Speaker: Talking past each other: Ideological silos and research
345 Responses
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Cheers for that Bart.. very interesting. I’ve found that starting the day with a bowl of oatmeal and yoghurt seems to be very beneficial for my overall digestive wellbeing (sorry, TMI).
Same. I made a conscious effort to improve my breakfast diet a couple of years ago, and it's muesli, yoghurt and two or three kinds of whatever fruit's cheap most mornings. It really helped a lot. One also becomes attuned to the price of kiwifruit.
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Rebecca Gray, in reply to
You know I'd say that "experimenting with your diet to see what makes you feel better" is one instance in which it's perfectly valid to make calls based on a n=1 sample. You are the number one expert on how certain things make you feel. And of course it's helpful to have some advice from people who know the broader area (help you make informed choices) but ultimately nobody can tell how things affect you better than you can. And nobody knows your priorities and comfort zones better than you do.
If I can tentatively relate this discussion back to where things got to earlier... this is partly why discussions gets fraught when diet is involved, because even the best-intentioned "experts" sometimes don't realise that they're conveying an offensive message about "if only YOU PEOPLE would make better choices". The realities of how and why we relate to our environments and eat certain things at certain times are more complex than that.
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I heard a nutritionist on 9-noone speaking of hunter-gatherers eating 4-500 different foods over a year and now we are at around 40-60 foods. Of course it's easier to hunt / gather at packnsave.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
...because even the best-intentioned "experts" sometimes don't realise that they're conveying an offensive message about "if only YOU PEOPLE would make better choices". The realities of how and why we relate to our environments and eat certain things at certain times are more complex than that.
IMHE food can be up there with politics and religion as things we humans will flip into combat mode over.
Card-carrying scientist Dr Mike Joy posted this big-picture dietary link on his Facebook page yesterday. Would those who readily despair over the dietary intransigence of lesser mortals be prepared to modify their own eating habits for the greater good?
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Hebe, in reply to
Peeled (no green to alert him) zucchini finely grated into the pizza dough.
Brewer's yeast mixed w grated cheese or the dough for B vitamins. Or under the cheese on pizza or toast.
Cream cheese on simple bread (not wholegrain but unbleached white flour) - maybe sourdough?
Banana "ice-cream": frozen banana fed through an auger juicer.Apple pud: stewed smooth peeled apple. Top w toasted coconut-ground oat mix (put in hot frypan and stir till pale) and whipped cream. Cream could have a small amount of creamy yoghurt stirred in. Contrast of textures and warmth was soothing.
Oldest was incredibly hard to persuade to eat - these were some strategies that worked. When I was stressing, the doc reminded me a potato had as much vitamin C as an orange. And will he drink fizz? If so Redoxon for B's and C.
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Not sure what to make of this talk about mental health and nutrition.
But I'm pretty sure I've read about sugar having a big effect on gut microbiome. Probably nothing like antibiotics, but far more constant in most of our diets.
Autism and food choice: our lad is expanding his taste well at the moment - pubescent boy, always hungry helps. It's a great relief - he loves carbs, although he's always liked salad - because his diet has been quite limited at times.
Not much love for greenery, though we have got him eating green beans just via entertainment (a game where we would scream if he ate a bean. Luckily that hasn't been needed for a couple of years.
The oddest dietary thing has been around his passion for Huntley and Palmers cream crackers with marg and vegemite. Still a major favourite and backstop. But he won't eat them - gets quite upset - if they are at all broken (this has also improved lately.) My sense is the shape is important in a way that effects the taste and emotion, a sort of synesthesia.
At times he's been a little pattern obsessed and lined food up neatly, but it's a passing thing. His reaction to a broken cracker has endured. -
There are also those that swear by fasting to reset one's system - perhaps that flushes the system back to basic settings.
and there is also the use of other larger organisms/parasites for purging and intervention - and why not, leeches and maggots have made a big comeback as well
- needs must...see:
http://reset.me/story/fast-way-better-health/and
http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/kill-candida-and-balance-the-gut-quicklyand
http://www.leechestherapy.com/about-leeches/benefitsand
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/12/how-maggots-heal-wounds -
Bart Janssen, in reply to
‘My food bags’
They also give you new ideas. Sometime the hardest part of sorting out dinner is coming up with an idea.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Peeled (no green to alert him) zucchini
Also mixed into meatballs. Not so much to sneak veges in but because they add flavour and moisture.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Not sure what to make of this talk about mental health and nutrition.
