberger had proven that (pellagra) was related to diet, and later showed that it could be prevented by simply eating liver or yeast. But it wasn’t until the 1940’s…that the ‘modern’ medical world fully accepted pellagra as a vitamin B deficiency.”
G. Edward Griffin, World Without Cancer
“…The Chinese in the 9th century AD utilized a book entitled The Thousand Golden Prescriptions, which described how rice polish could be used to cure beri-beri, as well as other nutritional approaches to the prevention and treatment of disease. It was not until twelve centuries later that the cure for beri-beri was discovered in the West, and it acknowledged to be a vitamin B-1 deficiency disease.”
Jeffrey Bland, PhD, Your Health Under Siege: Using Nutrition to Fight Back
“The intolerance and fanaticism of official science toward Eijkman’s observations (that refined rice caused beri-beri) brought about the death of some half million people on the American continent in our own century alone between 1900 and 1910.”
Josue Castro, The Geography of Hunger
“In 1540…Ambroise Paré…persuaded doctors to stop the horrid practice of pouring boiling oil on wounds and required all doctors to wash thoroughly before delivering babies or performing surgery….(in) 1844…Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna proved…that clean, well-scrubbed doctors would not infect and kill mothers at childbirth. For his efforts Semmelweis was dismissed from his hospital…(and) despite publication, his work was totally ignored. As a result he became insane and died in an asylum, and his son committed suicide.” “As a chemist working for the US Government in 1916 on the island of Luzon (Philippines), (R.R.) Williams, over the opposition of orthodox medicine, had managed to eradicate beri-beri…by persuading the population to drink rice bran tea. In 1917, Williams was recalled to the US, and thereafter orthodox medicine discouraged anyone from drinking rice bran tea, so by 1920 there were more beri-beri deaths on Luzon than in 1915. ..In 1934, R.R. Williams (now) at Bell Telephone Labs., discovered thiamine (vitamin B-1), and that thiamine in rice bran both prevented and cured beri-beri.” “Christian Eikman in Holland…shared the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1929 for Proving in 1892 that beri-beri was not an infectious disease…”
Wayne Martin, BS, Purdue University; Medical Heroes and Heretics, & “The Beri-beri analogy to myocardial infarction”, Medical Hypothesis
“In the 1850’s, Ignaz P. Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor, discovered that childbed fever, which then killed about 12 mothers out of every 100, was contagious…and that doctors themselves were spreading the disease by not cleaning their hands. He was ridiculed…Opponents of his idea attacked him fiercely….(and) brought on (his) mental illness….(he) died a broken man.”
Salem Kirban, Health Guide for Survival
“…Galen…was…forced to flee Rome to escape the frenzy of the mob….Vesalius was denounced as an imposter and heretic…William Harvey was disgraced as a physician…William Roentgen…was called a quack and then condemned…” “In…1535, when…Jacques Cartier found his ships…in…the St. Lawrence River, scurvy began…and then a friendly Indian showed them (that) tree bark and needles from the white pine – both rich in…Vitamin C – were stirred into a drink (for) swift recovery. Upon returning to Europe, Cartier reported this incident to the medical authorities. But they were amused by such ‘witch-doctor cures of ignorant savages’ and did nothing to follow it up…” “It took over 200 years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives before the medical experts began to accept…Finally, in 1747, John Lind..discovered that oranges and lemons produced relief from scurvy…and yet it took 48 more years before his recommendation was put into effect….’Limeys’ would soon become rulers of the ‘Seven Seas’…” “In 1593, Sir Richard Hawkins noted and later published, in observations on his voyage into the South Seas, references that natives of the area used sour oranges and lemons as a cure for scurvy, and a similar result was noted among his crew. …In 1804, regulations were introduced into the British Navy requiring use of lime juice….(and) into law by the British Board of Trade in 1865….It took two centuries to translate empirical observations into action…”
Maureen Salaman, MSc, Nutrition: the Cancer Answer
Most of the above quotes were found on a webpage put together by Wade Frazer (Medical Dark Ages Quotes). He gathered the quotes from Ralph Hovnanian’s 1990 book, Medical Dark Ages.
The purpose here is to highlight the nutritional deficiencies of plant-based diets but most specifically plant-exclusive diets such as veganism (important nutrients are listed below). Not all of these deficiencies involve essential nutrients, but our knowledge is limited on what is essential. There are deficiencies that will kill you quickly, others slowly, and still others that simply will cause deteriorating health or less than optimal functioning. Also, some of these nutrients or their precursors can be found in plant foods or otherwise produced by the body, but there can be several problems. The plant-based sources may be inadequate or not in the most bioavailable form, antinutrients in the plants may block the absorption of certain nutrients (e.g., phytates block mineral absorption), gut and microbiome problems related to a plant-based diet might interfere with absorption, and most people have severely limited capacity to turn certain precursors into the needed nutrients.
So, when eating a supposedly healthy diet, many vegans and vegetarians still have major deficiencies, even with nutrients that should be in their diet according to standard food intake calculations — in those cases, the nutrients are there in theory but for some reason not being absorbed or utilized. For example, raw spinach has a lot of calcium, but it is almost entirely unavailable to the body. Adding raw spinach to your smoothie or salad might be a net loss to your health, as the antinutrients will block the nutrients in other foods as well. Another factor is that, on a plant-based diet, nutrients can get out of ratio. Nutrients work together with some acting as precursors, others as catalysts, and still others like master hormones — such as vitamin K2 determining where calcium is transported to, preferably the bones as opposed to arteries, joints and the brain; or think about how the body can produce vitamin D3 but only if there is adequate cholesterol. As such, besides deficiencies, sometimes there can too much of a nutrient which interferes with another nutrient, as seen with copper in relation to zinc.
That is the advantage to an animal-based diet, which could even include a well-balanced vegetarian diet that emphasized dairy and eggs (Vegetarianism is an Animal-Based Diet), but unfortunately many vegetarians are near-vegan in limiting even those non-meat animal foods. Here is the reason why animal foods are so important. Other animals have similar nutritional needs as humans and so, when we eat animal foods, we are getting not only the nutrients our bodies need but in the required form and ratio for our own optimal functioning. Without animal foods, one has to study nutrition to understand all of this and then try to artificially re-create it through careful calculations in balancing what one eats and supplements, an almost impossible task that requires someone to have a scientific mindset. Even then, one is likely to get it wrong. Regular testing of nutritional levels would be absolutely necessary to ensure everything is going according to plan.
As for supplements and fortification, the nutrients aren’t always in the best form and so wouldn’t be as bioavailable nor would likely have all the needed cofactors in just the right amounts. Besides, a diet dependent on supplementation and fortification is not healthy by definition, in that the food itself in natural form lacksing those nutrients. The fact that most vegans in particular and vegetarians as well have to be extremely obsessive about nutrition just to maintain a basic level of health is not high praise to the health-giving benefits of such a plant-based diet — and hence the reason even vegetarians should emphasize the allowed animal foods (there are even vegans who will make exceptions for some animal foods, such as fish). This is probably why most people quit these diets after a short period of time and why most people who quit, including those who quit after years or decades, do so for health reasons. Among those who remain on these diets, their responses on surveys show that most of them cheat on occasion and so are getting some minimal level of animal-based nutrition, and that is a good thing for their health even as it calls into question the validity of health claims about plant-based diets (Being “mostly vegan” is like being “a little pregnant.”).
There has long been a bias against meat, especially red meat. It goes back to the ancient Greek thought of Galen and how it was adapted to Medieval society in being Christianized for purposes of maintaining social hierarchy and social control. This Galenic bias was carried forward in the Christian tradition and then modernized within nutrition studies through the surprisingly powerful influence of the Seventh Day Adventists who continue to fund a lot of nutritional studies to this day. This has had practical consequences. It has long been assumed, based on a theology of a sinful world, that eating animals would make us beastly. It’s similar to the ancient idea that eating the muscles or heart of a fallen warrior would make one strong or courageous. A similar logic was applied to plants, that they have inherent qualities that we can imbibe.
So, it has been long believed that plant foods are somehow healthier for both body and soul, somehow more spiritual and so would bring humans closer to God or else closer to their divine natural state before the Fall of Man. That has been the moral concern of many Christians, from Medieval Catholics to modern Seventh Day Adventists. And in secularized form, it became internalized by mainstream nutrition studies and dietary guidelines. Part of the purpose of eating plants, according to Christianized Galenism, was that a strong libido was considered bad and it was understood that a plant-based diet suppressed libido, which admittedly doesn’t sound like a sign of health but their idea of ‘health’ was very different. It was also worried that, along with firing up the libido, meat would heat up the entire body and would lead to a shorter lifespan. Pseudo-scientific explanations have been used to rationalize this theological doctrine, such as concerns about mTOR and IGF-1, although this requires contorting the science and dismissing other evidence.
