The truth about nutritionists

[ciphergoth]

San Francisco appears to be rather fun! Back tomorrow.

For those who enjoyed the NYT "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" article, here's the wonderful Ben Goldacre of Bad Science writing about why 'nutritionism' isn't just nonsense, it's right-wing nonsense.

Comments

Re: I don't buy your assertion

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

We must talk about the "class thing" in the States some time :)
It seems obvious to me that the study of nutrition per se is not a bad thing, but the constant bullying by quacks like "Dr" Gillian is part of an ever growing right wing trend towards blaming the unhealthy for being unhealthy eg"if they just ate right they would not get cancer" bollocks type arguments. The next step is tom justify not providingn health care because all illness is self inflicted.

I think that is indicated in the article.

Of course "poor people" can eat well in this country, but there are many reasons why people from all income brackets sabotage themselves healthwise. Personally I would argue that many of these reasons are related to living under terminally fucked up global capitalism.

This is a bit of a ramble, but just one more thing. A voluntary sector advice organisation (I think it was NACAB ?)in the UK had always advised "poor people" to buy fresh veg, whole grains, cook from scratch etc as part of their debt advice strategy. They stopped doing this in the 90's as various studies showed that it is actually ch4eaper to buy and eat processed filling rubbish - filling the kids up on white bread and marg with sugar sprinkles is much cheaper than giving them fresh fruit for example. Not better for you, of course, but cheaper.