The Science of Bummerology

I have a new fave health magazine, found at the library. It's a newsletter put out by scientists, with no government or industry funding--some foundation funding, and mostly subscriptions. They take all the latest news and headlines about nutrition, and give you Just the Facts Ma'am.

This month's edition is about organic food. I read another edition about celebrities making money off their public trust--Larry King and Dr Phil, but mostly they went after Andrew Weil.

The other one I took out was about some recent studies that are making headlines like "calcium supplements don't work!" and "low fat food doesn't work!" -- and they talk about the actual study and what it says and does not say. (Yes you should continue to eat low fat, and get enough calcium.) They also brought up a new study about Aspartame being suckitudinous. (I have to say... the fact that we keep having to do more and more lab rat studies to try and figure this out, is enough to make me give up aspartame. I understand the arguments for animal testing re. Important Drugs, but this is "how to eat your sweets and be skinny too" type research.)

They also do a product profile each month, on the best cereal, or margarine--and since this is the Canadian edition, it's stuff you've actually heard of and bought.

The peeps who put this out, The Center for Science in the Public Interest, are the ones who convinced the govt to make it mandatory for all food to have nutrition labels. (Here's some other things they've done.) Now they're trying to get calorie counts put on chain restaurant menus. A subscription is 15$. Buy buy!

Call me a slave to statistics, but I do prefer to get my information on food from traditional science land, than from crunchy health food land. Health food magazines--the really hippie ones like Alive--are great, they're interesting, but I find that so much of this world is about buying expensive supplements. You're supposed to go in for such n such treatment, or take a certain extract, because for 1000s of years it's been used by Generic Chinese Healers. I'm not saying all this stuff is bad, but there seems to be an assumption that because something isn't processed much, or comes from a flower--because it's "natural"--that it's necessarily good for you. Give to a few hundred people in a double blind controlled test, and then I'll listen to you, it's that simple.

What I like about the CSPI is that they're about the most disinterested health source I've ever come across. (Ecinacea example.) I like their methodical manner of investigating a claim, rather than screaming out a headline. Sometimes I find that the health magazines I enjoy, like Alive, or the ones for vegetarian cooking, are too quick to jump on something that supports their philosophy, like supporting quorn, even though it's apparently making a lot of people sick.

I've been researching alternative sweeteners lately, although I basically believe that the safest way to approach sugar is (a) eat less of it, and (b) if you want an alternative, use something like maple syrup or apple juice, which are well known to us, and less processed than white sugar. But there are two "All NATURAL SO IT MUST BE GOOD FOR YOU!" products being pushed these days, which are agave syrup and stevia. The CSPI has a good article on stevia, and I've written and asked them to do a piece on agave; I've already read enough about the latter to make it a bit suspect.

Compare their review of stevia, with the one by Alive magazine. I believe that Big Business does naughty things, I really do; but sometimes the crunchy granolas, and peaceniks, and anti-corporatists etc. get so caught up in their condemnation of The [fill in blank] Industry, that they're blind to other arguments that just aren't money related.

From now on CSPI is going to be my Snopes of the food world--the first resource I hit when looking for info. Yippee! (These sites are crack to my soul.)

And now... watch a funny interview with one of the CSPI guys, on Colbert.