The problem is this simply became built into mainstream nutritional ideology, to such an extent that few questioned it until recently. This has led to most researchers, nutritionists, dieticians, and other health experts to obsess over the nutrients in plants while overlooking the nutrients in animal foods. So, you’ll hear something along the lines of, “meat is not an important source of vitamin E and with the exception of liver, is not a particularly good source of fat-soluble vitamins” (Nutrients in Meat, from the Meat We Eat). Keep in mind that assertion comes from a project of the American Meat Science Association — not likely to be biased against meat. It’s sort of true, depending on how one defines meat. From Galenic thought, the notion of meat is still associated with red meat. It is true that muscle meat, particularly lean muscle meat, from beef, pork and veal doesn’t have much vitamin E compared to plant foods (M. Leonhardt et al, Vitamin E content of different animal products: influence of animal nutrition). This is why some vegetarians and even vegans see no contradiction or conflict, much less hypocrisy, in eating fish and fowl — culturally, these have for millennia been considered a separate category from meat.
Yet adequate amounts of vitamin E are found in many animal foods, whether or not we label them as ‘meat’: chicken, goose meat, fish, seafood, crayfish, butter, and cheese; and some vitamin E is also found in liver and eggs (Atli Anarson, 20 Foods That Are High in Vitamin E). We have to be clear what we mean by ‘meat’. On a meat-based diet, even to the degree of being carnivore, there are plentiful good sources of every essential nutrient, including vitamin E, and many that aren’t essential but highly conducive to optimal health. Besides animal foods, there is no other source of such immense nutrient-density and nutrient-biavailability. Plant foods don’t come close in comparison.
Also, as vitamin E is an antioxidant, it’s important to note that animal foods contain many other antioxidants that play a similar role in maintaining health, but animal-sourced antioxidants have been mostly ignored because they don’t fit the dominant plant-based paradigm. Plant foods lack these animal-sourced antioxidants. So why do so few talk about a deficiency in them for vegans and vegetarians? And why have researchers so rarely studied in depth the wide variety of nutrients in animal foods to determine their full health benefits? This is particularly odd when considering, as I already stated, every known essential nutrient can be found in animal foods but not in plant foods. Isn’t that an important detail? Why is there a collective silence among mainstream health experts?
Think about how plant antinutrients can block the absorption of nutrients, both in plant foods and animal foods, and so require even more nutrients to counteract this effect which might simply further increase the antinutrient intake, unless one is careful in following the food selection and preparation as advised by those like Steven Gundry (The Plant Paradox). Or think about how glucose competes with the antioxidant vitamin C causing an increase of scurvy if vitamin C is not increased, and yet a low-carb diet with far lower intake of vitamin C is not linked to scurvy — maybe the reason ancient Vikings and Polynesians could remain healthy at sea for months, but once a high-carb diet was introduced modern sailors were plagued by scurvy (Sailors’ Rations, a High-Carb Diet). Similarly, a plant-based diet in general might require greater amounts of vitamin E: “Plant-based foods have higher concentrations of vitamin E. And for good reason. A plant-based diet requires additional protection from oxidation of PUFA which Vitamin E helps provide through its antioxidant properties. It’s still found in adequate supply in meat” (Kevin Stock, Vitamins and Minerals – Plants vs Animals).
What is adequate depends on the diet. A diet low in carbs, seed oils, and other plant foods may require fewer plant-based antioxidants, especially if this is countered by an increase of animal-based antioxidants. It is reminiscent of the fiber debate. Yes, fiber adds bulk that supposedly will increase regularity, ignoring the fact that the research is divided on this topic. No doubt bulking up your poop makes you have larger poops and more often, but is that really a good thing? People on a low-residue carnivore diet more easily digest and absorb what the eat, and so they don’t have bulky poops — then again they don’t usually have constipation either, not if they’re getting enough dietary fat. The main cause of constipation is plant foods. So, why are people advised to eat more plant foods in the hope of resolving this issue caused by plant foods? It’s absurd! We keep looking at problems in isolation, as we look at nutrients in isolation (Hubris of Nutritionism). This has failed us, as demonstrated by our present public health crisis.
Let me throw in a last thought about antioxidants. It’s like the fiber issue. People on plant-based diets have contipation issues and so they eat more plant foods in the form of fiber in trying to solve the problem plant foods cause, not realizing that constipation generally resolves itself by eliminating or limiting plant foods. So, in relation to antioxidants, we have to ask ourselves what is it about our diet in the first place that is causing all the oxidative stress? Plant foods do have antioxidants, but some plant foods also cause oxidative stress (e.g., seed oils). If we eliminate these plant foods, our oxidative stress goes down and so our requirement of antioxidants to that degree also lessens. Our body already produces its own antioxidants and, combined with what comes from animal foods, we shouldn’t such excess amounts of antioxidants. Besides, it’s not clear from studies that plant antioxidants are always beneficial to health. It would be better to eliminate the need for them in the first place. Shawn Baker explained this in terms of vitamin C (interview with Shan Hussain, The Carnivore Diet with Dr. Shawn Baker MD):
“The Carnivore diet is deficient in carbohydrates and essential vitamins like Vitamin C, how do we make up for that? When I wanted to do this I was curious about this as well. You will see a number of potential deficiencies around this diet. There is no role of fibre in this diet. With Vitamin C we know there are some transporters across different cell membranes. In a higher glucose environment, Vitamin C is competitively inhibited and therefore we see less absorption of Vitamin C. We also see that interestingly human red blood cells do have the capacity to actually recycle Vitamin C which is something that not many people are aware of. One of the major function of Vitamin C is that it is an antioxidant. In low carbohydrate states our antioxidants systems particularly things like glutathione are regulated. We may obviate some of the need of antioxidants of the Vitamin C by regulating around systems in a low carb diet. Also, Vitamin C is very important in the function of carnitine which is part of the fat cycle. When we are ingesting carnitine we have actual transporters in the gut which can take up full carnosine. It is a misconception that we can only take amino acids, a number of di and tripeptide transporters that are contained within our gut. The other function of Vitamin C is when we don’t have sufficient Vitamin C relative to our needs, we start to develop symptoms of scurvy, bleeding gum problems, teeth falling out, sores and cuts won’t heal. This is all due to the collagen synthesis. If we look at Vitamin C’s role in collagen synthesis, it helps to take proline and lysine, hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine. In meat-based diet, we are getting that in ample amount. Even a steak has 3% of its content as collagen. There are all kinds of compensatory mechanisms.”
I’ll end on an amusing note. Chris Kresser wrote about the carnivore diet (Everything You Need to Know about the Carnivore Diet and How It Can Affect Your Health). Athough an advocate of low-carb diets and nutrient-dense animal foods, he is skeptical that carnivory will be healthy for most humans long-term. One worry is that there might be nutritional deficiencies, but the argument he makes is funny. He basically saying that if all one eats is muscle meat then key nutrients will get missed. Then he goes onto point out that these nutrients can be found in other animal foods, such as liver and dairy. So, his main concern about a carnivore diet is actually that people might not eat enough animal foods or rather not enough of certain animal foods. So, make sure you eat lots of a wide variety of animal foods if going full carnivore and apparently even critics like Kresser agree you’ll be fine, at least nutritionally. The problem isn’t too much animal foods but potentially too little. That made me smile.
Now to the whole point of this post. Below is a list of nutrients that are commonly deficient in those on plant-based diets, especially those on plant-exclusive diets (i.e., vegans). I won’t explain anything about these nutrients, as there is plenty of info online. But you can look to the linked articles below that cover the details.
Vitamin K2
Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol)
Vitamin A (Retinol)
Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin)
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)
B3 (Niacin)
B2 (Riboflavin)
Calcium
Heme Iron
Zinc
Selenium
Iodine
Sulfur
DHA Omega-3 (Docosahexaenoic Acid)
EPA Omega-3 (Eicosapentaenoic Acid)
DPA Omega-3 (Docosapentaenoic Acid)
ARA Omega-6 (Arachidonic Acid)
SA Saturated Fat (Stearic Acid)
CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid)
Phytanic Acid
Phosphatidylserin, Phosphatidylcholine, and Other Phospholipids
[Please note in the comments any other essential or semi-essential nutrients not on the above list.]
“This list doesn’t even include things like peptides including BPC-157, Thymosin alpha-1, LEAP-2, spenlopentin, tuftsin, etc. which are known to occur naturally in animal foods and have beneficial effects in humans” (Paul Saladino). Other peptides, mainly found in animal foods, are not just important for optimal health but truly and entirely essential: aremethionine, threonine, tryptophan, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, valine, and phenylalanine.
