The "Food Babe" Blogger Is Full of Crap
Replies
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I'm bored at work today, therefore intensively researching this Food Babe. I'm a big fan of this quote from her website (regarding the PSL):But first, I want to mention that I get riled up when restaurants refuse to disclose their ingredients, because we have the right to know what we are eating and drinking.
I.... is someone holding a gun to your head forcing you to drink the latte?0 -
Well, maybe you (and other educated people) should sometimes speak up, even if it seems fruitless at the time. Because I, for example, was once one of those people who thought "cleanses" were beneficial, because I had read it somewhere (I never tried one though).crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LoL, I feel the same way CJG. I've only been on the board for a few weeks and initially I was nervous I would find nothing but woo (especially reading thread titles - Isagenex, Cleanse of the Week, Juicing/Fasting) but thankfully I have been very pleasantly surprised for the most part.
I have been fighting, FIGHTING I say to not respond to each and every "cleanse" post with "THATS WHAT YOUR LIVER AND KIDNEYS ARE FOR!!!!!"
I know better by now of course, but there are many (too many) out there who are still fooled by the pseudo science. And like they say, "Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence".
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awesomewastaken wrote: »
Well, maybe you (and other educated people) should sometimes speak up, even if it seems fruitless at the time. Because I, for example, was once one of those people who thought "cleanses" were beneficial, because I had read it somewhere (I never tried one though).crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LoL, I feel the same way CJG. I've only been on the board for a few weeks and initially I was nervous I would find nothing but woo (especially reading thread titles - Isagenex, Cleanse of the Week, Juicing/Fasting) but thankfully I have been very pleasantly surprised for the most part.
I have been fighting, FIGHTING I say to not respond to each and every "cleanse" post with "THATS WHAT YOUR LIVER AND KIDNEYS ARE FOR!!!!!"
I know better by now of course, but there are many (too many) out there who are still fooled by the pseudo science. And like they say, "Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence".
I'm one of those who will speak up. There are tons of people who try to impart some science, advice, and information regarding how useless and unnecessary cleanses and detoxes are.
Unfortunately, many people coming to the forums, asking for advice on cleanses don't REALLY want the advice. They want to be told that whatever they want to do is golden, will result in mass amounts of weight loss, rainbows will fly out of their *kitten*, cancer will be cured, they will be able to eat whatever they want and not gain a pound, angels will sing, and the mean people of MFP will go jump off a bridge. (ETA: And that all of their toxinz will be magically removed from their bodies.)0 -
Just have to say... this thread is a breath of fresh air on the internet. It gives me so much hope that not everyone that cares about health is being duped by this stuff! lol0
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LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
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Its so funny how I don't care lol.-2
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awesomewastaken wrote: »
Well, maybe you (and other educated people) should sometimes speak up, even if it seems fruitless at the time. Because I, for example, was once one of those people who thought "cleanses" were beneficial, because I had read it somewhere (I never tried one though).crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LoL, I feel the same way CJG. I've only been on the board for a few weeks and initially I was nervous I would find nothing but woo (especially reading thread titles - Isagenex, Cleanse of the Week, Juicing/Fasting) but thankfully I have been very pleasantly surprised for the most part.
I have been fighting, FIGHTING I say to not respond to each and every "cleanse" post with "THATS WHAT YOUR LIVER AND KIDNEYS ARE FOR!!!!!"
I know better by now of course, but there are many (too many) out there who are still fooled by the pseudo science. And like they say, "Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence".
Thanks, it is good to hear that!
My issue with challenging cleanses has little to do with the people, it has to do with me. I cannot respond to every unscientific argument I see, it just wears me down. Despite all the silliness and joking on here it really does hurt to be called a shill, or a poisoner, or have your facts rejected because you're an expert. I went into science so I could make medicine, lots of people translate that to "you want to keep people sick for your own profit" and that just plain hurts.
