Diets Are a Lot Like Religion

[trotsky]

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/05/diets-are-a-lot-like-religion.html

The more Levinovitz looked into it, the more parallels he discovered between religious and dietary beliefs, going as far back as the ancient Chinese texts that are his scholarly specialty. “Two thousand years ago, there were these Daoist monks who decided that if you avoided these five grains — and these were the staple crops of China, what the everyday person subsisted on — you’d live forever, you wouldn’t get any diseases,” Levinovitz said. These monks also came up with intricate recipes for nutritional supplements, which they then distributed with similarly spectacular promises of immortality. “I’m looking at this and I’m thinking, You know, this sounds a lot like the kinds of promises that modern, secular so-called diet gurus make to their followers,” Levinovitz said.

...

But what about when diets aren’t comforting? Many of them, after all, suggest worlds in which modern life is overflowing with toxins, even in safe-seeming foods — shouldn’t these beliefs be aversive rather than attractive? Not so, said Levinovitz. He used the Food Babe, the very popular food blogger who sees terrifying chemicals everywhere — and who is frequently wrong in her doomsaying — as an example. “One thing I realized — why would you want to live in a world filled with toxins? Why would you follow the Food Babe — isn’t that a terrifying world to live in?” Levinovitz said. You could easily make the same statement about religion: Why would you want to believe in a world where humans are inherently sinful creatures? The idea sounds upsetting from a nonreligious perspective. “But it’s not. It’s a comforting one … The only thing scarier than a world full of toxins is a world in which you don’t know what the toxins are.” If the choice is a nuanced, complicated understanding of the world that contains some uncertainty or a more clear-cut and sharply defined approach, the latter vision is often going to win out.

Interesting piece. Figured a reasoned discussion would be more likely to happen here than in the slime pit.

[bvf]

1. Great analogy.

"If the choice is a nuanced, complicated understanding of the world that contains some uncertainty or a more clear-cut and sharply defined approach, the latter vision is often going to win out."

This nails it, IMHO, although up to this point I had no idea that there was even such a thing as the Food Babe.

[trotsky]

2. Oh Lord, don't Google the Food Babe if you don't want to slam your head against something.

One of her most ignorant rants (which she attempted to scrub from the Internet) blamed the air on a plane being "like 50% nitrogen(!)" as causing health problems.

[bvf]

4. You made me do it.

I loved this:

"There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever." 



Right you are.

[nil desperandum]

6. Indeed

you should never imbibe that disgusting H2O or any of those nasty protein chemicals tastily prepared from certain plants or tasty animals...


It is quite astounding to see stupidity of that level on such prominent display.

[bvf]

7. Dihydrogen monoxide

has been shown to be lethal.

[nil desperandum]

9. Well then,

she's gonna be all over that no doubt...

[Warpy]

3. And the more you rub their noses in the fact that it's been tried and failed to produce results

the more firmly they tend to hang onto it. It's just amazing to watch.

I guess some of us have bigger "feed me horseshit" parts of the brain than others.

[edhopper]

5. What?

I don't care, I still believe in my non-fat, non-gluten, PH-non-acidic, organic, raw food diet.

[trotsky]

8. It will lead you to the promised land! n/t

[Lordquinton]

10. At least with gluten there's an actual, medical reason

but if you don't have that reason it's fine (kinda like peanuts)

Our water is already at a 9PH, what more do you want?

[edhopper]

11. I want ribs

with a side of collards and onion rings.

[F4lconF16]

12. And a healthy spirituality

is much the same as a healthy diet, imo.