But I’m pretty sure I’ve read about sugar having a big effect on gut microbiome.Me neither. There are some pretty strong but very specific examples of foods (not drugs) affecting mental state. But beyond that there seems to be a general mumbled consensus that it's possible and plausible but we just don't know.
We are starting to learn that our gut has senses, there is good evidence for a direct satiety sense in the upper intestine that seems to have a direct line to the brain. How that interacts with the gut microbiome and how that can be affected by general diet doesn't seem to be clear.
To return to the original subject of sugar there does seems to be some pretty deep suspicion in that field that sugars, specifically fructose (which is half of white sugar and most of high-fructose corn syrup) causes some big changes in gut biome diversity and loss of diversity. But the field is just too new to be able to say "this bacteria should be 2% or you will get X".
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
You know I’d say that “experimenting with your diet to see what makes you feel better” is one instance in which it’s perfectly valid to make calls based on a n=1 sample.
I don't disagree that you should be free to experiment with yourself. I just wish they'd do the reverse test as well. So if removing X from the diet is associated with feeling Y going away then if later on you add X back then Y should come back as well.
That said it's really easy to fool yourself when examining data from an experiment where n is nice and big and everything else is controlled in the lab (observer bias). The potential for fooling yourself where n = 1 and you are both the observer and the data is significant :).
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Do people remember Barry Marshall?
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery
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I'd add Hypoglycemia into the discussion about health (mental or otherwise) and nutrition.
As a young child I spent many a happy hour hooked up to a glucose drip, being hauled back from the brink.
Later, I learned to read the signs of impending trouble..
Shakiness, anxiety, nervousness
Palpitations, tachycardia
Sweating, feeling of warmth (sympathetic muscarinic rather than adrenergic)
Pallor, coldness, clamminess
Dilated pupils (mydriasis)
Hunger, borborygmus
Nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort
Headache
Central nervous system[edit]
Abnormal thinking, impaired judgment
Nonspecific dysphoria, moodiness, depression, crying, exaggerated concerns
Feeling of numbness, pins and needles (paresthesia)
Negativism, irritability, belligerence, combativeness, rage
Personality change, emotional lability
Fatigue, weakness, apathy, lethargy, daydreaming, sleep
Confusion, memory loss, lightheadedness or dizziness, delirium
Staring, glassy look, blurred vision, double vision
Flashes of light in the field of vision
Automatic behavior, also known as automatism
Difficulty speaking, slurred speech
Ataxia, incoordination, sometimes mistaken for drunkenness
Focal or general motor deficit, paralysis, hemiparesis
Headache
Stupor, coma, abnormal breathing
Generalized or focal seizures
Not all of the above manifestations occur in every case of hypoglycemia.and take appropriate measures to head it off.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
No coffee ?
A large mug mug of Twining's Lemon Zest (which has disappeared from every known supermarket but Gilmour's, where it's permanently on special), then breakfast, then one coffee. All sitting at my computer.
Speaking of which, I'll try not to spend too much time at my computer today. I have to work tomorrow and it's Fiona's birthday today. Cheers all.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
I’m fat. I’m in my 40s. I currently don’t have any health problems. I never really have (except the ones caused by pregnancy). THE FATTIES WALK AMONG US. We all need to think about how we talk about this. You know?
I’m sorry Danielle, I just assumed from your Avatar that you were quite svelte, I really didn’t have any idea that you considered yourself anything else.
I was brought up to believe that “fat” people were happy people and people came in all kinds of shapes, sizes and demeanors, people are people. I am also one of those people that think it stinks that there is an “Ideal” weight, shape and personality, there is not.Anyway, there is a subject we were discussing. Is a sugar tax needed?
Personally I consider the problem lies with those that profit from the consumption of vast amounts of unnecessary anything, be it sugar, tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs…. I could go on.
Will a tax on these things help? We have seen a huge decrease in tobacco consumption with the increase in taxation but who pays? the offender or the victim?.