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
by Lierre Keit
Vegan Betrayal: Love, Lies, and Hunger in a Plants-Only World
by Mara J. Kahn
The Meat Fix: How a lifetime of healthy eating nearly killed me!
by John Nicholson
The Fat of the Land/Not By Bread Alone
by Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Sacred Cow: The Case for (Better) Meat: Why Well-Raised Meat Is Good for You and Good for the Planet
by Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf
The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to Our Ancestral Diet
by Paul Saladino
Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond Paleo for Total Health and a Longer Life
by Nora Gedgauda
Paleo Principles
by Sarah Ballantyn
The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them
by Susan Allport
The Omega Principle: Seafood and the Quest for a Long Life and a Healthier Planet
by Paul Greenberg
The Omega-3 Effect: Everything You Need to Know About the Super Nutrient for Living Longer, Happier, and Healthier
by William Sears and James Sear
The Missing Wellness Factors: EPA and DHA: The Most Important Nutrients Since Vitamins?
by Jorn Dyerberg and Richard Passwater
Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses
by Sally M. Pacholok and Jeffrey J. Stuar
What You Need to Know About Pernicious Anaemia and Vitamin B12 Deficiency
by Martyn Hooper
Living with Pernicious Anaemia and Vitamin B12 Deficiency
by Martyn Hoope
Pernicious Anaemia: The Forgotten Disease: The causes and consequences of vitamin B12 deficiency
by Martyn Hooper
Healing With Iodine: Your Missing Link To Better Health
by Mark Sircus
Iodine: Thyroid: The Hidden Chemical at the Center of Your Health and Well-being
by Jennifer Co
The Iodine Crisis: What You Don’t Know About Iodine Can Wreck Your Life
by Lynne Farrow
L-Carnitine and the Heart
by Stephen T. Sinatra and Jan Sinatra
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health
by Marion Nestle
Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat
by Marion Nestle
Formerly Known As Food: How the Industrial Food System Is Changing Our Minds, Bodies, and Culture
by Kristin Lawless
Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health
by Denise Minge
Nutrition in Crisis: Flawed Studies, Misleading Advice, and the Real Science of Human Metabolism
by Richard David Feinman
Nutritionism: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice
by Gyorgy Scrinis
Measured Meals: Nutrition in America
by Jessica J. Mudry
(Although more about macronutrients, also see the work of Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz. They add useful historical context about nutrition studies, dietary advice, and public health.)
Americans, to state the obvious, are unhealthier with each passing generation. And the most obvious sign of this is rising obesity rate. In one analysis, this was shown to be true even when controlling for levels of food intake and exercise (see article below). This is the kind of data that undermines conventional dietary advice based on Christian moralizing about the deadly sins of gluttony and sloth.
Heart attacks and obesity first became a public health concern in the 1940s and 1950s. That was following decades of seed oil and margarine consumption having mostly replaced lard in the American diet. We were told that saturated fat is dangerous and that seed oils were great for health. Americans were listening and they strictly followed this advice. Even restaurants stopped cooking their french fries in tallow.
In particular, olive oil has been sold as the best. Why is olive oil supposed to be so healthy? Because it has monounsaturated fat, the same as is primarily found in lard. Not too long ago, the healthiest population in the United States was in Roseto, Pennyslvania. Guess what was their main source of fat? Lard. They also ate massive loads of meat, as do other long-lived populations in the world such as in Hong Kong.
Red meat also decreased over that period and has continued to increase since then. Dairy has followed this pattern of decline. Americans are eating less animal fats now than ever before in American history or probably human existence. It’s true that Americans are eating more lean chicken and fish, but we were told those are healthy for us. Meanwhile, Americans are eating more fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds than ever before.
Calories-in/calories-out has been an utter failure. It’s not how much we are eating but what we are eating. That then determines how our metabolism functions, whether it burns fat or stores it. Exercise is largely irrelevant for fat loss. Fat people can exercise all the time and not lose weight, while some skinny people hardly move at all. Another study “demonstrated that there is no difference in total energy expenditure between traditional hunter-gathers, subsistence farmers and modern Westerners.”
One explanation is an increase of obesogens. These are chemicals that cause the body to create fat. In general, fat is where the body stores excess toxins that overwhelm the body. And indeed younger Americans are exposed to more toxins. Then this makes losing weight hard because all the toxins get released and make one feel like shit. It’s hard for the body to eliminate a lifetime of accumulated toxicity. On top of that, the young are prescribed more medications than ever before. Antidepressants and antipsychotics have been given out like candy for anyone with mild mental issues. What is a common side effect of these drugs? Yep, weight gain.
A third possibility is more complex. We know the gut microbiome has shrunk in number and diversity. It’s also changed in the profile of bacteria. Research is showing how important is the microbiome (see The Secrete Life of Your Microbiome by Susan L. Prescott and Alan C. Logan). Toxins and drugs, by the way, also alter the microbiome. So does diet. Even if total calorie intake hasn’t changed much relative to the increased height of the population, what has changed is what we are eating.
In place of animal fats, we are eating not only more seed oils but also more carbs and sugar. Animal fats are highly satiating and so food companies realized they needed to find something equally satiating. It turns out a high-carb diet is not only satiating but addictive. It knocks people out of ketosis and causes them to put on weight. It doesn’t matter if one tries to eat less. In processed foods, when carbs are combined with seed oils, the body is forced to burn the carbs immediately and so it has no choice but to turn the seed oils into fat.
By the way, what alters metabolism also alters the microbiome. This is seen when people go from a high-carb diet to a ketogenic diet. Ketosis is powerful in its impact on how the body functions in so many ways, even changing epigenetic expression of genes. Here is the worst part. Those epigenetic changes have been happening for generations with the loss of regular ketosis. Even epigenetics for obesity, following an environmental trigger like famine, have been shown to pass on across multiple generations. The microbiome, of course, also is inherited and each of those bacteria likewise have an epigenome that determines their genetic expression.
Everything we do as individuals, good and bad, doesn’t only affect us as individuals. People are getting fatter now not only because of what they are doing differently but because of everything that was done by their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. As I’ve said before, even if we reversed all these changes instantly, as we are unlikely to do, it would still require generations to fully reverse the consequences.
A study published recently in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice found that it’s harder for adults today to maintain the same weight as those 20 to 30 years ago did, even at the same levels of food intake and exercise. […]
Just what those other changes might be, though, are still a matter of hypothesis. In an interview, Kuk proffered three different factors that might be making harder for adults today to stay thin.
First, people are exposed to more chemicals that might be weight-gain inducing. Pesticides, flame retardants, and the substances in food packaging might all be altering our hormonal processes and tweaking the way our bodies put on and maintain weight.
Second, the use of prescription drugs has risen dramatically since the 1970s and ’80s. Prozac, the first blockbuster SSRI, came out in 1988. Antidepressants are now one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S., and many of them have been linked to weight gain.
Finally, Kuk and the other study authors think that the microbiomes of Americans might have somehow changed between the 1980s and now. It’s well known that some types of gut bacteria make a person more prone to weight gain and obesity. Americans are eating more meat than they were a few decades ago, and many animal products are treated with hormones and antibiotics in order to promote growth. All that meat might be changing gut bacteria in ways that are subtle, at first, but add up over time. Kuk believes that the proliferation of artificial sweeteners could also be playing a role.
Notwithstanding the known errors of dietary assessment, it is interesting that we observe consistent trends over time in terms of how dietary intake relates with obesity and how this relationship has changed over time. This lends more confidence to our primary findings and suggests that there are either physiological changes in how diet relates with body weight or differences in how individuals are reporting their dietary intake over time. […]
[W]e observed that the BMI associated with a given leisure time physical activity frequency was still higher over time in men. This may be attributed to changes in non-leisure time physical activity such as reductions in occupational physical activity or increasing screen time. However, a study using doubly labelled water demonstrated that there is no difference in total energy expenditure between traditional hunter-gathers, subsistence farmers and modern Westerners. Thus, numerous other factors in addition to energy intake and physical activity may be important to consider when trying to explain the rise in obesity, and should be further evaluated in further studies.
Based on a study of 42 European countries, a recent scientific paper reported that, “the highest CVD [cardiovascular disease] prevalence can be found in countries with the highest carbohydrate consumption, whereas the lowest CVD prevalence is typical of countries with the highest intake of fat and protein.” And that, “The positive effect of low-carbohydrate diets on CVD risk factors (obesity, blood lipids, blood glucose, insulin, blood pressure) is already apparent in short-term clinical trials lasting 3–36 months (58) and low-carbohydrate diets also appear superior to low-fat diets in this regard (36, 37).” Basically, for heart health, this would suggest eating more full-fat dairy, eggs, meat, and fish while eating less starches, sugar, and alcohol. That is to say, follow a low-carb diet. It doesn’t mean eat any low-carb diet, though, for the focus is on animal foods.
By the way, when you dig into the actual history of the Blue Zones (healthy, long-lived populations), what you find is that their traditional diets included large portions of animal foods, including animal fat (Blue Zones Dietary Myth, Eat Beef and Bacon!, Ancient Greek View on Olive Oil as Part of the Healthy Mediterranean Diet). The longest-lived society in the entire world, in fact, is also the one with the highest meat consumption per capita, even more than Americans. What society is that? Hong Kong. In general, nutrition studies in Asia has long shown that those eating more meat have the best health outcomes. This contradicts earlier Western research, as we’re dealing with how the healthy user effect manifests differently according to culture. But even in the West, the research is ever more falling in line with the Eastern research, such as with the study I quoted above. And that study is far from being the only one (Are ‘vegetarians’ or ‘carnivores’ healthier?).
