By Marika Sboros
Lifestyle medicine sounds benign enough. By design or default, it may also be a cover for Big Religion’s new front in its war on red meat. So says Dr Gary Fettke, an Australian orthopaedic surgeon with a special interest in evidence-based nutrition.
Fettke spoke at the CrossFit health summit in Madison, Wisconsin on August 2, 2017 on nutrition’s central role in everything. In other words, nutrition in health, politics, education, economics, environment and beliefs.
In the first of a two-part series, Fettke raised the taboo topic of religion and nutrition science. His focus was the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and its “medical evangelism”. In the final part here, Fettke looks at unique partnerships that Adventists use to spread a belief-based, anti-red-meat agenda.
The spectrum of bed partners certainly is eclectic. It veers from relationships with extreme animal rights groups to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and now “lifestyle medicine”.
In his talk, Fettke showed how Adventist medical evangelists have also supported and established dietetic associations globally.
Rot at the core of the dietetics industry
Fettke is especially critical of the dietetics industry. Its foundations are “rotten to the core”, he said. Dietitians probably don’t even know that it’s “in their blood” to associate with industry and ideology.
Certainly, Adventist medical evangelists do appear to have odd bod bed partners. They sleep well with the WHO and its “meat causes cancer stance”. US psychiatrist Dr Georgia Ede has laid waste to the science on that one.
Another Adventist partner is the so-called Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). PCRM founder is vegan physician Neal Barnard, who has close links with PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals).
Click here to read: Why giving up meat won’t save people or the planet
Thus, Adventists’ recent strategic alliances are with kindred spirits in fringe medical groups under the guise of “lifestyle medicine”. These operate under similar names in most continents, Fettke told the CrossFit audience.
Lifestyle medicine is a “potential front for serious medical evangelism pushing Adventist vegetarian ideology”, he said. Just one red flag is that those with religious objections to red meat now refer to “plant-based” instead of vegetarian, diets. That’s just semantics, he said, designed to distance themselves from overtly religious promotion of vegetarianism.
That’s not a bad tactic as science and religion make uncomfortable bedfellows.
Forging global alliances
Fettke referred to the Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance (LMGA), a new venture in and outside the US. It includes the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine. In the US, the Joslin Diabetes Centre has a lifestyle-medicine arm as does Harvard Medical School.
LMGA strategic partners include the True Health Initiative (THI). Its founder is US physician David Katz who openly advocates for vegetarian diets as “greener”. Katz has also taken to using “plant-based” instead of vegetarian and has also co-published with Barnard.
Of course, not all doctors who support lifestyle medicine have religious, belief-based agendas. (Katz told me via email that he is a Jewish atheist.) And the basic premise of lifestyle medicine can be helfpul.
In its most positive and original incarnation, lifestyle medicine is defined as “a scientific approach to decreasing disease risk and illness burden” via lifestyle interventions. These include nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction, no smoking and minimum alcohol intake.
A world free of disease?
Similarly, THI’s vision appears benign enough on the surface. On its website, THI claims its mission of a “culture free of preventable chronic disease” and working to achieve “global consensus on “fundamental, evidence-based truths of lifestyle as medicine”.
That’s where things get a little hazy, as Fettke has shown. THI’s homepage picture of supporters is under the headline: “We Agree!”
Yet science by nature and definition is not static. And there is very little, if any scientific consensus on optimum nutrition to treat and prevent nutrition-related lifestyle diseases. Chief among those are obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and even dementia. Dementia is now so common that doctors call it type 3 diabetes because of the documented link with diet.
It’s also no surprise that supporters of lifestyle medicine openly advocate a diet that conventional dietary guidelines recommend – one that is low-fat, high-carb, “plant-based” diets. As Fettke pointed, research shows those guidelines to be without robust science in support.
A ‘Glimmer’ of new hope?
Physicians who are firmly in the lifestyle-medicine camp also regularly claim that vegetarian diets can save the health of people and the planet. Katz has claimed that a vegan diet is “best”, based solely on “human health considerations”. To that end, he is founder of “GLIMMER”, an acronym for Global Lifestyle Medicine Mobilising to Effect Reform.