I can’t see a way to make the offender pay, they will just pass the cost on to the people addicted to their product.
Let’s see what has worked in the past. Smokers have become a pariah and so less people smoke. Drunk drivers have become social enemies and their actions treated as crimes with no allowance for alcoholics that could be seen as having a medical problem rather than a homicidal bent. Alienation is a tool of the worst kind so the ends have to justify the means.
If these things were seen as a social problem and that society beats the will of the individual then we must ask “Is being considered “overweight” a social problem that harms society as a whole and if it is how do we reduce the social harm?”
Personally I think being considered “over the perceived perfect mass” is a social problem, we shouldn’t all have to be like Kate Moss, the problem is that the message society is getting is that we should.
If you are happy with yourself then I am happy for you too, if your weight is making you sick then, maybe, you should do something about it.And hey, Russ, just because it didn’t help doesn’t mean I didn’t try.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Hi Steve. I edited a par out of the comment above. It was a bit tone-deaf.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Hi Steve. I edited a par out of the comment above. It was a bit tone-deaf.
Jeez….
How openly tone-deafist of you…
Unfair to the tone impaired...
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
but who pays? the offender or the victim?
And that's very much the core of a number of folks objection to a tax.
The answer is yes the consumer pays but it has also had a huge impact on the producers. Tobacco companies have shrunk hugely over the last two decades, those that remain have shifted their markets to countries without tobacco taxes and diversified.
So both ends of the chain were affected.
It would be nice if there was a way of only affecting the producer but I haven't seen a method that works anywhere with any product. The only thing I've seen work consistently across multiple products and multiple markets is taxation/duty/excise with a large dose of marketing control (ie limit advertising).
It isn't perfect, it affects some groups more than others and in some cases it's really hard to balance that, not impossible but hard.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
It would be nice if there was a way of only affecting the producer
Well if you take my examples of alienation you could say that the producers are the only ones that pay, in terms of money, and the victim is forced to conform to society's norm, which is good, isn't it? well, it worked for Hi.... (I will avoid the obvious Godwin there)
There is, of course more subtle and positive ways of achieving the same result, less market for the bad guys and a better outcome for the victim*, Marketing Control as you put it.
Public education, Advertising campaigns, bumper stickers, whatever. These things cost money so taxation is the way to go but take it from the general tax, not a special tax. After all, it is Society as a whole that is demanding the change.* Victim isn't really the right word here but I think it serves to illustrate the point about labeling* in this instance.
* I am not talking about food labeling here...
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Moz, in reply to
I'd personally want to see if reintroducing the food caused the problem again.
I check many things, but there are some things that taste so vile I doubt it's a gut thing, it's a super-taster thing. I'm generally concerned about getting enough variety in my diet, because I know I tend to habituate on foods. But stuff I like but my gut doesn't... I test that. Hot cross buns, fruit bread (so bad in so many ways if you look at the FODMAP exclusions)... I love them, so I eat them anyway. But most legumes blow straight through, and I know they still do because so many vegetarian things have unexpected legume content. Which my gut detects...
It also fascinates me that people are so happy to experiment on themselves
I'd happily experiment on someone else but until we can clone microbiota it seems unlikely to help. The broad studies do look likely to be useful... in about 20-50 years. I want something that lets me eat enough to stay alive, now. So I eat random stuff from time to time (tomorrow: lactose-free yoghurt, which is a thing now, so I bought some). The good news about my gut is that it's pretty fast-recovering, I have not (so far) been forced into bed for a day... instead I spend quality time on the toilet.
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Moz, in reply to
Would those who readily despair over the dietary intransigence of lesser mortals be prepared to modify their own eating habits for the greater good?
Have done, for a long time, still do. I have made a whole heap of "lifestyle changes" for the greater good. I have started eating (kangaroo)meat again recently because being vegetarian while also eliminating legumes and most pulses from my diet proved to be ridiculously difficult. But eating the latter was becoming impossible.
I have done a bunch of "experiments" which actually look more like chemistry than biology. I eat a lot of soup because it goes in square plastic jars in the fridge easily, and then to work. Or the freezer. So I make big pots of soup once a week, and put different mixtures of vegetables, beans and stuff in. Occasionally an experiment will result in my partner being told "there's 10 litres of soup in the fridge for you to eat", because I ate one bowl of it, waited half an hour, it wanted out so I went to the toilet, then felt weak and queasy for 24 hours.