This would apply to both meat-eaters and vegetarians, as even vegetarians could put greater emphasis on nutrient-dense animal foods. It is specifically saturated fat and animal proteins that were most strongly associated with better health, both of which could be obtained from dairy and eggs. Vegans, on the other hand, would obviously be deficient in this area. But certain plant foods (tree nuts, olives, citrus fruits, low-glycemic vegetables, and wine, though not distilled beverages) also showed some benefit. Considering plant foods, those specifically associated with greater risk of heart disease, strokes, etc were those high in carbohydrates such as grains. Unsurprisingly, sunflower oil was a risk factor, probably related to seed oils being inflammatory and oxidative (not to mention mutagenic); but oddly onions were also likewise implicated, if only weakly. Other foods showed up in the data, but the above were the most interesting and important.
Such correlations, of course, can’t prove causation. But it fits the accumulating evidence: “These findings strikingly contradict the traditional ‘saturated fat hypothesis’, but in reality, they are compatible with the evidence accumulated from observational studies that points to both high glycaemic index and high glycaemic load (the amount of consumed carbohydrates × their glycaemic index) as important triggers of CVDs. The highest glycaemic indices (GI) out of all basic food sources can be found in potatoes and cereal products, which also have one of the highest food insulin indices (FII) that betray their ability to increase insulin levels.” All of that seems straightforward, according to the overall data from nutrition studies (see: Uffe Ravnskov, Richard Smith, Robert Lustig, Eric Westman, Ben Bikman, Gary Taubes, Nina Teicholz, etc). About saturated fat not being linked to CVD risk, Andrew Mente discusses a meta-analysis he worked on and another meta-analysis by another group of researchers, Siri-Tarino PW et al (New Evidence Reveals that Saturated Fat Does Not Increase the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease). Likewise, many experts no longer see cholesterol as a culprit either (Uffe Ravnskov et al, LDL-C does not cause cardiovascular disease: a comprehensive review of the current literature).
Yet one other odd association was discovered: “In fact, our ecological comparison of cancer incidence in 39 European countries (for 2012; (59)) can bring another important argument. Current rates of cancer incidence in Europe are namely the exact geographical opposite of CVDs (see Fig. 28). In sharp contrast to CVDs, cancer correlates with the consumption of animal food (particularly animal fat), alcohol, a high dietary protein quality, high cholesterol levels, high health expenditure, and above average height. These contrasting patterns mirror physiological mechanisms underlying physical growth and the development of cancer and CVDs (60). The best example of this health paradox is again that of French men, who have the lowest rates of CVD mortality in Europe, but the highest rates of cancer incidence. In other words, cancer and CVDs appear to express two extremes of a fundamental metabolic disbalance that is related to factors such as cholesterol and IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor).”
That is an argument people have made, but it’s largely been theoretical. In response, others have argued the opposite position (High vs Low Protein, Too Much Protein?, Gundry’s Plant Paradox and Saladino’s Carnivory, Carcinogenic Grains). It’s true that, for example, eating meat increases IGF-1, at least temporarily. Then again, eating in general does the same. And on a diet low enough in carbs, it’s been shown in studies that people naturally reduce their calorie intake, which would reduce IGF-1. And for really low-carb, the ketogenic diet is specifically defined as being low in animal protein while higher in fat. A low-carb diet is not necessarily a high-animal protein diet, especially when combined with intermittent fasting such as OMAD (one meal a day) with long periods of downregulated IGF-1. Also, this study didn’t appear to include plant proteins in the data, and so we don’t know if eating lots of soy, hemp protein powder, etc would show similar results; although nuts were mentioned in the report as being similar to meat in correlating to CVD health but, as far as I know, not mentioned in terms of cancer. What would make animal proteins more carcinogenic than plant proteins or, for that matter, plant carbohydrates? The hypothetical mechanism is not clear.
This anomaly would’ve been more interesting if the authors had surveyed the research literature. It’s hard to know what to make of it since other studies have pointed to the opposite conclusion, that the risks of these two are closely linked, rather than being inversely associated: “Epidemiologically, a healthy lifestyle lessens the risk of both cardiovascular disease and cancer, as first found in the Nurses’ Health study” (Lionel Opie, Cancer and cardiovascular disease; see Rob M. Van Dam, Combined impact of lifestyle factors on mortality). “Research has shown there are interrelationships among type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. These interrelationships may seem coincidental and based only on the fact these conditions share common risk factors. However, research suggests these diseases may relate to one another in multiple ways and that nutrition and lifestyle strategies used to prevent and manage these diseases overlap considerably” (Karen Collins, The Cancer, Diabetes, and Heart Disease Link).
Yet other researchers did find the same inverse relationship: “We herein report that, based on two separate medical records analysis, an inverse correlation between cancer and atherosclerosis” (Matthew Li et al, If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another). But there was an additional point: “We believe that the anti-inflammatory aspect of cancer’s pan-inflammatory response plays an important role towards atherosclerotic attenuation.” Interesting! In that case, one of the key causal mechanisms to be considered is inflammation. Some diets high in animal proteins would be inflammatory, such as the Standard American Diet, whereas others would be anti-inflammatory. Eliminating seed oils (e.g., sunflower oil) would by itself reduce inflammation. Reducing starches and sugar would help as well. So, is it the meat that increases cancer or is it what the meat is being cooked in or eaten with? That goes back to the healthy and unhealthy user effects.
As this confounding factor is central, we might want to consider the increasingly common view that inflammation is involved in nearly every major disease. “For example, inflammation causes or is a causal link in many health problems or otherwise seen as an indicator of health deterioration (arthritis, depression, schizophrenia, etc), but inflammation itself isn’t the fundamental cause since it is a protective response itself to something else (allergens, leaky gut, etc). Or as yet another example, there is the theory that cholesterol plaque in arteries doesn’t cause the problem but is a response to it, as the cholesterol is essentially forming a scab in seeking to heal injury. Pointing at cholesterol would be like making accusations about firefighters being present at fires” (Coping Mechanisms of Health).
What exacerbates or moderates inflammation will be pivotal to overall health (Essentialism On the Decline), especially the nexus of disease called metabolic syndrome/derangement or what used to be called syndrome X: insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, strokes, etc. In fact, other researchers point directly to inflammation as being a common factor of CVD and cancer: “Although commonly thought of as two separate disease entities, CVD and cancer possess various similarities and possible interactions, including a number of similar risk factors (e.g. obesity, diabetes), suggesting a shared biology for which there is emerging evidence. While chronic inflammation is an indispensible feature of the pathogenesis and progression of both CVD and cancer, additional mechanisms can be found at their intersection” (Ryan J. Koene et al, Shared Risk Factors in Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer). But it might depend on the specific conditions how inflammation manifests as disease — not only CVD or cancer but also arthritis, depression, Alzheimer’s, etc.
This is the major downfall of nutrition studies, as the experts in the field find themselves hopelessly mired in a replication crisis. There is too much contradictory research and, when much of the research has been repeated, it simply did not replicate. That is to say much of it is simply wrong or misinterpreted. And as few have attempted to replicate much of it, we aren’t entirely sure what is valid and what is not. That further problemetizes meta-analyses, despite how potentially powerful that tool can be when working with quality research. The study I’ve been discussing here was an ecological study and that has its limitations. The researchers couldn’t disentangle all the major confounding factors, much less control for them in the first place, as they were working with data across decades that came from separate countries. Even so, it’s interesting and useful info to consider. And keep in mind that almost all official dietary recommendations are based on observational (associative, correlative, epidemiological) studies with far fewer controls. This is the nature of the entire field of nutrition studies, as long-term randomized and controlled studies on humans are next to impossible to do.
So, as always, qualifications must be made. The study’s authors state that, “In items of smaller importance (e.g. distilled beverages, sunflower oil, onions), the results are less persuasive and their interpretation is not always easy and straightforward. Similar to observational studies, our ecological study reflects ‘real-world data’ and cannot always separate mutual interactions among the examined variables. Therefore, the reliance on bivariate correlations could lead to misleading conclusions. However, some of these findings can be used as a starting point of medical hypotheses, whose validity can be investigated in controlled clinical trials.” Nonetheless, “The reasonably high accuracy of the input data, combined with some extremely high correlations, together substantially increase the likelihood of true causal relationships, especially when the results concern principal components of food with high consumption rates, and when they can be supported by other sources.”
This data is meaningful in offering strong supporting evidence. The finding about animal foods and starchy foods is the main takeaway, however tentative the conclusion may be for real world application, at least in taking this evidence in isolation. But the inverse correlation of CVD risk and cancer risk stands out and probably indicates confounders across populations, and that would be fertile territory for other researchers to explore. The main importance to this study is less in the specifics and more in how it further challenges the broad paradigm that has dominated nutrition studies for the past half century or so. The most basic point is that the diet-heart hypothesis simply doesn’t make sense of the evidence and it never really did. When the hypothesis was first argued, heart disease was going up precisely at the moment saturated fat intake was going down, since seed oils had replaced lard as the main fat source in the decades prior. Interestingly, lard has been a common denominator among most long-lived populations, from the Okinawans to Rosetans (Ancient Greek View on Olive Oil as Part of the Healthy Mediterranean Die, Blue Zones Dietary Myth).