I only put myself out there for attack when the subject includes the mistreatment or misteaching of children, so anti science in education and antivax nutters. I let the grown ups fend for themselves.
And on that note, HUZZAH! For your scientific literacy! As NDT says, being literate in science gives you a BS detector!0 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.0 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection. Many things like repetition, fear, and other strong emotions produce illusions of truth or untruth. The result is that there is no relationship between how convincing something is and how true it is. But we're also hard-wired to completely trust in the infallibility of our own truth-detecting abilities, maybe because second-guessing one's judgment all the time would result in poor survival skills. So using evidence-based reasoning requires real humility to understand just how wrong our instincts are, as well as the intelligence to actually implement it.
And unfortunately, most people do not possess both of these, so it's always going to be difficult to impossible for many people to figure out what is or isn't true. There are always going to be people whose only choice is to believe whatever someone else told them, whether it's because the message sounds convincing or because the messenger is charismatic, or whatever.
Science can allow some of us to make progress and drag the rest along for the ride, but it cannot prevent stupid people from believing stupid things.
tldr; derpers gonna derp.
I
this post so much.
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herrspoons wrote: »
I was thinking the same thing... obviously cared enough to post again...0 -
herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
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mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.
Oh, I've lost it and dropped an F-bomb.
That woke them up.
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mamapeach910 wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.
Oh, I've lost it and dropped an F-bomb.
That woke them up.
BTDT
(in fact, I just did on another thread, where some genius informed me that it's the THEORY of Evolution, not the FACT.)0 -
Yep. Because if it were simply a matter of ignoring truths that were easy to see, we wouldn't have taken so long to figure out even the most basic things, the concept of "science" would not exist at all and would seem entirely bizarre and alien to us, and all the discoveries/laws/inventions provided by science in the last few centuries would just be "common sense" instead.crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
And we still suck at it with other things that we believe are "common sense." Like probabilities, our sense of "how likely something is" becomes massively skewed by all kinds of experiences or emotions.
And look at a list of logical fallacies. They are some of reasoning's equivalents of optical illusions. Such a list would not exist if things that were false (or not necessarily true) didn't tend to seem true, and vice versa.0 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
Yep. Because if it were simply a matter of ignoring truths that were easy to see, we wouldn't have taken so long to figure out even the most basic things, the concept of "science" would not exist at all and would seem entirely bizarre and alien to us, and all the discoveries/laws/inventions provided by science in the last few centuries would just be "common sense" instead.crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
And we still suck at it with other things that we believe are "common sense." Like probabilities, our sense of "how likely something is" becomes massively skewed by all kinds of experiences or emotions.
And look at a list of logical fallacies. They are some of reasoning's equivalents of optical illusions. Such a list would not exist if things that were false (or not necessarily true) didn't tend to seem true, and vice versa.
I generally argue that "obvious" things are anything but. Probabilities, well we are evolved to find patterns, even if there isn't one.
But I do agree with you that those that avoid/reject science are generally willfully ignorant.0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.
Oh, I've lost it and dropped an F-bomb.
That woke them up.
BTDT
(in fact, I just did on another thread, where some genius informed me that it's the THEORY of Evolution, not the FACT.)
My sister is a fundamentalist Baptist.
I know the pain you felt.
I need to find this thread now.
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mamapeach910 wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.
Oh, I've lost it and dropped an F-bomb.
That woke them up.
BTDT
(in fact, I just did on another thread, where some genius informed me that it's the THEORY of Evolution, not the FACT.)
My sister is a fundamentalist Baptist.
I know the pain you felt.
I need to find this thread now.
It's the CICO in schools one. And, thankfully, responses were fairly unanimous.0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.
Oh, I've lost it and dropped an F-bomb.
That woke them up.
BTDT
(in fact, I just did on another thread, where some genius informed me that it's the THEORY of Evolution, not the FACT.)