Fettke has compared his experience of religious opposition to his views with that of the speaker who followed him on the CrossFit health summit panel, South African scientist Prof Tim Noakes. Both recommend reducing sugar and refined carbs and increasing intake of healthy fats and animal foods, including red meat.
Fettke posed a question at the heart of his talk: “Who could possibly take offence to those ideas?”
Who indeed? Dietitians, for one. In both cases, dietitians reported Fettke and Noakes to their medical regulatory agencies.
Busy dietitians
In Fettke’s case, two members of the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) reported him. And in Noakes’ case, Johannesburg dietitian Claire Julsing Strydom, president of the Association for Dietetics in Southern Africa (ADSA) at the time, reported him to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).
The DAA and ADSA have always worked closely together. And like their sister organisations globally, both have close links with food and drug industries.
‘Plant-based’ diets
Strydom has not said that she is a vegetarian but she does promote “plant-based” diets in her private practice and as ADSA president. And like ADSA, Strydom has close links with drug and food industries, particularly Kellogg’s.
Fettke isn’t suggesting that Seventh Day Adventists were behind attacks on Noakes. However, he and Noakes have swapped notes about the links between the many and varied interests ranged against them.
Fettke has highlighted the close connection between AHPRA’s star witness against him , Monash University emeritus professor Mark Wahlqvist in Australia, and retired North-West University professor Hester “Este” Vorster against Noakes.
Wahlqvist and Vorster were involved in the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, of which Wahlqvist was president from 2001 to 2005. They spent time at the Giessen Declaration on World Nutrition Policy in 2005. And both have links to the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), a Coca-Cola and Kellogg’s front.
Hiding religious views
If Wahlqvist is an Adventist, he isn’t saying. However, he has worked for the Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company, an Australian wholly owned Seventh-day Adventist cereal/processed food business.
Vorster is also close to Strydom. And as Fettke showed, all three have links to sugar, cereal and other processed food and soft-drink industries. They seldom, if ever, declare these links as conflicts of interest, he said.
(Editor’s note: It’s unlikely, though not impossible, that Vorster or Strydom are Adventists. As Afrikaners in South Africa, they are more likely to be members of the Dutch Reformed Church. They do not declare any COIs of religious or ideological beliefs when promoting plant-based diets.)
They all also promote the lifestyle medicine mantra: “Exercise is medicine”.
Of course, exercise is important for overall health and it can be medicine for body and mind. But it is not an effective weight-loss tool. Despite that, ADSA, DAA, Harvard Medical School, Coca-Cola and others continue to promote the idea that it is possible to ‘outrun a bad diet’.
Time for official diet advice to change?
I emailed Wahlqvist on the issue but received no reply. I also emailed Vorster via North-West University. The university’s communications officer replied to say that Vorster “does not want to communicate” with me.)
Fettke has called for a review of official nutrition advice. He also called for open disclosure of conflicts of interest by all involved parties.
“Our wealth is our health, nothing more or less,” he said. The quality of the fuel we put in ourselves determines our health, as do family and wider community.
Still, we’ve produced food for quantity rather than quality for too long and it is not sustainable.
Click here to read: Time for Big Food to get taste of own medicine?
He also raised the issue of quality of agricultural soil globally that he said is at a crisis point. As a result, food quality is clearly deteriorating. Therefore, there is a health disaster in every country “and it’s only going to get worse.”
Official nutrition guidelines have aggravated the crises, he said. That’s largely because those responsible for the making up the guidelines have allowed religious or ideological beliefs to affect their judgment. They have also ignored the science of evolution, biochemistry and physiology, Fettke said.
And when you cross paths with those prepared to defend their beliefs and ideology, “they will never back down despite the science”.
Follow the money
Once he understood that, Fettke said that he had a better idea of the motivation for those opposing his promotion of LCHF: “Myths become beliefs and if you keep propaganda going long enough, it becomes an ideology.
“Throw in financial gain and you have a major conflict of interest that influences policy right to the top.”