Cholesterol levels were tightly correlated to the consumption of animal fats and proteins – Countries consuming more fat and protein from animal sources had higher incidence of raised cholesterol
Raised cholesterol correlated negatively with CVD risk – Countries with higher levels of raised cholesterol had fewer cases of CVD deaths and a lower incidence of CVD risk factors
Carbohydrates correlated positively with CVD risk – the more carbohydrates consumed (and especially those with high GI such as starches) the more CVD
Fat and Protein correlated negatively with CVD risk – Countries consuming more fat and protein from animal and plant sources had less CVD. The authors speculate that this is because increasing fat and protein in the diet generally displaces carbohydrates.
We found exceptionally strong relationships between some of the examined factors, the highest being a correlation between raised cholesterol in men and the combined consumption of animal fat and animal protein (r=0.92, p<0.001). The most significant dietary correlate of low CVD risk was high total fat and animal protein consumption. Additional statistical analyses further highlighted citrus fruits, high-fat dairy (cheese) and tree nuts. Among other non-dietary factors, health expenditure showed by far the highest correlation coefficients. The major correlate of high CVD risk was the proportion of energy from carbohydrates and alcohol, or from potato and cereal carbohydrates. Similar patterns were observed between food consumption and CVD statistics from the period 1980–2000, which shows that these relationships are stable over time. However, we found striking discrepancies in men’s CVD statistics from 1980 and 1990, which can probably explain the origin of the ‘saturated fat hypothesis’ that influenced public health policies in the following decades.
Conclusion
Our results do not support the association between CVDs and saturated fat, which is still contained in official dietary guidelines. Instead, they agree with data accumulated from recent studies that link CVD risk with the high glycaemic index/load of carbohydrate-based diets. In the absence of any scientific evidence connecting saturated fat with CVDs, these findings show that current dietary recommendations regarding CVDs should be seriously reconsidered. […]
Irrespective of the possible limitations of the ecological study design, the undisputable finding of our paper is the fact that the highest CVD prevalence can be found in countries with the highest carbohydrate consumption, whereas the lowest CVD prevalence is typical of countries with the highest intake of fat and protein. The polarity between these geographical patterns is striking. At the same time, it is important to emphasise that we are dealing with the most essential components of the everyday diet.
Health expenditure – the main confounder in this study – is clearly related to CVD mortality, but its influence is not apparent in the case of raised blood pressure or blood glucose, which depend on the individual lifestyle. It is also difficult to imagine that health expenditure would be able to completely reverse the connection between nutrition and all the selected CVD indicators. Therefore, the strong ecological relationship between CVD prevalence and carbohydrate consumption is a serious challenge to the current concepts of the aetiology of CVD.
The positive effect of low-carbohydrate diets on CVD risk factors(obesity, blood lipids, blood glucose, insulin, blood pressure) is already apparent in short-term clinical trials lasting 3–36 months (58) and low-carbohydrate diets also appear superior to low-fat diets in this regard (36, 37). However, these findings are still not reflected by official dietary recommendations that continue to perpetuate the unproven connection between saturated fat and CVDs (25). Understandably, because of the chronic nature of CVDs, the evidence for the connection between carbohydrates and CVD events/mortality comes mainly from longitudinal observational studies and there is a lack of long-term clinical trials that would provide definitive proof of such a connection. Therefore, our data based on long-term statistics of food consumption can be important for the direction of future research.
In fact, our ecological comparison of cancer incidence in 39 European countries (for 2012; (59)) can bring another important argument. Current rates of cancer incidence in Europe are namely the exact geographical opposite of CVDs (see Fig. 28). In sharp contrast to CVDs, cancer correlates with the consumption of animal food (particularly animal fat), alcohol, a high dietary protein quality, high cholesterol levels, high health expenditure, and above average height. These contrasting patterns mirror physiological mechanisms underlying physical growth and the development of cancer and CVDs (60). The best example of this health paradox is again that of French men, who have the lowest rates of CVD mortality in Europe, but the highest rates of cancer incidence. In other words, cancer and CVDs appear to express two extremes of a fundamental metabolic disbalance that is related to factors such as cholesterol and IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor).
Besides total fat and protein consumption, the most likely preventive factors emerging in our study include fruits (particularly citrus fruits), wine, high-fat dairy products (especially cheese), sources of plant fat (tree nuts, olives), and potentially even vegetables and other low-glycaemic plant sources, provided that they substitute high-glycaemic foods. Many of these foodstuffs are the traditional components of the ‘Mediterranean diet’, which again strengthens the meaningfulness of our results. The factor analysis (Factor 3) also highlighted coffee, soybean oil and fish & seafood, but except for the fish & seafood, the rationale of this finding is less clear, because coffee is strongly associated with fruit consumption and soybean oil is used for various culinary purposes. Still, some support for the preventive role of coffee does exist (61) and hence, this observation should not be disregarded.
Similar to the “Mediterranean diet”, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, which is based mainly on fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy, also proved to be quite effective (62). However, our data indicate that the consumption of low-fat dairy may not be an optimal strategy. Considering the unreliability of observational studies highlighting low-fat dairy and the existence of strong bias regarding the intake of saturated fat, the health effect of various dairy products should be carefully tested in controlled clinical studies. In any case, our findings indicate that citrus fruits, high-fat dairy (such as cheese) and tree nuts (walnuts) constitute the most promising components of a prevention diet.
Among other potential triggers of CVDs, we should especially stress distilled beverages, which consistently correlate with CVD risk, in the absence of any relationship with health expenditure. The possible role of sunflower oil and onions is much less clear. Although sunflower oil consistently correlates with stroke mortality in the historical comparison and creates very productive regression models with some correlates of the actual CVD mortality, it is possible that both these food items mirror an environment that is deficient in some important factors correlating negatively with CVD risk.
A very important case is that of cereals because whole grain cereals are often propagated as CVD prevention. It is true that whole grain cereals are usually characterised by lower GI and FII values than refined cereals, and their benefits have been documented in numerous observational studies (63), but their consumption is also tied with a healthy lifestyle. All the available clinical trials have been of short duration and have produced inconsistent results indicating that the possible benefits are related to the substitution of refined cereals for whole grain cereals, and not because of whole grain cereals per se (64, 65). Our study cannot differentiate between refined and unrefined cereals, but both are highly concentrated sources of carbohydrates (~70–75% weight, ~80–90% energy) and cereals also make up ~50% of CA energy intake in general. To use an analogy with smoking, a switch from unfiltered to filtered cigarettes can reduce health risks, but this fact does not mean that filtered cigarettes should be propagated as part of a healthy lifestyle. In fact, even some unrefined cereals [such as the ‘whole-meal bread’ tested by Bao et al. (32)] have high glycaemic and insulin indices, and the values are often unpredictable. Therefore, in the light of the growing evidence pointing to the negative role of carbohydrates, and considering the lack of any association between saturated fat and CVDs, we are convinced that the current recommendations regarding diet and CVDs should be seriously reconsidered.
“Partial replacement of animal protein foods with plant protein foods led to marked decreases in the intake and status of vitamin B-12 and iodine.”
~Tiina Pellinen et al, Replacing dietary animal-source proteins with plant-source proteins changes dietary intake and status of vitamins and minerals in healthy adults: a 12-week randomized trial
Nutrition studies has been plagued with problems. Most of the research in the past was extremely low quality. Few other fields would allow such weak research to be published in peer-reviewed journals. Yet for generations, epidemiological (observational and correlational) studies were the norm for nutrition studies. This kind of research is fine for preliminary exploration in formulating new hypotheses to test, but it is entirely useless for proving or disproving any given hypothesis. Shockingly, almost all of medical advice and government recommendations on diet and nutrition are based on this superficial and misleading level of results.
The main problem is there has been little, if any, control of confounding factors. Also, the comparisons used were pathetically weak. It turns out that, in studies, almost any dietary protocol or change improves health compared to a standard American diet (SAD) or other varieties of standard industrialized diets based on processed foods of refined carbs (particularly wheat), added sugar (particularly high fructose corn syrup), omega-6 seed oils (inflammatory, oxidative, and mutagenic), food additives (from glutamate to propionate), and nutrient-deficient, chemical-drenched agricultural crops (glyphosate among the worst). Assuming the dog got decent food, even eating dog shit would be better for your health than SAD.
Stating that veganism or the Mediterranean diet is healthier than what most people eat (SAD: standard American diet) really tells us nothing at all. That is even more true when the healthy user effect is not controlled for, as typically is the case with most studies. When comparing people on these diets to typical meat eaters, the ‘carnivores’ also are eating tons of plant-based carbs, sugar, and seed oils with their meat (buns, french fries, pop, etc; and, for cooking and in sauces, seed oils; not to mention snacking all day on chips, crackers, cookies, and candy). The average meat-eater consumes far more non-animal foods than animal foods, and most processed junk food is made mostly or entirely with vegan ingredients. So why do the animal foods get all the blame? And why does saturated fat get blamed when, starting back in the 1930s, seed oils replaced animal fats as the main source of fatty acids?
