28 Comments

“As I asked rhetorically in my earlier Substack on this topic: What kind of dystopian world has nutrition “science” entered into whereby a university, a peer-reviewed journal, and one of the field’s most influential leaders legitimize advice telling the public to eat more Lucky Charms and fewer eggs?”

The nutrition playbook and Pharma playbook are clearly one and the same.

Expand full comment

Nina, thank goodness for you and the work you do! You're a bright light of truth and integrity in a very muddled space. Your persistence brings me hope and inspires me to do the work I do. Santé!

Expand full comment

I have cancer, at stage 4. If I were to eat the green foods, I'd be dead in a year. But I eat more of the red and yellow and have been stable for 3 years now.

Expand full comment
founding

I recall a conversation with Mozaffarian at the Swiss Re conference a couple of yeats ago, where he told me, io really didn't matter if eating animal proteins had reversed my own and many other's T2 diabetes. We didn't count compared to the " science" and wouldn't even if 100,000 of us turned up to dispute him .

It's heartbreaking just how "unscientific" science actually is - or indeed that nutrtional epidemiologu is still described as a science at all. Thank you for continuing to call out this nonsense.

Expand full comment
Feb 6·edited Feb 6

Excerpt from the article. "Aside from the many nutrients and complete protein provided by beef, there’s the fact that meat (and eggs and cheese) contain no glucose and therefore generally don’t raise blood sugar, the primary driver of diabetes as well as the single health factor most strongly associated with poor outcomes from Covid."

Actually, the primary driver of diabetes is excessive prostanoid signaling. For example, "Chicken meat with reduced concentration of arachidonic acid (AA) and reduced ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids has potential health benefits because a reduction in AA intake dampens prostanoid signaling, and the proportion between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids is too high in our diet... Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids compete with each other for incorporation into membrane lipids and also for binding to several enzymes such as elongases, desaturases, cyclooxygenases and lipoxygenases. Omega-3 fatty acids also suppress the expression of inflammatory genes, whereas omega-6 fatty acids have an opposite effect. Inflammation takes place within the vascular walls and plays a role in modulating the effect of insulin and control of inflammatory gene expression and lipid metabolism; it is therefore important not only in connection with diabetes type 2, but also as a part of the disease mechanism during progression of atheromatosis/atherosclerosis." https://lipidworld.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-511X-9-37

Prior to the shift from family farms to concentrated animal feeding operations, the fatty acid profile of chicken and pork was healthier. Excerpt: "Pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, but typical feeding practices give it a high omega-6 (n-6) to omega-3 (n-3) fatty acid ratio and make it a poor source of n-3 fatty acids. Feeding pigs n-3 fatty acids can increase their contents in pork, and in countries where label claims are permitted, claims can be met with limited feeding of n-3 fatty acid enrich feedstuffs, provided contributions of both fat and muscle are included in pork servings. Pork enriched with n-3 fatty acids is, however, not widely available." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4693156/

Arguably, only a handful of scientists in the World appreciate the importance of eating animal products with a balanced omega-3/6 ratio. A Siberian Federal University researcher comments:

“The dietary value of the Yakutian horse meat is very high precisely due to the ideal balance of polyunsaturated omega-3 and omega-6 acids,” Makhutova explains.

“The 1:1 ratio of these acids is ideal for us, but civilization is steadily shifting the balance towards the predominance of omega-6 due to the dominance of vegetable oils, cheap pork and fast food in our daily diet. We also need omega-6 acids, but in combination with the omega-3 partners, which are found mainly in fatty fish. The horse meat we tested is also very good, especially for child nutrition and the diet of people suffering from cardiovascular diseases. If the population of Yakutia starts consuming mass-market products, which are now imported abundantly into the republic, and makes a choice in favor of, let us say, semi-finished pork products, this may drastically affect people’s health. This is just the case when you should not change a time-tested balanced diet.” https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2020/05/28/fatty-acids-crops-winter-survival-yakutian-horses/

Lastly, prior to the increase in the arachidonic content of poultry and pork, it took half a lifetime of obesity to trigger diabetes. That's why it was called adult onset diabetes. The latency period has shortened so dramatically that when children started to become obese and diabetic in ever greater great numbers, the powers that be rebranded with the type 2 designation.

Since metabolic syndrome precedes diabetes, this narrative tells us something important. "Lipid and immune pathways are crucial in the pathophysiology of metabolic and cardiovascular disease. Arachidonic acid (AA) and its derivatives link nutrient metabolism to immunity and inflammation, thus holding a key role in the emergence and progression of frequent diseases such as obesity, diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular disease."

Lastly, "Endocannabinoids and their G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) are a current research focus in the area of obesity due to the system's role in food intake and glucose and lipid metabolism. Importantly, overweight and obese individuals often have higher circulating levels of the arachidonic acid-derived endocannabinoids anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG) and an altered pattern of receptor expression. Consequently, this leads to an increase in orexigenic stimuli, changes in fatty acid synthesis, insulin sensitivity, and glucose utilisation, with preferential energy storage in adipose tissue." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23762050/

Expand full comment

Great article! I will share and hope that this and other well-reasoned commentary will help get people to realize what we are being spoon-fed is not in our best interests.

Expand full comment

Eye opening. Cinnabon before eggs. Truly unreal.

Expand full comment

The problem with any list of foods is that what is being discussed is "brand". Cheerios are not food. A banana is food. Nutella is not food, hazelnuts are. And so on. How about a new nutrient list that separates foods and non-foods by volume and then lists the mandatory nutrients by both percentage and volume.

