Comments on: Health, Nutrition and Personal Science

By: Megan M.

Megan M. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:40:40 +0000

Thanks, Jim—and you're very right, it's definitely not simple!

By: Jim Purdy

Jim Purdy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:52:21 +0000

You made some excellent points when you said:
“We can listen to our bodies and learn to make decisions that affect us positively, instead of fooling ourselves into believing that someone else will always know better, someone else will always take care of us. ... we are the only souls truly capable of being stewards of our own lives. ... You need to take care of you. If that means climbing a few learning curves and paying attention to the world around you (and the responses within you), so be it. Get going. If we don’t start paying attention and taking care of ourselves, we’ll just keep getting sick and dying and trying to blame it on somebody else.”

I'm also reading Gary Taubes' book, and he presents some pretty persuasive arguments for a low-carb diet. And I am doing a lot of self-experimenting to find the right diet for me. It's not simple.

By: Megan M.

Megan M. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:40:40 +0000

Thanks, Jim—and you're very right, it's definitely not simple!

By: Jim Purdy

Jim Purdy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:52:21 +0000

I'm also reading Gary Taubes' book, and he presents some pretty persuasive arguments for a low-carb diet. And I am doing a lot of self-experimenting to find the right diet for me. It's not simple.

By: sss

sss — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:54:32 +0000

ghjkhg

By: Megan M.

Megan M. — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:02:42 +0000

That's a great article, thank you for the link! I hadn't looked at any of Gary Taubes' other work until that, and I agree, he writes eye opening stuff. It's hard to make calls on this stuff because the very nature of his material reminds us that we can't just follow precepts blindly, we have to question and discover for ourselves, and so much of this stuff is near-impossible to pin down for certain without, uh, a lab! And, uh, years of scientific experience…

The more of this I encounter, the more I am certain how important it is for each of us to know how to take care of ourselves, to make decisions for ourselves, and not foist those decisions on others and assume it will be okay. In many cases, in SO MANY cases, it's simply not okay. And you're right, all we can do is whatever we can do, getting informed however we can, listening to the way our bodies react to the decisions we make, and remembering that it's our responsibility to care for ourselves—not someone else's.

I haven't come across Mark Sisson or Dr. Eades, I'm going to check them out!

By: naominiles

naominiles — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:28:12 +0000

Um, I just tried commenting, but I think it didn't go through. So, I'm sorry if this goes through twice!

That article Taubes wrote on exercise in the New York Mag a few years back was pretty eye opening too. Where is it... Here! http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/ Pretty sad to think exercise doesn't help much, but I don't know if I totally agree with it anyway. He's definitely a controversial figure, but most of what he says seems to make sense.

If we knew all of the politics behind it all, we'd really be crying for sure. The more I read, the more insane it all seems. I was reading the other day that many of the major food companies have scientists developing specific combination of elements to increase the addictive factor of their foods. Those does of course include putting HFCS in about everything among other things. Sounds like fodder for conspiracy theorists, but I'm not so sure.

What can a person really do though? I guess just staying informed as much as possible, doing your own research, and listening to your body. I also enjoy reading Mark Sisson and Dr. Eades blogs. They have a similar viewpoint as Taubes, but differ on a few different subjects.