If scientists in this field were genuinely curious, intellectually humble, not ideologically blinded, and unbiased by big food and big farm funding, they would make honest and fair comparisons to a wide variety of optimally-designed diets. Nutritionists have known about low-carb, keto, and carnivore diets for about a century. The desire to research these diets, however, has been slim to none. The first ever study of the carnivore diet, including fully meat-based, is happening right now. To give some credit, research has slowly been improving. I came across a 2013 study that compared four diets: “vegetarian, carnivorous diet rich in fruits and vegetables, carnivorous diet less rich in meat, and carnivorous diet rich in meat” (Nathalie T. Burkert et al, Nutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study).
It’s still kind of amusing that the researchers called carnivorous a “diet rich in fruits and vegetables” and a “diet less rich in meat.” If people are mostly eating plant foods or otherwise not eating much meat, how exactly is that carnivorous in any meaningful and practical sense? Only one in four of the diets were carnivorous in the sense the average person would understand it, as a diet largely based on animal foods. Even then, it doesn’t include a carnivorous diet entirely based on animal foods. Those carnivores eating a “diet rich in meat” might still be eating plenty of processed junk food, their meat might still be cooked or slathered in harmful seed oils and come with a bun, and they might still be washing it down with sugary drinks. A McDonald’s Big Mac meal could be considered as part of a diet rich in meat, just because meat represents the greatest portion of weight and calories. Even if their diet was only 5-10% unhealthy plant foods, it could still be doing severe damage to their health. One can fit in a fairly large amount of carbs, seed oils, etc in a relatively small portion of the diet.
I’m reminded of research that defines a “low-carb diet” as any carb intake that is 40% or below, but other studies show that 40% is the absolute highest point of carb intake for most hunter-gatherers (discussed here with links to references). As high and low are relative concepts in defining carb intake, what is considered a meat-rich diet would be relative as well. I doubt these studied carnivorous “diets rich in meat” are including as high amount of animal foods as found in the diets of Inuit, Masai, early Americans, and Paleolithic humans. So what is actually being compared and tested? It’s not clear. This was further confounded in how vegans, vegetarians, and pescetarians (fish-eaters) were combined into a single group mislabeled as ‘vegetarian’, considering that vegetarians and pescetarians technically could eat a diet primarily animal-based if they so chose (dairy, eggs, and/or fish) and I know plenty of vegetarians who eat more cheese than they do fruits and vegetables. Nonetheless, at least these researchers were making a better comparison than most studies. They did try to control for other confounders such as pairing each person on a plant-based diet with “a subject of the same sex, age, and SES [socioeconomic status]” from each of the other three diets.
What were the results? Vegetarians, compared to the most meat-based of the diets, had worse outcomes for numerous health conditions: asthma, allergies, diabetes, cataracts, tinnitus, cardiac infarction, bronchitis, sacrospinal complaints, osteoporosis, gastric or intestinal ulcer, cancer, migraine, mental illness (anxiety disorder or depression), and “other chronic conditions.” There were only a few health conditions where the plant-based dieters fared better. For example, the so-called ‘vegetarians’ had lower rates of hypertension compared to carnivores rich in meat and less rich in meat, although higher rates than those carnivores rich in fruits and vegetables (i.e., more typical omnivores).
This is interesting evidence about the diets, though. If the carnivorous diets were low enough in starchy and sugary plant foods and low enough in dairy, they would be ketogenic which in studies is known to lower blood pressure and so would show a lesser rate of hypertension. This indicates that none of these diets are low-carb, much less very low-carb (ketogenic). The plant-based dieters in this study also had lower rates of stroke and arthritis, these being other health benefits seen on a ketogenic diet, and so this further demonstrates that this study wasn’t comparing high-carb vs low-carb as one might expect from how the diets were described in the paper. That is to say the researchers didn’t include a category for a ketogenic carnivore diet or even a ketogenic omnivore diet, much less a ketogenic ‘vegetarian’ diet as a control. Keep in mind that keto-carnivore is one of the most common forms of those intentionally following a carnivore diet. And keep in mind that plant-based keto is probably more popular right now than keto-carnivore. So, the point is that these unexpected results are examples of the complications with confounding factors.
The only other result that showed an advantage to the ‘vegetarians’ was less urinary incontinence, which simply means they didn’t have to pee as often. I haven’t a clue what that might mean. If we were talking about low-carb and keto, I’d suspect that the increased urination for the ‘carnivorous’ diets was related to decreased water retention (i.e., bloating) and hence the water loss that happens as metabolism shifts toward fat-burning. But since we are confident that such a diet wasn’t included in the study, these results remain anomalous. Of all the things that meat gets blamed for, I’ve never heard of anyone suggesting that it causes most people to urinate incessantly. That is odd. Anyway, it’s not exactly a life-threatening condition, even if it were caused by carnivory. It might have something to do with higher-fat combined with higher-carb, in the way that this combination also contributes to obesity, whereas high-fat/low-carb and low-fat/high-carb does not predispose one to fat gain. The ‘vegetarianism’ in this study was being conflated with a low-fat diet, but all of the four categories apparently were varying degrees of higher carb.
The basic conclusion is that ‘vegetarians’, including vegans and pescetarians, have on average poorer health across the board, with a few possible exceptions. In particular, they suffer more from chronic diseases and report higher impairment from health disorders. Also, not only these ‘vegetarians’ but also meat-eaters who ate a largely plant-based diet (“rich in fruits and vegetables”) consult doctors more often, even as ‘vegetarians’ are inconsistent about preventative healthcare such as check-ups and vaccinations. Furthermore, “subjects with a lower animal fat intake demonstrate worse health care practices,” whatever that exactly means. Generally, ‘vegetarians’ “have a lower quality of life.”
These are interesting results since the researchers were controlling for such things as wealth and poverty, and so it wasn’t an issue of access to healthcare or the quality of one’s environment or level of education. The weakness is that no data was gathered on macronutrient ratios of the subjects’ diets, and no testing was done on micronutrient content in the food and potential deficiencies in the individuals. Based on these results, no conclusions can be made about causal direction and mechanisms, but it does agree with some other research that finds similar results, including with other health conditions such as vegans and vegetarians having greater infertility. Any single one of these results, especially something like infertility, points toward serious health concerns involving deeper systemic disease and disorder within the body.
But what really stands out is the high rate of mental illness among ‘vegetarians’ (about 10%), twice as high as the average meat-eater (about 5%) which is to say the average Westerner, and that is with the background of the Western world having experienced a drastic rise in mental illness over the past couple of centuries. And the only mental illnesses considered in this study were depression and anxiety. The percentage would be so much higher if including all other psychiatric conditions and neurocognitive disorders (personality disorders, psychosis, psychopathy, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, etc). Think about that, the large number of people on a plant-based diet who are struggling on the most basic level of functioning, something I personally understand from decades of chronic depression on the SAD diet. Would you willingly choose to go on a diet that guaranteed a high probability of causing mental health struggles and suffering, neurocognitive issues and decline?
To put this study in context, listen to what Dr. Paul Saladino, trained in psychiatry and internal medicine, has to say in the following video. Jump to around the 19 minute mark where he goes into the nutritional angle of a carnivore diet. And by carnivore he is talking about fully carnivore and so, if dairy is restricted as he does in his own eating, it would also mean ketogenic as well. A keto-carnivore diet has never been studied. Hopefully, that will change soon. Until then, we have brilliant minds like that of Dr. Saladino to dig into the best evidence that is presently available.
Here are a couple of articles that come from the BBC. As a mainstream news source, this demonstrates how this knowledge is finally getting acknowledged in conventional healthcare and public debate. That is heartening.
There’s also the concern that the health risks associated with these kinds of nutrient deficiencies might not show up immediately. It could take years to associate foggy thoughts and tiredness with low B12 levels, infertility with low iron, and osteoporosis brought on by calcium deficiency does not show up until late 40s and 50s in most people, says Rossi.
“People will think about their health now and not their future health,” she says.
In fact, there are several important brain nutrients that simply do not exist in plants or fungi. Creatine, carnosine, taurine, EPA and DHA omega-3 (the third kind can be found in plants), haem iron and vitamins B12 and D3 generally only occur naturally in foods derived from animal products, though they can be synthesised in the lab or extracted from non-animal sources such as algae, bacteria or lichen, and added to supplements.
Others are found in vegan foods, but only in meagre amounts; to get the minimum amount of vitamin B6 required each day (1.3 mg) from one of the richest plant sources, potatoes, you’d have to eat about five cups’ worth (equivalent to roughly 750g or 1.6lb). Delicious, but not particularly practical. […]
There are small amounts of choline in lots of vegan staples, but among the richest sources are eggs, beef and seafood. In fact, even with a normal diet, 90% of Americans don’t consume enough. According to unpublished research by Wallace, vegetarians have the lowest intakes of any demographic. “They have extremely low levels of choline, to the point where it might be concerning,” he says.
For vegans, the picture is likely to be bleaker still, since people who eat eggs tend to have almost double the choline levels of those who don’t. And though the US authorities have set suggested intakes, they might be way off.