Click here to read: You need 5-a-day fruit and veg? No you don’t!
There are many things wrong with our world, Fettke told the Cross fit gathering. And if the planet were a computer, he would be “hitting control/alt/delete buttons and doing a factory reset to get rid of all the corrupted software”.
“We need to understand what fuel our bodies require and we need to do so unemotionally,” he said.
Our mitochondria “have no feelings” and our cells have “no religious and emotional ties to their fuel source”.
Yet those with religious ideologies have conned people into thinking that their bodies require processed “food” to keep their engines running. People should, therefore, apply a filter to everything they hear about nutrition.
He closed with a quote attributed to Mark Twain: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” In his autobiography, Twain actually said something similar: “How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”
- Part 1: Medical evangelism: a hand out for bad diet advice?
- Follow me on Twitter @MarikaSboros
- Like my Facebook Page
- Click here to subscribe for email notifications of new Foodmed.net postings
- I am co-author of Nutrition On Trial, with Prof Tim Noakes on the HPCSA case against him. It is due for publication by Penguin Random House in November.
It seems everyone is confused by the simple fact that vegan diet does not mean eating coco pops for breakfast, white bread with peanut butter for lunch and a vege lasagne for dinner loaded with fake cheese, pasta and barely any vegetables, washed down with apple juice.
People have simply no idea how to eat, cook for themselves and are fooled into marketing tricks by greedy business ON BOTH SIDES OF THE FENCE.
Enjoy your meat, enjoy your veggies, whole grains, nuts, seeds. Everyone in this room is educated. Majority of people learn from click bate articles and scare mongering.
As a Christian just key me say this
Keep reading please.
SDA is I Fringe group. They are only Christian in their own eyes.
Officially, they are a sect and are not considered part of the mainstream Christian Church. A sect is half a step away from being labelled as a cult
Let me reassure you, TRUE Christians are appalled by the actions of these people who do our “name” harm and cause the world to turn away from us and our message.
I TOTALLY understand that this is not an attack on Christianity or religion but I wanted to make plain the things I stated so that readers will know this bunch of idiots do not represent the majority of Christians and certainly not anyone who has read scripture for themselves.
It is the belief of most Christians that God placed animals here on Earth to care for His creation and we do not support or condone any shady closed door actions that would harm people.
I apologize that our leaders have not spoken out against this foolishness and fully condemned the SDA but I for one have considered them a cult for years since they place the teachings of white even above biblical authority, much like Smith and the LDS or Russell and the JW.
THANK YOU Marika for this series and let me reassure you…..
THIS Christian supports Gary and Tim and the many others who are facing life and career altering, unfair scrutiny!
Personally
For me, seeing the tie between the ADA and SDA via the AND, this is all the more reason to shun vthe ADA and their diabetic advice.
Dwayne
Christian, Southern Baptist layperson
Type 2 diabetic
Ketogenic follower
MEAT EATER!!! and proud of it! Lol
Why do people stay confused on these subjects? Because there is so much conflicting advice! Why don’t journalists present both sides of the issue, consulting experts on both sides, and even offering debate-like presentations and refutations from both sides? People like Dr. Gregor, McDougall, Ornish, etc. have presented plenty of scientific evidence supporting THEIR recommended diets. And while I think it is delusional to think the puny Seventh-day Adventist Church is responsible for persecuting LCHF doctors, and that disclosure is unlikely to reveal a smoking gun, there has been plenty of evidence on the other side of the link between meat & dairy industries and big pharma and their support for research supporting meat & dairy consumption.
In short, one-sided presentations, especially those wrapped in conspiracist theories, are difficult to swallow. Essentially, you are playing to beliefs too. Each side thus presents “evidence” to allow its believers to credibly argue for their preferred lifestyle, and nobody changes sides. It boils down to a propaganda war.
Hi Robert, you make good points. However, the post was a report on Dr Gary Fettke’s talk to the CrossFit and Foodmed.net emailed Dr Mark Wahlqvist for comment. He did not reply. It is difficult to give the ‘other side’ when that side refuses to talk. As well, all subjects mentioned on Foodmed.net have right of reply which is our responsibility as ethical journalists. Foodmed.net will be doing a follow-up as a Seventh Day Adventist doctor has made contact in the comments section and put the church’s side.