Don't even bother. It's practically certain that this person has said it before (probably on multiple occasions) and been corrected on the meaning of "theory" as used in the scientific context, and will continue to toss out the "just a theory" every single time. (And the same goes for the huge list of nonsense that takes 5 seconds to post and gets people to spend hours debunking it. It's like a form of trolling.)0 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »
Careful. You don't want to say that they're a complete and utter f**kwit, who should wear a muzzle and boxing gloves to stop the stupid leaking out, for example.
That kind of stuff can get you warned.
That would be a good start to what I'd like to say.
I could rant. For pages. Laced with profanity.
I have a potty mouth. Bad. In my head. We don't curse around the kids.
STOP FLAUNTING YOUR SUPERIOR PARENTING.
Love, Potty mouth.
Oh, I've lost it and dropped an F-bomb.
That woke them up.
BTDT
(in fact, I just did on another thread, where some genius informed me that it's the THEORY of Evolution, not the FACT.)
Don't even bother. It's practically certain that this person has said it before (probably on multiple occasions) and been corrected on the meaning of "theory" as used in the scientific context, and will continue to toss out the "just a theory" every single time. (And the same goes for the huge list of nonsense that takes 5 seconds to post and gets people to spend hours debunking it. It's like a form of trolling.)
I know, but what is MFP for, if not shouting into the wind?0 -
I wonder how much of that is from the phenomenon that causes Dunning-Kruger. Are smart people underestimating how smart they are and overestimating the gap between them and the people they believe are choosing to be ignorant?crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
Yep. Because if it were simply a matter of ignoring truths that were easy to see, we wouldn't have taken so long to figure out even the most basic things, the concept of "science" would not exist at all and would seem entirely bizarre and alien to us, and all the discoveries/laws/inventions provided by science in the last few centuries would just be "common sense" instead.crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
And we still suck at it with other things that we believe are "common sense." Like probabilities, our sense of "how likely something is" becomes massively skewed by all kinds of experiences or emotions.
And look at a list of logical fallacies. They are some of reasoning's equivalents of optical illusions. Such a list would not exist if things that were false (or not necessarily true) didn't tend to seem true, and vice versa.
I generally argue that "obvious" things are anything but. Probabilities, well we are evolved to find patterns, even if there isn't one.
But I do agree with you that those that avoid/reject science are generally willfully ignorant.1 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
Yep. Because if it were simply a matter of ignoring truths that were easy to see, we wouldn't have taken so long to figure out even the most basic things, the concept of "science" would not exist at all and would seem entirely bizarre and alien to us, and all the discoveries/laws/inventions provided by science in the last few centuries would just be "common sense" instead.crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
And we still suck at it with other things that we believe are "common sense." Like probabilities, our sense of "how likely something is" becomes massively skewed by all kinds of experiences or emotions.
And look at a list of logical fallacies. They are some of reasoning's equivalents of optical illusions. Such a list would not exist if things that were false (or not necessarily true) didn't tend to seem true, and vice versa.
I generally argue that "obvious" things are anything but. Probabilities, well we are evolved to find patterns, even if there isn't one.
But I do agree with you that those that avoid/reject science are generally willfully ignorant.
I wonder how much of that is from the phenomenon that causes Dunning-Kruger. Are smart people underestimating how smart they are and overestimating the gap between them and the people they believe are choosing to be ignorant?
I good deal I'd say. There's a reason why teenagers know everything and the elderly know nothing!
That said, ignorant =\= stupid. I'm ignorant on lots of things, some willfully so (I have little interest in the history of European wars) but I don't think I'm stupid. Why? Two things.
1. I don't base my life/health off of European war history
2. When a discussion about European war history arises, and a comment I make is corrected by someone who studies the subject I don't claim that he is biased and shut his argument down. If I'm interested I read up, if not I concede and let it go. I certainly don't lobby history museums and schools to teach my personal ideas as the truth!