Conclusion: Studies examining the relation between the consumption or avoidance of meat and psychological health varied substantially in methodologic rigor, validity of interpretation, and confidence in results. The majority of studies, and especially the higher quality studies, showed that those who avoided meat consumption had significantly higher rates or risk of depression, anxiety, and/or self-harm behaviors. There was mixed evidence for temporal relations, but study designs and a lack of rigor precluded inferences of causal relations. Our study does not support meat avoidance as a strategy to benefit psychological health.
“Today medical schools in the United States offer, on average, only about nineteen hours of nutrition education over four years of medical school. Only 29 percent of U.S. medical schools offer the recommended twenty-five hours of nutrition education. A study in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health assessed the basic nutrition and health knowledge of medical school graduates entering a pediatric residency program and found that, on average, they answered only 52 percent of eighteen questions correctly. In short, most mainstream doctors would fail nutrition.”
~Dr. Will Cole, Ketotarian (quoted here), 2018
“Burnout has become an increasing problem among physicians. A recent Medscape survey found high rates of burnout among medical practitioners, including 42% of psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Depression is also extremely common in physicians, who have a suicide rate higher than that of the general population, and even higher than that of other academics. There is also a high suicide rate in psychologists, with some studies suggesting that close to 30% have felt suicidal and nearly 4% have made a suicide attempt. One study of more than 1000 randomly sampled counseling psychologists found that 62% of respondents self-identified as depressed, and of those with depressive symptoms, 42% reported experiencing some form of suicidal ideation or behavior.”
~Batya Swift Yasgur, Challenging Stigma: Should Psychiatrists Disclose Their Own Mental Illness?, 2019
“Researchers Rubén Díaz and Carlos Rodríguez, explored the burnout prevalence of mental health professionals in Panama (where I live and work) and found that about 36 percent of its community has suffered from burnout syndrome at one point or another of their careers… While it’s not shocking to learn that mental health professionals also struggle with mental health issues—given that we’re human and all—it’s disconcerting to see research show that mental health care professional are hesitant to seek help. In the aforementioned study, about 43 percent of psychologists “struggle to see the presentation of mental illness and psychological distress within themselves,” and one in five psychologists withholds information about their emotional difficulties.”
~Mariana Plata, Therapists Need Therapy, Too, 2018
“Probably no single fact illustrates the frequency of this disease [neurasthenia] more impressively than this, that at all times while on duty, I have a number of physicians, who are themselves sufferers in this way, under my care. Many of these medical patients have been affiicted for years, without ever reaching the true diagnosis of the condition, and in not a few instances, the real debility and distress are heightened and intensified by fear of impending disablement. Overworked and overworried physicians are quite apt to develop this disease, and for reasons elsewhere stated… are also more likely to develop at the same time hypochondria or pathophobia. At least one of every ten of those who consult me for neurasthenia are physicians.”
~Dr. George Miller Beard, A Practical Treatise On Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia), 1884
“Perhaps he is best known for the establishment of his rest cure, a method of treatment for patients, especially women, who suffered from hysteria and neurasthenia. The cure became the standard treatment for many decades, particularly in England… On a visit to Paris, Mitchell sought out the great Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) for help without revealing his name. Where was he from? “Philadelphia?” Then said Charcot: “You should consult Weir Mitchell; he is the best man in America for your kind of trouble.””
~Whonamedit? Biographical Dictionary, Silas Weir Mitchell
“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.””
~Alan Moore, Watchmen, 1987
“There are to be found, among us, a few strong men and women — the remnant of a by-gone generation, much healthier than our own — who can eat at random, as the savages do, and yet last on, as here and there a savage does, to very advanced years. But these random-shot eaters are, at most, but exceptions to the general rule, which requires regularity.”
~William Andrus Alcott, 1859
Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal by Abigail Carroll, pp. 12-14
Encountering the tribal peoples of North America, European explorers and settlers found themselves forced to question an institution they had long taken for granted: the meal. “[They] have no such thing as set meals breakfast, dinner or supper,” remarked explorer John Smith. Instead of eating at three distinct times every day, natives ate when their stomachs cued them, and instead of consuming carefully apportioned servings, they gleaned a little from the pot here and there. English colonists deplored this unstructured approach. They believed in eating according to rules and patterns—standards that separated them from the animal world. But when it came to structure, colonists were hardly in a position to boast. Though they believed in ordered eating, their meals were rather rough around the edges, lacking the kind of organization and form that typifies the modern meal today. Hardly well defined or clean-cut, colonial eating occasions were messy in more ways than one. Perhaps this partially explains why explorers and colonists were so quick to criticize native eating habits—in doing so, they hid the inconsistencies in their own. 3
Colonists found Native American eating habits wanting because they judged them by the European standard. For Europeans, a meal combined contrasting components—usually cereals, vegetables, and animal protein. Heat offered an additional desirable contrast. Swedish traveler Peter Kalm noted that many “meals” consumed by the natives of the mid-Atlantic, where he traveled in the mid-eighteenth century, consisted simply of “[maple] sugar and bread.” With only two ingredients and a distinct lack of protein, not to mention heat, this simplistic combination fell short of European criteria; it was more of a snack. Other typical nonmeals included traveling foods such as nocake (pulverized parched cornmeal to which natives added water on the go) and pemmican (a dense concoction of lean meat, fat, and sometimes dried berries). Hunters, warriors, and migrants relied on these foods, designed to be eaten in that particularly un-meal-like way in which John Williams ate his frozen meat on his journey to Québec: as the stomach required it and on the go. 4
Jerked venison and fat, chewed as one traversed the wilderness, was not most colonists’ idea of a proper meal, and if natives’ lack of sufficient contrasting components and the absence of a formal eating schedule puzzled colonists, even more mystifying was natives’ habit of going without meals, and often without any food at all, for extended periods. Jesuit missionary Christian LeClercq portrayed the Micmac of the Gaspé Peninsula in Canada as a slothful people, preserving and storing only a token winter’s supply: “They are convinced that fifteen to twenty lumps of meat, or of fish dried or cured in the smoke, are more than enough to support them for the space of five to six months.” LeClercq and many others did not realize that if natives went hungry, they did so not from neglect but by choice. Fasting was a subsistence strategy, and Native Americans were proud of it. 5
Throughout the year, Native Americans prepared for times of dearth by honing their fasting skills. They practiced hunger as a kind of athletic exercise, conditioning their bodies for the hardships of hunting, war, and seasonal shortages. According to artist George Catlin, the Mandan males in what are now the Dakotas “studiously avoided . . . every kind of excess.” An anthropologist among the Iroquois observed that they were “not great eaters” and “seldom gorged themselves.” To discourage gluttony, they even threatened their children with a visit from Sago’dakwus, a mythical monster that would humiliate them if it caught them in the act of overeating. 6
Native and European approaches to eating came to a head in the vice of gluttony. Many tribal peoples condemned overeating as a spiritual offense and a practice sure to weaken manly resolve and corrupt good character. Europeans also condemned it, largely for religious reasons, but more fundamentally because it represented a loss of control over the animal instincts. In the European worldview, overindulgence was precisely the opposite of civility, and the institution of the meal guarded against gluttony and a slippery descent into savagery. The meal gave order to and set boundaries around the act of eating, boundaries that Europeans felt native practices lacked. As explorers and colonists defended the tradition of the meal, the institution took on new meaning. For them, it became a subject of pride, serving as an emblem of civilization and a badge of European identity. 7
Europeans viewed Native Americans largely as gluttons. Because whites caught only fleeting glimpses of the complex and continually shifting lives of Native Americans, they were liable to portray the native way of life according to a single cultural snapshot, which, when it came to food, was the posthunt feast. It was well known that natives ate much and frequently during times of abundance. John Smith recorded that when natives returned from the hunt with large quantities of bear, venison, and oil, they would “make way with their provision as quick as possible.” For a short time, he explained, “they have plenty and do not spare eating.” White witnesses popularized the image of just such moments of plenty as typical. 8
Although Native Americans were hardly gluttons, Europeans, fascinated by the idea of a primitive people with a childlike lack of restraint, embraced the grossly inaccurate stereotype of the overeating Indian. William Wood portrayed the natives of southern New England as gorging themselves “till their bellies stand forth, ready to split with fullness.” A decidedly strange Anglo-American amusement involved watching Native Americans relish a meal. “Why,” asked George Catlin, “[is it] that hundreds of white folks will flock and crowd round a table to see an Indian eat?” With a hint of disappointment, William Wood recorded the appetites of tribes people invited to an English house to dine as “very moderate.” Wood was uncertain whether to interpret this reserve as politeness or timidity, but clearly he and his fellow English spectators had not expected shy and tempered eaters. 9
One culture’s perception of another often says more about the perceiver than the perceived. Although settlers lambasted natives for gluttony, whites may have been the real gluttons. According to more than one observer, many a native blushed at Europeans’ bottomless stomachs. “The large appetites of white men who visited them were often a matter of surprise to the Indians who entertained them,” wrote a nineteenth-century folklorist among the Iroquois. Early anthropologist Lewis Morgan concluded that natives required only about one-fifth of what white men consumed, and he was skeptical of his own ability to survive on such a paucity of provisions. 10
Through their criticisms, exaggerations, and stereotypes, colonists distanced themselves from a population whose ways appeared savage and unenlightened, and the organized meal provided a touchstone in this clash of cultures. It became a yardstick by which Europeans measured culture and a weapon by which they defended their definition of it. They had long known what a meal was, but now, by contrast, they knew firsthand what it was not. Encountering the perceived meal-less-ness of the natives brought the colonists’ esteemed tradition into question and gave them an opportunity to confirm their commitment to their conventions. They refused to approve of, let alone adapt to, the loose foodways of Native Americans and instead embraced all the more heartily a structured, meal-centered European approach to eating.