I wasn’t referring to Wahlqvist or to medical licensing issues affecting Fettke, but rather, to doctors who have researched the literature and come to opposite conclusions, i.e., folks like John McDougall, Michael Greger, Ornish, etc. I am a researcher, not a journalist, so maybe we do things differently, but to me, the most helpful approach would be to proactively investigate both sides and seek to objectively resolve contradictions and conflicts, using input from both sides, including use of primary sources in written form, not just interviews. One isn’t dependent on a person returning a call when using published information.
Claiming that you tried to give the other side a voice by simply seeking input from 1 person (whom I’ve never heard of) is pretty lame. If the intent was a hit piece, sure. But if the intent was to truly contribute towards resolving the fundamental contradictions in the vegetarian vs. LCHF debate, then this contributed nothing credible. Equally lame is getting a Seventh-day Adventist viewpoint from whatever church member happens to pop up on your discussion board. Why not, for example, directly seek out researchers leading the Adventist Health Study at Loma Linda University, since their research was maligned in this report? And why limit your input to Adventists? That is presuming that the underlying thesis of Fettke is correct, i.e., that Adventists are behind current thinking on nutrition in dietetic associations. I think that would come as news to the doctors I mentioned, who are not Adventist. One’s research methodology shouldn’t presume what one is trying to prove.
Perhaps I’m being unfair, and journalists shouldn’t be held to the same standards as scientific or historical researchers. Perhaps it is enough that you raise the issue and stir the pot. I’m just frustrated by the lack of credible resolution, and the accusations thrown about in this story are not helpful. Science is not a religion, and disagreements should be resolved with data and discussion, followed by more data gathering as needed. I find the LCHF folks are just as ideologically close-minded as the vegetarians are here accused of being. Thus, meaningful resolution eludes us while popular books, stories, documentaries, etc., abound on both sides. And plenty of profit-making on both sides too.
Once again, you make good points, Robert. I think that journalists should be held to the highest standards taking into account the constraints under which they work. It isn’t possible always to give all sides of every story in one post. We have word and deadline constraints. Of course, in the digital world, word length doesn’t apply. But it’s a waste of time writing a tome if you know that few people will wade through it to the end.
I also may have just been lucky to have very different experiences with the many nutrition experts I have interviewed who oppose conventional dietary ‘wisdom’ compared with your experience with LCHF ‘folks’. At heart, the bias of those I have interviewed appears to be simply to be good science and robust, solid argument. They don’t all speak with one ‘voice’. Some don’t even call themselves ‘LCHF’. They speak more about ‘real food’. And if anyone can show me robust science to show that LCHF to treat and prevent chronic disease is wrong, I will happily write about it. So will all the experts on the ‘other side’ that I have interviewed. Ditto on the anti-red meat and very much pro-vegetarian/vegan stance of Seventh Day Adventists. I am always skeptical of doctors and researchers who hide conflicts of interest, whether they be religious, financial or other. And the idea of doing research to bolster religious belief makes me uncomfortable from the start. I have no problem with anyone being religious, a vegetarian or a vegan. Claiming health benefits for a lifestyle is a whole different scientific ballgame.
Then perhaps you can contact John McDougall and Michael Greger and write an article on what they say. They are not Adventists and their conclusions are based on science, not religion. If after listening carefully to what they say (and reading their work), if you still think the LCHF approach is the preferred one, then write an article on why you think Mcdougall and Greger are wrong. One thing I would be TOTALLY surprised and amazed at would be if you concluded it was because of financial interests/sponsors.
