Slashdot Mirror
US Gov't To Withdraw Food Warnings About Dietary Cholesterol
An anonymous reader writes: The Washington Post reports on news from the U.S.'s top nutrition advisory panel, which plans to stop warning consumers about the amount of dietary cholesterol in foods. The government has been issuing these warnings for over 40 years, and they reaffirmed that decision as recently as five years ago. "[T]he finding, which may offer a measure of relief to breakfast diners who prefer eggs, follows an evolution of thinking among many nutritionists who now believe that for a healthy adult cholesterol intake may not significantly impact the level of cholesterol in the blood or increase the risk of heart disease. The greater danger, according to this line of thought, lies in foods heavy with trans fats and saturated fats. ... But the change on dietary cholesterol also shows how the complexity of nutrition science and the lack of definitive research can contribute to confusion for Americans who, while seeking guidance on what to eat, often find themselves afloat in conflicting advice."
Most adults, worldwide, are lactose intolerant. http://skeptics.stackexchange....
Given the above, it's kind of amazing that Nutrition Facts still have no words about lactose content. Why?
Wouldn't it be nice to know how much lactose each food has?
You know, if you had done just a little critical thinking, and perhaps a touch of research yourself then you would know that blaming fat for fatness was pure stupidity, mainly pushed by promoters of diets and 'healthy foods' (usually high in carbs instead).
How fat was metabolized, and what was used to produce body fat, have been well known for a long time.
So, who do you plan to sue? the media for jumping on a profitable bandwagon? people themselves for believing everything they are told?
Hell, next you are going to tell me you still believe fruit juice is a 'healthy alternative'
Or that energy/sports drinks are somehow good for normal people (not only active atheletes)
Perhaps you also believe that sugar alternatives are a perfectly safe alternative?
Or that calorie intake doesnt matter if you 'balance' it by exercising it back off?
Maybe that breakfast is somehow 'the most important meal of the day'?
OR that small snacks continuously are better than larger means somehow?
Hell, perhaps you even buy pesticide free foods, while having one of these horrors in your house: http://www.raidautomatic.com.au/index.html
Or hammer down a handful of supplements every day, when the tiny trace amounts you actually need are present in all your food?
You could even be crazy enough to think Vitamin C somehow kills viruses!
Its usually not too hard to see through the bs, rhetoric, and marketing and work out whats obvious BS..
And if you thought there was much settled 'science' behind government and market food recommendations, then sorry, you are beyond hope.
Its called MARKETING, and its not science.
Science has well and truly made available everything you need to know about fat, quite some time ago.
Warning: Nutritionists, Doctors and Scientists don't know jack shit about what constitutes a healthy diet and anything anyone says about calories, fat, protein, carbohydrates, cholesterol in your diet is pure bullshit
I can't tell if you're trying to be funny, or if you are actually as stupendously ignorant about science as you're post portrays you to be.... it's very hard to tell in writing. I generally try to give people the benefit of doubt, but i get the vibe you're not trying to be funny.
Science is based on observation and experimentation. What that means is, the more exacting observations we make, and the more fine tuned our experimentation, the more precise our knowledge becomes... that's pretty basic, 4th-6th grade level science. If you want something that once said never, ever changes, regardless of new information, then stick to religion.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I would suggest that, once again, things mentioned as "government fraud" are actually that great free market taking advantage of a situation. The "government" doesn't market products as gluten-free, low-fat, or reduced fat, nor do they go around throwing extra water and various thickeners into foods.... private companies do. So while the government puts forth guidelines to help people based on the CURRENT best nutritional science, it's PRIVATE COMPANIES who do everything you're blaming the government for.
Tell you what though, that big nasty corrupt government also has guidelines for the limits of pesticides, arsenic, and all sorts of toxic substances found in your drinking water too. If you want to really impress on me how much you think our government is always wrong, please be my guest to start drinking water with massive amounts of those things in it, and get back to us in a month of two.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
One can't help, but wonder, what other famously "settled" science will come apart?
Don't blame the science - this is about taking science's name in vain and claiming something is proven when science has always been very up front about the limitations in what, for want of a better word, is called current knowledge. This is what always happens; people don't understand how science works or how scientists think and communicate. When the scientist says 'To the best of current knowledge, eating eggs is probably bad for you, although we really haven't researched that enough' it translates into 'Science says egg is bad for you'.
I would have hoped we, as engineers, or at least as individuals interested in science, would have a clearer understanding of this - it lies at the very heart of science. Unlike religion, science is not about absolute truth - it is all about improving accuracy by means of the scientific method. If you want certainty, go to your church/synagogue/mosque/temple/... - if you want something that is likely to work, go to science.