At the risk of somewhat derailing, I am one of those people, who lives somewhat under the global GHG allowance/energy intensity level and puts a perhaps silly amount of work into the three Rs. My indulgences are Lego and a couple of geek toys a year. It's possibly that 3kW of PV on the roof counts as an indulgence too, pay a premium for 100% wind power on top of that is either indulgence or insane... you choose.
(roo here is a game meat, you can't farm them so the meat is all wild shot, it's the least unsustainable meat I can find. I'd welcome correction if I'm wrong, but that's what my literature search said)
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
roo here is a game meat, you can't farm them so the meat is all wild shot, it's the least unsustainable meat I can find. I'd welcome correction if I'm wrong, but that's what my literature search said
"Plastic wombat" was an expression I came across in Australia - someone who tries to live as far off the grid as possible while remaining in the city, e.g. solar panels and tank water on a Paddo terrace. Obviously you're not one of those, all the best with your ongoing experiments,
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people on each side of these kinds of debates are so ideologically opposed to each other that they can’t respect each other as people let alone as intellectuals.
Could this be the disease reaching epidemic proportions in the western world?
Pigheadedness.“paternalistic” regulations or “policies to protect people from themselves” should be questioned as threats to liberty. The foreword states: “until recently the assumption still remained that in principle, at least, consumers should be free to choose for themselves.
This is, well to me, the contradiction that lies at the heart of this mindset. The market is put on a god-like pedestal as the final arbiter of "good" or "bad" . Yet these people are busily manipulating this god-like entity- so easily manipulated- to their benefit.
I have yet to come across anyone or anything that will "protect people from themselves"
And any discussion about freewill is more informative if neuroscientists are taking part. If lobby groups are bringing it up, Beware! -
mark taslov, in reply to
We have seen a huge decrease in tobacco consumption with the increase in taxation but who pays? the offender or the victim?.
Some interesting things to consider there Steve. Most notably is that the huge decrease hasn’t occurred in isolation but as part of a vast raft of measures.
With regards to smoking and any addiction I think it’s well worth asking how much much income we as a society wish to derive from citizens’ addictions and misery. I’d wager that by’offenders’ above you were citing tobacco companies,but the fact remains that the profit derived by tobacco companies is a pittance compared to the taxation accrued by the Government at smokers’ expense.
Having lived through some of these implemented measures, I’ve found the effects on my own consumption oddly circular, I pay $45 or so dollars now for a 30g of tobacco up from $15 dollars 2 decades ago, a pricing plan that has put me in the enviable position of now growing my tobacco for myself and anyone else that wishes to ‘steal’ some. The seeds were not difficult to acquire, and I managed to source another plant at the local market, grown by a horticultural lecturer at our local government funded polytech.
I don’t wish to discredit taxation as a means of quelling consumer demand, but I fear when that taxation becomes so exorbitant that it’s creating new cottage industries to avoid this taxation while the Government generates record breaking income, then more wherewithal is required by authorities as to what may constitute realistic and reasonable outcomes.
With regards to the topic at hand, I’m astonished as to how we could stage such a debate, a debate essentially about the human body, without much said about either the role our water consumption may play in mitigating the effects of poor diet, and as an appetite suppressant, and even more obviously the role exercise (?) plays in maintaining health. It’s almost a discussion about a machine, focusing on one fuel element with little concern for the output i.e. the function of the machine.
For those calling for taxation, I see this as an ideal opportunity to ask how much tax will be enough and and what point might that taxation cross the line from a reasonable measure for improving public health to cynical income generation off the back of addiction ~ with possible undesirable side effects such as losing control of supply, pricing; the market essentially.
When you have a taxation system that has become so convoluted that prime time TV adverts tout NZ’s first Consumer trusted tax refund company in assisting taxpayers in legally accessing refunds they’ve been overtaxed, and succeeding in doing so with 9/10 customers, then you can more or less guarantee that in this kind of environment the implementation of yet another tax will not be an easy sell.
If this taxation were being proposed with the objective of funding a full dental care program then I would most probably support it.
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