Thank you for the suggestions. I will look into them. At risk of sounding like a broken record, my bias is good science. All public health dietary advice and all nutrition scientists base their advice on science. It’s by definition and a truisim. Not all of it is good science. Bad science ends up belief-based, whether it is religious belief or other. It is not only financial interests or sponsors that make scientists come to the wrong conclusions. Cognitive dissonance is a plague in science. It takes a brave person to accept when they’ve got things wrong after believing and teaching one thing for decades. I suggest you read Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz. I would be AMAZED if you could emerge from those tomes believing that LCHF is on the wrong track to treat and prevent chronic diseases for which orthodox medicine has no answer other than drugs. None of the LCHF experts I have interviewed say it’s the only answer or for everyone. But when people are eating a high-carb, low-fat diet and get sick, as many do, it makes sense to try diet first before opting for drugs or invasive surgery. IMHO.
As a scientist (different field) myself, trust me, my bias is towards good science as well. Hence my expressed frustration at the contradictions by the two camps, and lack of resolution. In most fields of science, such contradictions are resolved eventually by further study and “hammering out differences” at conferences and in publications. Greger’s presentations are heavily supported by published research (he uses images of abstracts extensively, to make the point). Sure, not all research is of good quality, but it is peer-reviewed and thus passes a minimal test of credibility. And Greger is totally independent financially. As for McDougall, he uses his personal experiences as a doctor, supplemented by extensive scientific literature. McDougall says a lot about conflicts of interest in medicine/science also, as do speakers at his quarterly “Advanced Study Weekend” conferences. McDougall comes off as angry at times, due to his frustration at being unable to cause much shift in the establishment. I’m sure he’d be amazed to learn that he is part of it or in line with its sponsors, as Fettke accuses vegetarians. But what this reveals is two doctors, from very different perspectives, angry at the establishment, each thinking the other side is dominating the establishment. Quite remarkable! Again, evidence of an unresolved contradiction in the medical/science community (though I think the evidence is not favorable to LCHF, myself).
I wish I had more time to dig up some good starting places for you, but I’m currently an evacuee from my flooded home in Texas, thanks to Harvey. Needless to say, my life is in turmoil now and for several months. But here is an old (2004) newsletter from McDougall that is relevant to this discussion and casts Taubes work in a different light. https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2004nl/040600puatkins.htm. My sense is that you like videos (I may be misreading you, just because that is your source for the Fettke articles). Here are several from McDougall, including some on diabetes and sugar, as well as “The Starch Solution” which summarizes much of his thinking. https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/videos/ . And for Greger, maybe this one to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=7rNY7xKyGCQ or this one:
No ‘may’ about it. You misread me completely.
I had some further thoughts. Quakers are a much bigger force in the UK. I always regarded them as relatively ethical and laid back, kind of like Zen Christians. They gave us Quaker Oats (now owned by Pepsico) and Cadbury and other chocolatiers now I think subsidiaries of Kraft (it gets hard to keep up with who owns who). Not nearly so joyless as many other religions and I don’t think particularly veg(etari)an.
IMO “Lifestyle Medicine” is a good idea, until co-opted by the Forces Of Evil.
Like you Chris, I believe ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ is a brilliant idea! Wish we Low Carber’s had thought of it first 😉
It fits with the whole #foodismedicine just don’t quite align with the vegetarian/vegan messages. Especially when we see so many people who have chronic diseases, including Type 2 diabetes and struggle to tolerate carbohydrates. By adopting Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat principles we are seeing people reverse their diabetes and come off all medication! #joyinmedicine
There are common features in the concepts of “Religion” and “Beliefs”. They are basically mental/emotional systems with two different names. Both take their ideas from dogmatic fountainheads. Both depend on suspending ones critical, analytical approach. Both hold onto what is taught, not what is tested/proven. Religions are man-made belief systems that by their nature have to be pushed, rather than being uncovered by examination and questioning. Belief systems/religions do not require the scientific method of observe- -develop hypothesis- -test the null hypothesis- -form the theory.
Amazing article Marika!
You have captured the essence of Gary’s presentation over the two posts, articulating the evolution of our dietary, and health, guidelines as they have morphed to become vegetarian.
It is fascinating to witness the way in which vested interests, and the vegetarian/vegan, and religious ideology’s, have simply ignored evolution in the study of Nutrition Science for decades. Now it makes sense why Gary could talk himself blue in the face discussing biochemistry and physiology and not get anywhere … it was never about the science!
