Thursday, March 15, 2018

Mop up the floor...or turn off the faucet?

The title of this blog is a metaphor used by many, and it's a good one....I'll get back to it.

We are in the midst of an unfortunate regressive political backlash situation that has emerged against all we've learned from the range of nutrition/health science over the past few decades, which is just emerging as a coherent "whole" quite recently as a result of the seminal work by T Colin Campbell, and published (Jan 2005) for all to see in the China Study, the book that got the ball rolling in a big way...and still rolling, and huge backlash continuing.

(See the book "Proteinaholic" by reformed bariatric surgeon Garth Davis for a comprehensive survey of the science.)

And of course the health/nutrition debate is hugely important, with potential to affect constructive continuation of human life on the planet in ecologic, cultural, and individual terms.

In case it's not crystal clear, on one side of the health/nutrition debate you have:

the longevity diet -or- the disease reversal diet -or- the species specific diet for humans -or- the high carb low fat diet -or- the whole food plant based diet

all terms pointing basically to the same diet.

On the other side you have the reactionary backlash movement:

the paleo diet -or- the high fat low carb with (varying) consumption of animal products diet -or- the functional medicine diet

again, all terms pointing basically to the same diet.

The latter group continues by virtue of a distorted view of the science on insulin resistance, basically, mixed with a good sized dollop of denial.

And then of course you have everyone else who are not aware there is a debate raging on health and nutrition with clear "battle lines" drawn.

These are the majority still confused by all the (profit motivated) conflicting information who as a result throw up their hands and eat whatever tastes good (the "Pleasure Trap" health disaster).

These are the consumers of the standard western diet, the diet that creates massive profits for growers/producers/purveyors of toxic "food-like" substances.

Which then creates the massive profits going to the health care/medical/drug/insurance industries that mop up the mess created by mass consumption of those toxic substances.

Back to the metaphor - if someone had accidently left a water faucet on and the sink was overflowing all over the floor would you get busy mopping up the floor, or simply turn off the faucet?

Functional medicine turns the flow of water down considerably, but does not turn it off, and the sink continues overflowing onto the floor, giving the cleaning service hired to keep up with continuing overflow an opportunity to "keep their job".

This is the least disruptive choice in terms of the elephant in the room (The Economy), and will almost certainly be government's choice due to the "GDP problem".

A better choice for our personal health remains available to us! I recommend a "real" study of the literature (Proteinaholic an excellent place to begin), followed by a transition diet.




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