About goddam time. Finally people are starting to make sense. Two pieces in the NYTimes were back to back on the “most emailed” list when I checked yesterday morning. The first, and most important, was Aaron Carroll’s piece on how to eat sensibly: Red Meat Is Not the Enemy. The entire reported essay can be summed up by a large study cited with this rather obvious conclusion: “Everything we eat is associated with both higher and lower rates of cancer.”
Ha! Take that, all you nutritional gurus.
I need to write that again: Everything we eat is associated with both higher and lower rates of cancer.
The author is a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. He blogs on health research and policy.
His advice? Find a diet that works for you. And I hope it’s clear that the word "diet" does not refer to a weight-loss strategy. It refers to what, and the way, we eat. Be sensible. Treat your food like food, not medicine. Yes, some people really do need to lose weight. But if you start out eating sensibly, or I would even go so far as to say joyfully, you’ll never need to go on a weight reduction plan.
The other story, Fish Oil Pill Claims Not Supported by Research, is not really news (I wrote about it more than two years ago in a post called Snake Oil Pills), but it bears repeating because it shows exactly how idiotic we are. We spend a billion dollars on pills that have been proven to do exactly nothing.
Ha!
Makes me think of Jim Gaffigan (two Frenchmen in dialogue): Zee Americans, zay are so stupid we could even sell zem water.
Zay aren’t THAT stupid.
Oh, yeeeeessss zay arrrrre.… We’ll tell them it’s from France.
Can we please listen to the poet and writer Charles Simic, also quoted in the Times yesterday in a review of two new books of his, The Life of Images (essays) and The Lunatic (poems):
“Sadness and good food are incompatible.… A paella, a choucroute garnie, a pot of tripes à la mode de Caen, and so many other dishes of peasant origin guarantee merriment. The best talk is around that table. Poetry and wisdom are its company. The true muses are cooks.”
That last line is going on a three-by-five note card above my desk.
The man knows food (not to mention its mirror subject, sex). I'm going to reread these voluptuous food poems to get out of this cranky mood I'm in.
This guy knows what's going on.
Other links you may like:
- Other recent rants: Cook Your Own Food: Eat What You Want, Is the Government Right This Time?, Food Fascism.
- The ever-popular post on America: Too Stupid to Cook .
- Books you should check out: The Third Plate, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Real Food: What to Eat and Why.
- Learn more about food and technology through Food, Tech Connect.
© 2015 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2015 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.
joelfinkle
You may also like The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz (no ties to author or publisher) http://thebigfatsurprise.com/
Refutes low-fat diet research pretty extensively.
Amy
Fantastic book! I reviewed it a few months ago. This low-fat nonsense has *got* to go. 🙂
http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2014/12/book-review-big-fat-surprise.html
Xani
Thanks for the links to those lovely poems!
Barbara Christensen
Amen, Brother, amen!
Michael Trippe
"Sadness and good food are incompatible.… A paella, a choucroute garnie, a pot of tripes à la mode de Caen, and so many other dishes of peasant origin guarantee merriment. The best talk is around that table. Poetry and wisdom are its company. The true muses are cooks"
Amen !!! One of my biggest reasons for cooking is the end result... That communal gathering at the table is a satisfying and unrivaled experience...
Thank you for sharing.
Tags
There is too much money at stake for those making money from cheap food to let attacks on the status quo go unchallenged. Remember the tobacco companies?
What we need is a study on how food (and fasting) affects health, not by food or pharmaceutical vendors but by those who have a stake in finding out the truth. Let the insurance companies fund this research and we can then ignore the conflicting counterclaims of the vested interests.
David Somerville
Spot on, Mr Ruhlman!
But let me point out the cruelty of starting the article with such an amazing picture of your flat iron steak and then not sharing the recipe 🙂
Allen
I read a similar NY times article just before the above mentioned article, that stated high protein diets are bad, especially if it's from meat. It seems they like to contradict themselves on a weekly basis.
A nice substitute for the Friday cocktail - Jim Gaffigan.
Or Lewis Black trying to find the nipple on a soy bean.
"It's soy juice, not milk goddamit! Where's the fucking nipple?"
Rich
"Crazy About Her Shrimp" is probably the most erotic poem I've ever read
Saratoga Curmudgeon
Anybody interested in the whole issue of faux nutritional supplements should Google the NY Attorney General taking on the issue. Basically said that most of the stuff we get doesn't even have in it what the manufacturers say is in it.
Charlotte
I'd add Tamar Adler's "The Everlasting Meal" to the list of basic food books -- I've given it to a number of younger 30-somethings I know who have come to me wanting to learn to cook intuitively. And then I press Laurie Colwin and MFK Fisher on them eventually ...
Dairy Maid
The Dalai Lama said something along these lines:
"Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon."
WEIGHT LOSS
http://www.discountproduct.co.uk/weight_loss/
shamit khemka
appreciate for the efforts