Since earlier last year, I’ve done extensive reading, largely but not entirely focused on health. This has particularly concerned diet and nutrition, although it has crossed over into the territory of mental health with neurocognitive issues, addiction, autism, and much else, with my personal concern being that of depression. The point of this post is to consider some of the historical background. Before I get to that, let me explain how my recent interests have developed.
What got me heading in this direction was the documentary The Magic Pill. It’s about the paleo diet. The practical advice was worth the time spent, though other things drew me into the the larger arena of low-carb debate. The thing about the paleo diet is that it offers a framework of understanding that includes many scientific fields involving health beyond only diet and also it explores historical records, anthropological research, and archaeological evidence. The paleo diet community in particular, along with the low-carb diet community in general, is also influenced by the traditional foods approach of Sally Fallon Morrell. She is the lady who, more than anyone else, popularized the work of Weston A. Price, an early 20th century dentist who traveled the world and studied traditional populations. I was already familiar with this area from having reading Morrell’s first book in the late ’90s or early aughts.
New to me was the writings of Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz, two science journalists who have helped to shift the paradigm in nutritional studies. They accomplished this task by presenting not only detailed surveys of the research and other evidence but in further contextualizing the history of powerful figures, institutions, and organizations that shaped the modern industrial diet. I didn’t realize how far back this debate went with writings on fasting for epilepsy found in ancient texts and recommendations of a low-carb diet (apparently ketogenic) for diabetes appearing in the 1790s, along with various low-carb and animal-based diets being popularized for weight-loss and general health during the 19th century, and then the ketogenic diet was studied for epilepsy beginning in the 1920s. Yet few know this history.
Ancel Keys was one of those powerful figures who, in suppressing his critics and silencing debate, effectively advocated for the standard American diet of high-carbs, grains, fruits, vegetables, and industrial seed oils. In The Magic Pill, more recent context is given in following the South African trial of Tim Noakes. Other documentaries have covered this kind of material, often with interviews with Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz. There has been immense drama involved and, in the past, there was also much public disagreement and discussion. Only now is that returning to mainstream awareness in the corporate media, largely because social media has forced it out into the open. But what interests me is how old is the debate and often in the past much more lively.
The post-revolutionary era created a sense of crisis that, by the mid-19th century, was becoming a moral panic. The culture wars were taking shape. The difference back then was that there was much more of a sense of the connection between physical health, mental health, moral health, and societal health. As a broad understanding, health was seen as key and this was informed by the developing scientific consciousness and free speech movement. The hunger for knowledge was hard to suppress, although there were many attempts as the century went on. I tried to give a sense of this period in two massive posts, The Crisis of Identity and The Agricultural Mind. It’s hard to imagine what that must’ve been like. That scientific debate and public debate was largely shut down around the World War era, as the oppressive Cold War era took over. Why?
It is strange. The work of Taubes and Teicholz gives hint to what changed, although the original debate was much wider than diet and nutrition. The info I’ve found about the past has largely come from scholarship in other fields, such as historical and literary studies. Those older lines of thought are mostly treated as historical curiosities at this point, background info for the analysis of entirely other subjects. As for the majority of scientists, doctors and nutritionists these days, they are almost entirely ignorant of the ideologies that shaped modern thought about disease and health.
This is seen, as I point out, in how Galen’s ancient Greek theory of humors as incorporated into Medieval Christianity appears to be the direct source of the basic arguments for a plant-based diet, specifically in terms of the scapegoating of red meat, saturated fat and cholesterol. Among what I’ve come across, the one scholarly book that covers this in detail is Food and Faith in Christian Culture edited by Ken Albala and Trudy Eden. Bringing that into present times, Belinda Fettke dug up how so much of contemporary nutritional studies and dietary advice was built on the foundation of 19th-20th century vegan advocacy by the Seventh Day Adventists. I’ve never met anyone adhering to “plant-based” ideology who knows this history. Yet now it is becoming common knowledge in the low-carb world.
On the literary end of things, there is a fascinating work by Bryan Kozlowski, The Jane Austen Diet. I enjoyed reading it, in spite of never having cracked open a book by Jane Austen. Kozlowski, although no scholar, was able to dredge up much of interest about those post-revolutionary decades in British society. For one, he shows how obesity was becoming noticeable all the way back then and many were aware of the benefits of low-carb diets. He also makes clear that the ability to maintain a vegetable garden was a sign of immense wealth, not a means for putting much food on the tables of the poor — this is corroborated by Teicholz discussion of how gardening in American society, prior to modern technology and chemicals, was difficult and not dependable. More importantly, Kozlowski’s book explains what ‘sensibility’ meant back then, related to ‘nerves’ and ‘vapors’ and later on given the more scientific-sounding label of ‘neurasthenia’.
I came across another literary example of historical exegesis about health and diet, Sander L. Gilman’s Franz Kafka, the Jewish Patient. Kafka was an interesting case, as a lifelong hypochondriac who, it turns out, had good reason to be. He felt that he had inherited a weak constitution and blamed this on his psychological troubles, but more likely causes were urbanization, industrialization, and a vegetarian diet that probably also was a high-carb diet based on nutrient-depleted processed foods; and before the time when industrial foods were fortified and many nutritional supplements were available.
What was most educational, though, about the text was Gilman’s historical details on tuberculosis in European thought, specifically in relationship to Jews. To some extent, Kafka had internalized racial ideology and that is unsurprising. Eugenics was in the air and racial ideology penetrated everything, especially health in terms of racial hygiene. Even for those who weren’t eugenicists, all debate of that era was marked by the expected biases and limitations. Some theorizing was better than others and for certain not all of it was racist, but the entire debate maybe was tainted by the events that would follow. With the defeat of the Nazis, eugenics fell out of favor for obvious reasons and an entire era of debate was silenced, even many of the arguments that were opposed to or separate from eugenics. Then historical amnesia set in, as many people wanted to forget the past and instead focus on the future. That was unfortunate. The past doesn’t simply disappear but continues to haunt us.
That earlier debate was a struggle between explanations and narratives. With modernity fully taking hold, people wanted to understand what was happening to humanity and where it was heading. It was a time of contrasts which made the consequences of modernity quite stark. There were plenty of communities that were still pre-industrial, rural, and traditional, but since then most of these communities have died away. The diseases of civilization, at this point, have become increasingly normalized as living memory of anything else has disappeared. It’s not that the desire for ideological explanations has disappeared. What happened was, with the Ally victory of World War II and the ensuing propaganda of the Cold War, a particular grand narrative came to dominate the entire Western world and there simply were no other grand narratives to compete with it. Much of the pre-war debate and even scientific knowledge, especially in Europe, was forgotten as the records of it were destroyed, weren’t translated, or lost perceived relevance.
Nonetheless, all of those old ideological conflicts were left unresolved. The concerns then are still concerns now. So many problems worried about back then are getting worse. The connections between various aspects of health have regained their old sense of urgency. The public is once again challenging authorities, questioning received truths, and seeking new meaning. The debate never ended and here we are again, and one could add that fascism also is back rearing its ugly head. It’s worrisome that the political left seems to be slow on the uptake. There are reactionary right-wingers like Jordan Peterson who are offering visions of meaning and also who have become significant figures in the dietary world, by way of the carnivore diet he and his daughter are on. Then there are the conspiratorial paleo-libertarians such as Tristan Haggard, another carnivore advocate.
This is far from being limited to carnivory and the low-carb community includes those across the political spectrum, but it seems to be the right-wingers who are speaking the loudest. The left-wingers who are speaking out on diet come from the confluence of veganism/vegetarianism and environmentalism, as seen with EAT-Lancet (Dietary Dictocrats of EAT-Lancet). The problem with this, besides much of this narrative being false (Carnivore is Vegan), is that it is disconnected from the past. If with immense distortion, the right-wing is speaking more to the past than is the left-wing, such as Trump’s ability to invoke and combine the Populist and Progressive rhetoric from earlier last century. The political left is struggling to keep up and is being led down ideological dead-ends.
If we want to understand our situation now, we better study carefully what was happening in centuries past. We keep having the same old debates without realizing it and we very well might see them lead to the same kinds of unhappy results with authoritarianism and totalitarianism, maybe even once again eugenics, genocide, and world war or some similar horrors of mass atrocities and crimes against humanity. One would like to believe, though, that such is not an inevitable fate. There doesn’t appear to be anything stopping us from choosing otherwise. We always could seek to have different debates or, at the very least, to put past debates into new context based on emerging scientific knowledge and understandings.
Marmalade 
You must be logged in to post a comment.