All that said, I don't think there is a difference in intelligence between pro & anti science folks, I just don't think anti science folks want to use their intelligence.0 -
Good article: http://www.elle.com/culture/a27692/food-babe-problem/0
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crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
Quantum mechanics isn't a "truth", it's a logical outcome of our limited perspective.
Electrons don't do math to figure out where to go next....0 -
crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
Quantum mechanics isn't a "truth", it's a logical outcome of our limited perspective.
Electrons don't do math to figure out where to go next....
Bahhh everyone is agreeing but disagreeing, yes, I'm not a phycisist !0 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection. Many things like repetition, fear, and other strong emotions produce illusions of truth or untruth. The result is that there is no relationship between how convincing something is and how true it is. But we're also hard-wired to completely trust in the infallibility of our own truth-detecting abilities, maybe because second-guessing one's judgment all the time would result in poor survival skills. So using evidence-based reasoning requires real humility to understand just how wrong our instincts are, as well as the intelligence to actually implement it.
And unfortunately, most people do not possess both of these, so it's always going to be difficult to impossible for many people to figure out what is or isn't true. There are always going to be people whose only choice is to believe whatever someone else told them, whether it's because the message sounds convincing or because the messenger is charismatic, or whatever.
Science can allow some of us to make progress and drag the rest along for the ride, but it cannot prevent stupid people from believing stupid things.
tldr; derpers gonna derp.
I agree with most of this. Also, I would add that people have a desire for their ideas to be novel. They want to feel superior because "they know the real truth" and all those "sheep" are so inferior for not seeing it. It's ironic because they also have a desire to be part of an "awaken" group who all have the same "novel" ideas.0 -
This is unfortunately very true not just on these forums but pretty much anywhere in the health world. I love the internet but I also hate it because of how quickly misinformation spreads. I teach community hypertension classes and you would be amazed what people bring to class...Food Babe has been brought up more than once. But although she's an obvious idiot, there are plenty of other "health bloggers" out there who sound very convincing with the utter crap they write, and the average person (esp since most of the people I work with are senior citizens and really don't navigate Google too well) are not good at critically looking at that kind of stuff. If someone sounds convincing enough, it must be true, right? They list sources so they must be legit (but don't actually go look at the sources), right? etc.SconnieCat wrote: »Unfortunately, many people coming to the forums, asking for advice on cleanses don't REALLY want the advice.
But I say all that because you quickly learn that people don't really want to hear they're wrong. They want to hear this supplement they just spent $50 will do what the label promises it will. They want to hear that if they just eat THIS and never eat THAT they won't ever get cancer. They want to hear that if they follow THIS PERFECT DIET everything will be okay - because speaking in absolutes is reassuring for some people. They want "the answer" when unfortunately very few things in life have "the" answer to anything. There is no magical pill or cleanse or detox or whatever.
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I love this entire thread. I'm so glad to realize that MFP has a pretty awesome community of critical thinkers. I was actually expecting a lot of "bro science" and organic pushing, but have been pleasantly surprised to not see that much- and when it does pop up, you all straighten it out pretty quickly.0
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I don't understand what you're trying to say, but I suspect it's a semantic argument.crazyjerseygirl wrote: »LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »Unfortunately humans suck at truth detection.
I don't agree with this. IMO it's more accurate to say humans excel at ignoring the truth when it's not what they want to hear.
I think what was meant that our senses were not evolved to figure out quantum mechanics, evolution, etc. we need the tool of the scientific method to find those truths.
Quantum mechanics isn't a "truth", it's a logical outcome of our limited perspective.
Electrons don't do math to figure out where to go next....
We use the same parts of our brains, and thus all the same defective/illusion-generating pathways, to determine all of those things.
And if you're really going to argue about electrons, it actually isn't possible to say whether or not they do math. If our entire known universe is an OOP computer program nested inside a larger universe, for example, it may very well be the case that electrons do math to figure out where to go next.0
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