Educate and Lose

Caitwn wrote: »

sheermomentum wrote: »

The FDA works for the public. In fact, the regulate the heck out of those organizations that they regulate. However, its the USDA that is mostly concerned with the security of the food supply in the U.S., not the FDA. And its the CDC and the NIH that compile most of the medical statistics, such as those for childhood obesity.

I looked up the author of the book that you mention, Dee McCaffrey. She has an undergraduate degree in environmental chemistry. Her "formal training" in nutrition is from an unaccredited, for-profit school of "Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts" called Bauman College. She also owns a company that sells "processed-free" food products (their word), of the sort that her book recommends. So I'm not inclined to put much stock in her scientific opinion because, as you yourself pointed out originally, those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

Quoting this AGAIN because it's a perfect example of how to do a few things that we don't see enough on these boards:

Misinformation/misunderstood information about the FDA, USDA, and CDC is corrected without negativity.
The source of information from the recommended book is checked.
A very reasonable basis for questioning or rejecting the information is provided.

If more people engaged in this very basic level of considering where diet recommendations come from, fewer people would get caught up in hype, diet scams, overly-restrictive fad diets, and just plain confusion.

The author of this book has a compelling personal story, and those are often moving and inspiring. However, an undergraduate degree in Environmental Chemistry and working as an organic chemist give her the same qualifications to discuss diet and nutrition as most of the rest of us - meaning she has a perfect right to express her opinions, but those opinions don't hold any more weight than yours or mine.

She also seems to still have a very disordered relationship with food - she shifted from unhealthy eating patterns and using food as a crutch to deciding that (for example) sugar is "deranged" and evil.

I can't take her any more seriously than I take anyone else who's a bit of a fanatic about their own "conversion" experience.

You have to be very careful when someone combines extreme personal beliefs and exaggerated claims about their scientific background, and combines those to make definitive recommendations about what's "best".

It's always fun to discuss, debate, and even disagree about others' opinions (in settings where that's allowed and encouraged). But it's not so great to try to pass them off as definitive conclusions, as the author of this book has done.