I’m halfway through the six-week meat diet. I feel better than ever. It appears that I will be able to go the entire six weeks. My cravings are psychological and emotional and easily overcome.
I want to assure everyone that I have some built-in checks to safeguard my health. People see me everyday. My Dr. sees me weekly. I have a physically demanding job and I would give the diet up immediately if I were not able to function. I listen to my body.
My only concern was internal. That is why I asked Dr. Solverson what would change for the worse on an all-meat diet and how long it would take. He told me six weeks and went on record with his predictions. He in no way condones or promotes this diet.
I want to thank Dr. Solverson for monitoring my condition. I want to thank my friends and family for putting up with this odd experiment. I want to thank Jessica and all the people at CrossFit Portland for your encouragement. I also want to thank my detractors for contributing a dissenting view.
I sought out Beyond dinner’s viewpoint and she graciously offered her view. Foodbubbles condemned the meat diet and gave a voice to “conventional nutritional wisdom.” Each of these bloggers has a well-written food blog. This makes their lack of curiosity very curious indeed.
What can you say to someone who “knows” something so assuredly; she fails to observe what is happening now? This attitude reminds me of a story. Ancient Greek philosophers were engaged in a lengthy debate about how many teeth a horse has. A servant boy interrupted their debate to tell them there was a horse right outside and the horse’s teeth could easily be counted. The philosophers had the impudent servant thrown into prison.
This attitude is what makes it so difficult to change conventional wisdom.
Do you drive a car that is newers than a Model-T? Were you and your children vaccinated? I’m sure the answer to both questions is yes. Surely, you herald these advances as scientific achievement and progress? You’ll concede that the car you drive today is faster and more efficient at harnessing the energy from gasoline. And, you and your children are not suffering from polio, measles, etc. There are myriad other examples of the scientific progress and consequent betterment of our lives…
But, yet you reject the advances in nutritional knowledge as “conventional wisdom”? How is that the scientific method can be applied to the benefit of man in so many ways, but scientists remain daft when it comes to what/how we eat? Please, help me to understand how this paradox exists.
Thank you Foodbubbles. You bring up a great point. Why does the scientific method falter when it comes to public health/nutrition?
Simple. The scientific method is truncated, circumvented, or never even used, in the “interest of public health.”
People’s lives are at stake, so the experts draw on conventional wisdom to profess recommendations. The recommendations are never adequately tested and become entrenched as dogma.
Results that are contradictory to the accepted message or would be confusing to the public are oftentimes not refuted, but simply ignored.
The other reason is that people are inherently difficult to apply the scientific method to. We cannot control all the variables like we can in a lab. Long-term studies are costly and always confounded with other lifestyle choices. I’ve always felt observational studies don’t do the scientific method justice. Correlation is often confused with cause/effect.
Gary Taubes goes over all this and more in the most enlightening nutrition book I’ve read, “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” He states in the book that he didn’t know what he would find and I have a sense that he is telling the truth. He is just as astounded about what he discovered as anyone.
I hope you will check this book out and we can continue our discussion. I read the links you recommended and now I’m paranoid about halitosis.