Turkey Tracks:  January 2, 2013

New Books on Food Issues

I’ve been waiting for this one to be published:

Denise Minger is the fiery and very funny young woman who took on T. Colin Campbell of The China Study fame and showed that he is so blinded by his vegan belief system that he is not “seeing” what his data is really telling him about meat protein.

T. Colin Campbell, you might recall, is the bona fide scientist who thinks that meat causes cancer.  Only his data does not support that conclusion.  And, you might also recall from earlier posts on this blog that one of the main critiques of The China Study is that the Chinese doctors did not come to the same conclusions that Campbell did about meat.  Indeed, in the very middle of the film (I will not call it a documentary as it is really an emotional and unscientific appeal to a belief system), the Chinese doctor filmed says that “meat and vegetables” support health.

The takaway here, as Minger notes early on in the book, is that we have to consider WHO is telling us what to eat and to consider their agendas a part of our vetting process.  Sometimes “experts” are not so expert.

Minger, as a teenager, spent a year being a raw food believer and learned the bitter lesson that one’s body needs nutrient dense food.  In that year, as she recounts in her book, she got 16 cavities and her dentist said he had never seen a mouth so badly hurt in one so young.  So, it will be interesting to see how she positions herself around “what to eat.”

She is very clear that there is no “one size fits all” diet that is magic.  We each have to know our bodies and figure out what gives us good health.  Still, she does list some foods that cause a lot of people trouble, and grains are in that mix.  But I will do a more formal review of this book when I finish it.

Michael Pollen’s book Cooked was the gift of Gina Caceci, who knows me well.

Apparently Pollen spends some time writing about Sandor Ellis Katz’s lacto-fermented foods (Wild Fermentation).  And, with Katz, of course.  (I have several blog posts on lacto-fermenting foods and on Katz.)  Recently I read a Dr. Joseph Mercola post that said the lacto-fermented foods have the power to detox the body.  I don’t doubt it.

Thanks you, Gina!

xxxx