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Pasta Is Good For You, Say Scientists Funded By Big Pasta (buzzfeed.com)
Earlier this month, numerous news outlets reported on a study which concludes that eating pasta is good for health. In fact, the reports claimed, eating pasta could help you lose weight. Except, there is more to the story. BuzzFeed News reports: What those and many other stories failed to note, however, was that three of the scientists behind the study in question had financial conflicts as tangled as a bowl of spaghetti, including ties to the world's largest pasta company, the Barilla Group. Over the last decade or so, with the rise of the Atkins, South Beach, paleo, and ketogenic diets, Big Pasta has battled a societal shift against carbohydrates -- and funded and promoted research suggesting that noodles are good for you.
At least 10 peer-reviewed studies about pasta published since 2008 were either funded directly by Barilla or, like the one published this month, were carried out by scientists who have had financial ties to the company, which reported sales of 3.4 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in 2016. For two years, Barilla has publicized some of these studies, plus others favorable to its product, on its website with taglines like "Eat Smart Be Smart...With Pasta" and "More Evidence Pasta Is Good For You." And the company hired the large public relations firm Edelman to push the latest study's findings to journalists.
At least 10 peer-reviewed studies about pasta published since 2008 were either funded directly by Barilla or, like the one published this month, were carried out by scientists who have had financial ties to the company, which reported sales of 3.4 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in 2016. For two years, Barilla has publicized some of these studies, plus others favorable to its product, on its website with taglines like "Eat Smart Be Smart...With Pasta" and "More Evidence Pasta Is Good For You." And the company hired the large public relations firm Edelman to push the latest study's findings to journalists.
On the one hand, we should be skeptical of "research" funded by folks with a stake in the outcome. On the other, who else would do it? Would a study funded by an Atkins advocacy group that didn't find benefits to a low-carb diet ever see the light of day? No, it would quietly be shredded, burned, and buried. Like our adversarial court system, you need people who think that we've gotten it wrong to pony up to get the other viewpoint looked at. The real test is, are the results reproducible?
The human brain is not a completely fool.
We eat pasta because pasta is good for you, over almost all environments, over all of human history. It's only recently that humanity has stumbled into a 24/7 horn-of-plenty cheesecake buffet that flummoxes our dietary instincts. Note that this is only a marginal effect: pasta is good for you, until it isn't.
Most of chubby America these days lives on the far side of the marginal fence on the consumption of all three macronutrient groups.
In this marginal world, just about any calorie you push off your plate is good for you. Refined fructose and badly processed oils are surely the most effective calories to push off your plate. Foods rich in water-soluble vegetable fibers are probably the last calories you want to push off your plate.
Almost everything in between can be justified one way or the other within an overall pattern of judgement and moderation.
I suspect that eliminating refined sugar, bad oils (e.g. trans fats), industrial preserves (all those cookies and cakes and biscuits and chips in the middle of the grocery store), and substantially boosting nutrient- and fibre-rich vegetables (lettuce, broccoli, spinach, squash) would account for half of the total health improvement from dietary change presently available to most of the healthy-ish chubsters in American right now (regardless of caloric restriction).
This is why every fad diet studied always produces a net positive effect (because every fad diet does at least one of the things above, and usually any effort to stay on a programmatic diet makes people more aware of their snacking on the margins, so you usually get a mild caloric restriction along for the ride, even if the diet itself doesn't stipulate this).
That brings you to the knee of the curve, and then the narcissism porn sets in: how will I look in my bikini during spring break, how will I shave 0.5% off my personal-best marathon time in the next Boston marathon?
And now we're into a self-imposed regime of fascist adherence for marginal gains prominent in the second or third decimal point.
I'm not knocking elite levels of personal fitness, but there is a substantial opportunity cost involved.
The same guy busy posting about where he buys his organic carrots online for his organic smoothie is probably the same guy who didn't get around to updating his anti-ransomware antivirus filter (oh how that Vitamix whiles away the hours). He's probably the same guy who could have helped his teenage son get a decent grade in his grade seven math class, but was too busy running another preparatory 10 k.
Dietary tweaks don't make any mortal soul so godlike that this kind of peripheral neglect can be easily forgiven (immortality in this context is bequeathed by magazine-cover glossy shots).
All I've done here is explained the 80-20 law.
The problem here is that diet lives next door to the sexual-selection fitness function (on the exotic, aspirational tail), and boy oh boy is our general acceptance of 80-20 governing dynamics rapidly concealed in a basement closet if it casts the least doubt on our sexual preening reflex.
Considering various groups pushing intersectionality have been pushing this hard for the last few years? Sounds about right, so far we've got "feminist math" "black science" demands to "decolonize various STEM fields" and so on. Just remember the rabbit hole isn't what you're looking into, it's already here.
Om, nomnomnom...