Really? You don't believe in acid rain damage? So who's been f*ing up statues? Is it evil environmentalists? Are they also the ones rigging the pH meters? Did they fake the science about how SO2 oxidizes to SO3 and then hygroscropically forms H2SO4 droplets? Damn them!
What about ozone don't you believe? That humans were extensively emitting CFCs? That CFCs have been measured in the stratosphere via sounding rockets, balloons, and aircraft? That CFCs at the levels measured demonstrably catalytically destroy ozone, and that it's a rather simple lab experiment to prove it? That ozone was on a demonstrably measurable decline and UV demonstrably measured on the rise? That the decline has significantly tapered off and even started to reverse a little since there was a crackdown on CFCs? Or, contrarily, do you accept all that but think that UV is harmless to humans?
Peak oil and peak food are not sciences. They're common in the popular press, in books, etc (and nowadays on blogs and forums), but have received rather limited review in scientific journals. Don't get me wrong, there have been some, but compared to other fields rather little, and the results have been mixed to say the least.
"That girl is a witch!" "Yeah, but she's our witch. So cut her the hell down!"
I would suggest that, once again, things mentioned as "government fraud" are actually that great free market taking advantage of a situation.
Its not the free market which forced this specific food labeling. Are you following along at all?
The title of this story isnt "Free Market To Withdraw Warnings About Dietary Cholesterol"
"His name was James Damore."
Science isn't just about what you know. It's about what you suspect and finding ways to prove OR disprove your suspicions. And a lot of things out there are not so simply linked as CFCs and ozone destruction.
As a classic example, I usually point out smoking and lung cancer, since everyone's familiar with it. Lots of people smoke and live to be 98. Some smoke and die of lung cancer. I've known both. The main thing is that the people I've known who died of lung cancer were almost exclusively smokers, but the centennarians and near-centennarians are mostly non-smokers. Because smoking is a contributor to, but not sole cause of, nor guaranteed cause of lung cancer.
The other common case where the science is not clear-cut is climate change. It isn't that the jury is still out. Like smoking, there will never be a "verdict point" where everyone agrees, but the movement of scientific opinion has continued to trend towards man-made acceleration.
Even in cases where there are distinctly provable connections, it can take time - and false starts - to get them straight. For ages people thought that stomach ulcers were basically caused by nervous stress and that milk would ameliorate them. It took a certain amount of shouting and argument before science determined that they were caused not by nervous stress, but by bacteria. and that milk was anything but effective. AND, mind you, this wasn't something that came about in Lister's day when people were discovering bacterial illnesses right and left, but in very recent times.
The difference between science and religion is that science can admit to mistakes and change, but most religions consider themselves to be based on eternal and immutable truths. If you think that human-spawned CO2 is wreaking havoc, but observations don't hold up, that's religion. If you think that and the observations do hold up, that's science - at least until some other better model can be found. Then it, too becomes religion.
Religion says that if you have just a tiny smidgen of faith, you can order a mountain to leap into the sea and it will do so, although if that's true, people have faith that makes mustard seeds look like galactic clusters. Science says that the mountain has more than enough faith to stay right where it is, regardless of what you believe. But that high explosives have more faith than either you OR the mountain.
I can't tell if you're trying to be funny, or if you are actually as stupendously ignorant about science as you're post portrays you to be.... it's very hard to tell in writing. I generally try to give people the benefit of doubt, but i get the vibe you're not trying to be funny.
Science is based on observation and experimentation. What that means is, the more exacting observations we make, and the more fine tuned our experimentation, the more precise our knowledge becomes... that's pretty basic, 4th-6th grade level science. If you want something that once said never, ever changes, regardless of new information, then stick to religion.
This is not science, is public health policy. One is supposed to be based in the other, but it is now always like that.
Huh, wait, you're telling me that people are fat and their cholesterol is high because they are fat and lazy and not because they eat lot's of it.......
We actually caused damage to people's health and made the fat epidemic worse by getting people to pursue diets that were more in line with farm subsidies than things that are healthy............
Well fuck, now how are we supposed to be able to tell people what to do and how to live??!!
Refined sugar is bad! Bad bad bad bad BAD!!!!!!
They usually can, but have learned that explaining it to their patients makes their eyes glaze over and they don't get even a tiny fraction of what they have told them. So they resort to the "good cholesterol, bad cholesterol" sock puppet play so people at least understand what they should do.
It's a bit like we explain computer stuff to non-techy people. We don't always use the technically correct terms, but we've simply learned that if we do, they not only don't understand at all but they also can't even figure out what the heck we want them to do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.