The world-wide growth of the Lifestyle Medicine branding over the last few years highlights the spread of medical evangelism as the Right Arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Time to hit the reset button on Nutrition Science and allow it to be independantly viewed through an evolutionary lens, with particular focus on biochemistry and physiology.
I am not anti-vegetarian nor anti-religion or belief. I am anti animals being locked in feedlots.
No doctor should have to go through what Dr. Gary Fettke went through. A 2 1/2 year investigation (following a vexatious complaint by a dietitian in Australia) resulted in him being handed down a lifelong, non appellable caution which ‘silenced’ him from offering broad principle nutritional advice to his patients with weight related joint issues and complications of Type 2 diabetes.
Gary believes that science evolves by being challenged, not by being followed, and that once you see the benefits of Low Carb Healthy Fat lifestyle you can never unsee them!
#thankyoumarika
#isupportgary
Belinda, you’re right – it’s never about science when the plant-based religion gets involved. Most meat where I am comes from pasture-fed animals who spend most of their lives in open fields, converting grass into protein. It’s far more ethical than monoculture crop production maintained with pesticides. The millions of small creatures crushed and mown down in crop production somehow don’t count. Maybe they’re not cuddly enough.
A vegan colleague long ago told me that she had no interest in improving animal welfare because she thought it was a distraction from the end goal of banning meat consumption. The Sunday Times made the same point last week.
Please pass on my best wishes to Gary and thank him for his work.
Thank you Stephen 🙂
I will pass your message onto Gary!
We also live in a beautiful location with grass fed pasture raised animals and lots of fresh, seasonal produce. We eat low carb and minimally processed food. Our health is better than it has ever been 🙂
It’s not a religion it’s a lifestyle change. I’m not vegan but have a load of respect for those who are. Continue to eat meat. But don’t try and turn something into what it’s not.
I believe CSPI are another front for PETA. Yes, the CSPI that pushed trans fats because they are vegan, and only reversed their views once the Foodlike Substance Manufacturing Industry had invented their vegan replacement – interesterified fats. Yet to be seen what harm they do . . .
I cannot agree with some of the statements above. I am a type 1 diabetic and recently converted to a vegan diet, not for moral reason initially but more for a healthier lifestyle. In the past 2 months I have been able to stop taking cholesterol medicine and my need for insulin has diminished and as my body fat lowers the demand for insulin will decrease further. If more people were exposed to the meat industry and see its detrimental effects on global warming and many chronic illnesses, you would see allot more people voluntarily adopting a plant based healthy lifestyle. Pharmaceutical companies exist to promote medicating diseases, instead of curing them and stopping all the needless suffering of people with curable chronic illnesses.
Harry, I’m glad a vegan diet is working for you and I agree completely about pharmaceutical companies.
But it’s likely that you never needed the cholesterol drugs. Countries with higher cholesterol have lower rates of heart disease. A few facts:
• France has the highest rate of saturated fat consumption in the world and a heart disease rate one third of the UK’s. Many other countries show similar results, including Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Iceland. (WHO figures.)
• Switzerland has the second highest rate of saturated fat consumption in the world and the second lowest rate of heart disease.
• Lithuania’s population consumes half France’s level of saturated fat, yet has a rate of CHD nine times higher. This is one of many similar examples. The WHO figures in Europe show a clear relationship between higher saturated fat and lower heart disease.
• In America of 137,000 people, in 541 hospitals, who’d had a heart attack, 78% had below average cholesterol. (American Heart Journal, 2009.)
• The percentage of British Men with high cholesterol reduced from 87% in 1994 to 54% in 2006, yet the rate of heart disease stayed the same. (British Heart Foundation.)
Cholesterol is the myth that keeps on giving to pharma. Its only defenders are some vegetarians and vegans, who can’t bear the idea that eating saturated fat doesn’t kill us. It was always an absurd idea. Meta analysis has three times exonerated saturated fat of any connection with heart disease.
Funny, I ate an Ornish-style high carb low fat grain based vegan diet over 40 years ago and it made me ill.