Expand full comment

The problem with any list of foods is that what is being discussed is "brand". Cheerios are not food. A banana is food. Nutella is not food, hazelnuts are. And so on. How about a new nutrient list that separates foods and non-foods by volume and then lists the mandatory nutrients by both percentage and volume.

Expand full comment

I can imagine how disappointed you are, Nina, to find the leaders in the nutrition field running (not walking) backward DESPITE the now obvious proof that they are wrong! Criminally wrong on nutrition. They are holding the keys to the kingdom and handing them to gangsters whose motivation is money and power- that deviant duo the makes capitalism the weapon of Satan rather than freedom’s angel from poverty and suffering that God intended. But to achieve THAT there must be a trio: moral compass plus money plus power. In every corner of modern life this quality seems to have gone missing because a respect for God and our spiritual life has been surrendered to “science” and technological advancement for the sake of comfort and ease and satisfaction. In health this has resulted in shorter healthy lifespans and lots of monetizable disease like diabetes. I, however, am one who read your books and all the others you recommended, changed my eating habits from high carb vegetarian to keto, lost40 lbs and regained my health at 74. There are millions of us. We may find in 20 years that we are the “last man standing “ and everyone else is too sick to carry on. Unless of course they kill off all our cows and force us to eat Bill Gates fake meat from his monopolized farm land!

Expand full comment

As a director of a sports institute for youth athletes it saddens me to see such information. For example 2 years ago Chocolate milk scored a 23 and now is scores a 79. Something is rotten in Denmark or the money is held in a Swiss bank account! Hard to see after all these years something to rise so dramatically for no apparent reason or the data be manipulated. We can always switch our findings to the newest data I guess but for me being a former engineer one study or report should not be the basis for a global shift or such a change in rankings in something like this. I will continue to find my own quest. Sorry to see academics being bought.

Expand full comment

Thanks for compiling all this. I hope people see through the absurdity of the food compass. It seems that any food the average American could grow or raise in their backyard for little to no cost is at the bottom while highly processed and refined foods are at the top. Because it has never been about our health and it has always been about control and maximizing profits.

Expand full comment

After seeing so many badly-designed RCTs casting doubt on fasting and keto, I have to invert Napoleon's maxim- do not ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by malice. The diabetes-industrial complex will not go quietly into that good night, and throwing up a smokescreen of deliberately misleading studies is the least of their malfeasance.

The DIC (the K is silent) is riding one hell of a gravy train, and is perfectly happy to ruin the health and shorten the lives of millions of people to keep it chugging along.

I have to wonder if in decades to come, people will look back on today's sugar-frosted low-fat food pyramid insanity similarly to how we today view the ancient Romans' use of lead pipes (and even lead acetate as a sweetener!) as a special brand of madness. "What the hell were they THINKING?"

Expand full comment

This article is clearly written by someone who by someone who did not read the research for the Food Compass, and does not understand how it works. I am a Registered Dietitian, and all of the information presented in this article are based on a small picture categorizing very few items, that was made by someone else, and not the creators of the Food Compass. This article is spreading misinformation. The Food Compass assesses foods based on 54 different attributes based on 9 different domains. The foods are scored based on 100 calories of each type of food. Points are awarded on the presence of multiple vitamins and minerals, nutrient ratios, fiber, protein, phytochemicals, types of fats, food based ingredients, processing, and additives. The Food Compass is undergoing revisions, as the authors have very clearly stated that it is not a perfect tool and needs revisions. This is why nutrition science seems to be so "controversial" and confusing for everyone, because people like you, "cherry-pick" evidence (pick little tidbits of information from research and rephrase it to match your bias). This creates confusion because then, I, a Dietitian, have to address all of the nutrition myths and misinformation that my clients and patients hear from articles like this on the internet. Nina, you are a journalist, you are not a scientist, you are not a dietitian, you are not a food scientist, and thus you have no credentials to critique the Food Compass research because you do not have the schooling and training to fulling understand it. This "growing epidemic of fake news about nutrition" that you mentioned, you are contributing to that. Nutrition science is not political, and the Food Compass is not created to make big food companies more money. If you want to ACTUALLY make a difference in addressing people's food choices, just encourage others to eat more fruits and vegetables, and stop writing politically biased articles on research you don't even understand.

Expand full comment

25. Separation is the alpha and omega of the spectacle. The institutionalization of the social division of labor, the formation of classes, had constructed a first sacred contemplation, the mythical order with which every power covers itself from the beginning. The sacred has justified the cosmic and ontological order which corresponded to the interests of the masters, it has explained and embellished that which society could not do. Thus all separate power has been spectacular, but the adherence of all to an immobile image only signified the common acceptance of an imaginary prolongation for the poverty of real social activity, still largely felt as a unitary condition. The modern spectacle, on the contrary, expresses what society can do, but in this expression the pemitted is absolutely opposed to the possible. The spectacle is the preservation of unconciousness within the practical change of the conditions of existence. It is its own product, and it has made its own rules: it is a pseudo-sacred. It shows what it is: separate power developing within itself, in the growth of productivity by means of the incessant refinement of division of labor into a parcellization of gestures which are then dominated by the independent movement of machines; and working for an ever more expanded market. All community and all critical sense are dissolved during this movement in which the forces which could have grown have separated and have not yet been rediscovered.

Expand full comment

Whose paying for this? Cherreos is the leading cereal in most glysophates as it’s full of chemicals. This report is a bogus twist - who says mostly recommended? Don’t trust this repost folks. Unless you want to eat death chemicals

Expand full comment