The Gospel of Food
I'm sitting for my allotted 45 minutes in the storm-darkened shadow of my small room, reading the latest Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Volumes 1190 and 1191 have just arrived in the mail. It is Volume 1190, Foods for Health in the 21st Century: A Roadmap for the Future, that has my attention now.
One of the papers is by de Vere White, Hackman and Kugelmass. It's about the belief that about 33% of all cancers can be prevented with a healthy lifestyle and appropriate diet. And it points out that there is largely no specific evidence, despite many claims, that a particular food will help with a particular cancer. Worse is the tendency to extract what is seen as the key chemical compound and consume pills of it — a reductionist practice that can actually lead to bad outcomes.
Here is what we do know: don't be overweight, don't be sedentary, eat a low-calorie diet with especially low amounts of fats and sugars. Here is what else we know: human genetic backgrounds are hugely varied, a healthy diet costs 10x more than an unhealthy one, humans like pills because they're less troublesome than lifestyle changes.
We also know that dietary supplements are mostly untested, that the studies testing them are poor, based mainly on correlation rather than mechanism of causation. We know that what is good in a raw fruit can turn deadly when concentrated in a pill minus the fruit's other contents. Lastly, we know that what reduces the risk of one cancer can raise the risk of another.
So what should we do?
The Good Book says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ... Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?"
That is very good advice, and looking better each day.
One of the papers is by de Vere White, Hackman and Kugelmass. It's about the belief that about 33% of all cancers can be prevented with a healthy lifestyle and appropriate diet. And it points out that there is largely no specific evidence, despite many claims, that a particular food will help with a particular cancer. Worse is the tendency to extract what is seen as the key chemical compound and consume pills of it — a reductionist practice that can actually lead to bad outcomes.
Here is what we do know: don't be overweight, don't be sedentary, eat a low-calorie diet with especially low amounts of fats and sugars. Here is what else we know: human genetic backgrounds are hugely varied, a healthy diet costs 10x more than an unhealthy one, humans like pills because they're less troublesome than lifestyle changes.
We also know that dietary supplements are mostly untested, that the studies testing them are poor, based mainly on correlation rather than mechanism of causation. We know that what is good in a raw fruit can turn deadly when concentrated in a pill minus the fruit's other contents. Lastly, we know that what reduces the risk of one cancer can raise the risk of another.
So what should we do?
The Good Book says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ... Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?"
That is very good advice, and looking better each day.
etched with acid at 8:13:00 am
1 Comments:
1The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
Friend used this as an argument against vegetarians. Haha.
/Sorrows
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