I continued eating HCLF based on “healthy” wheat and “vegetable” oils and my health continued to decline. A dietician made it decline much more rapidly.
I’ve spent the last twelve years now eating LCHF and pretty much everything has reversed if not normalised, and I’ve also come off all my meds except for a minimal dose of BP meds, and Carbimazole for my thyroid (autoimmune I’m told).
If I’d known, I could have done this MUCH earlier, as could the millions of others whose health is in decline thanks to current dogma.
Nothing against YOU eating vegan, my beef is with the Militants who want to see their dogma imposed on everyone else irrespective of the outcomes, which looks like a done deal via the WHO and others. (In fact I eat a vegan diet with my meat, poultry, game and fish just like Gary – that works.)
The SDA are pretty low profile here in the UK, and Europe, we had Mormons from a nearby temple and Scientologists from their world headquarters just down the road from where I used to live, and Jehovah’s Witnesses and other minority religions. Nestle (Swiss) are big here, and Unilever (Anglo-Dutch) even bigger – they very much take on Coke’s role in providing premises, support and agendas for our health agencies and are also a big influence on the WHO. Most of our dietary dogma is imported wholesale from the US, though we turned it from a Pyramid into a Plate first!
My other beef is with the arrant nonsense like meat, or eggs, “causing” diabetes, fat “causing” CVD etc. If that was going to happen we would have become extinct millennia ago. If you want to find the “causes” of modern disease “epidemics” you need to look at what has changed recently. There’s a LOT of science actually doing this despite all the dogma ranged against it.
Hi Harry. Good to see you had such great results. My best mate was diagnosed with MS. Since that point he has gone vegan and has halted the progression. His doctor is now running trails with his other patients with fanastic results. I dont agree with georgia ede and think of her and her friends as “fringe”. As for people getting sick when they go Vegan 99.9% of the time is because they have no idea what to eat or what they are doing. Then blame being vegan for getting ill but its really about being uneducated. Keep it up Harry and dont listen to the quakes.
Mas…..
Carne nem é carboidrato!?
I’m a registered dietitian and I could not agree more with you. http://sustainabledish.com/meat-is-magnificent/
Well said, Diana. Keep up the good work.
Gary Fettke is right. Agendas have done immense damage to public health.
This morning I pulled a packet of Nestle Cheerios off the supermarket shelf. They refuse to use the colour coded traffic light system to inform consumers of the contents, but I read the label. The pack says it contains ‘The delicious taste of 4 whole grain cereals . . .” including corn, oats, rice and wheat. Unless you read the label carefully, you won’t know that 20% of the calories are sugar. Add the glucose in the grains to the sugar and what else is there? And this is supposed to be a ‘healthy’ breakfast?
My friend’s nineteen-year-old daughter has been taken in by vegetarian propaganda. She eats her whole grain bread, rice, cereal breakfasts and lots of pasta. Basically she eats glucose and fructose. In her first year at university she has expanded by two dress sizes and is baffled and unhappy because her food is low-fat and ‘healthy’, according to Dr Bernard, Gregor and McDonald. This promising teenage girl is well on the road to diabetes and obesity.
The saving grace is that most vegetarians stop because they’re unhealthy and feel bad. They begin to see the fraud of the junk producers and promoters. I do accept that a much better vegetarian diet is possible, but I’ve yet to meet a vegetarian who doesn’t eat lots of grains and pasta.
Any advice from David Katz has to be given in the public’s interest and will be worth taking, right? ?
Gary Fettke and Tim Noakes are doing the right thing – to quote Marshall Rommel “Attack is the best form of defence”.
Identified and named all those involved in the suppression of science so that these toxic elements could not hide in the background. It makes my blood boil when a Coca Cola Front ILSI (half baked) Professor of Dietetics can say that “Prof Tim Noakes is not qualified to talk on nutrition.” These elements are using politics to try to silence science, unfortunately they had under estimated their formidable opponent (an A1 rated scientist) and over estimated their feeble abilities.
The second coming of the low carb revolution is now unstoppable, keep up the good work.