One of the dumbest headlines ever
Photo used under Creative Commons from Mr TGT
A few days ago the Washington Post published an article with what has to be one of the dumbest headlines I’ve ever read.
New Guidelines Make It Easy to Get Fit
The article goes on to discuss how new US government guidelines cutting the previously recommended amount of exercise required for some minimal level of fitness even more. Which, of course, makes it easier to get fit. Right?
Only the government could come up with such idiocy. It fair takes one’s breath away. Could anyone else in his/her right mind imagine such stupidity? Or is it just the people we give our tax money to that think this way? Changing the guidelines helps us get fitter easier? Jesus wept.
This article (and the guideline changes behind it) reminds me of an old joke that I heard as a kid and thought pretty funny at the time. And still do, I guess, since it points out the brainlessness of these kinds of statements. Here goes.
Late in the afternoon, a man comes into his house panting, puffing and sweating profusely. His wife looks at him and says ‘What happened to you?’
The man croaks out between gasps for air, ‘I ran home behind the bus and saved two dollars.’
His wife looks at him scornfully and says, ‘What an idiot. Why didn’t you run home behind a taxi and save $20?’
That’s a joke, but it’s the same logic behind the “new guidelines mak[ing] it easy to get fit.” One wonders why, if these new guidelines make it so easy, that the government doesn’t decrease the recommendations even more? That would make it even easier. In fact, why not recommend 3 minutes of exercise per day, then virtually everyone could become fit. Even the guy in the photo at the top of this post.
As the old miner said to Butch and Sundance:
Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.
And indeed we do have morons on our team, and we pay them each April 15.
“I think most bread is fortified with folic acid, which could affect blood counts. You could always bake your own to avoid this variable.”
Most flour in bread and sold in stores is bleached and enriched with iron, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and folic acid. White rice is similarly enriched and has 2-3 times more iron than brown rice, as a result. Hodgson Mills is the only commonly sold white flour that is unbleached and unenriched. Most good groceries have it. I believe these additives are a part of the problem. Nobody isolates their variables. 99.999% of the population is consuming bleached & enriched flour filled with toxic chemicals and fractionated nutrients. Most breads are also filled with preservatives. To get preservative-free bread, it would have to be refrigerated or frozen. In most stores, the bread is sitting at room temperature, filled with preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, canola oil, yeast, and other garbage.
Traditional bread was made with only 3 ingredients – flour, water, and salt. They fermented this bread overnight. When quick-rise breads were introduced, the chronic diseases started to develop. Large factories bought up all the small bakeries that made their bread the old fashioned way (long fermentation without yeast or sugars). The question is whether breads would be toxic if they weren’t filled with additives, rancid fats, and fractionated nutrients. I present the following article suggesting that they would be.
http://tinyurl.com/38lpwe
Thanks for the interesting link. You wrote that “traditional bread was made with only 3 ingredients – flour, water, and salt.” I’m not so sure there wasn’t something else there, as in a little yeast or sour dough starter or something to get it to ferment. I don’t think that taking flour and adding a little salt and water to it will give you bread dough no matter how long you let it sit. I could be wrong on this since I’ve never made bread in my life, but it doesn’t sound right. I’m glad to see the plug for Hodgson’s Mill. As I wrote in an earlier post, my grandfather used to take corn there by horseback to get it milled. It’s a place I’ve sort of grown up with.
I feel sorry for that poor fella, wandering about in his drawers and ending up on the internet.
Of all the CEOs of all the companies I’ve worked for, John Chambers is the only one I’d vote for in a presidential race. I always felt he was interested in running the business effectively and ethically every day, rather than following the short-sighted, please-the-street-at-the-quarterly-call style of management our system preferentially rewards. I learned a lot about what good management looked like (down at my level as well as at the top) during my time at Cisco. I haven’t worked at HP personally but the people I know who have don’t say the same about Fiorina.
Early on in this election cycle I liked Richardson, but I figured he was doomed due to being neither photogenic nor the first choice of the Clinton machine. The entire Republican field was pretty depressing…I guess their sharp policy wonk types are staying far away from any need to pander to the base.
Don’t get me started on Carly. I thought she was a disaster. But I would still rather have her as the CEO of a corporation I had money invested in than any of the people we have running for President.
I, too, liked Richardson. He has done some good things in New Mexico. NM has a terrible tax situation for business, which means there are very few businesses there that employ a lot of people. To give you an example, we had a small business there that involved shipping product all over the country. Our UPS rep told us that we were the largest customer UPS had in the state of New Mexico. No businesses of any size means few jobs which means a lot of poverty, which abounds in NM. Richardson has worked on changing the tax structure to make NM more hospitable for business, but he’s had a real fight against his own party to do it.
Thanks for your reply re the Presidential candidates Mike, the prospects for a good Presidency look slim.
Unless Mccain wins and then Palin offs him with her rifle. Seriously though, its important for the rest of the world that America has a good President, so we non Americans should be concerned too.
It’s been said that America gets the President she deserves. I’ll guess we’ll soon see how deserving we are.
Following the “thinking” in the Washington Post story you mentioned, this article about diabetes shows you can move to another state and lower your risk of diabetes!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27457618/
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Hazlitt’s book is great! You might also check out Andrew Bernstein’s “Capitalist Manifesto”. It’s more on the philosophy of capitalism and its morality.
-Guy
I have Bernstein’s book, I just haven’t read it yet. Right now I’m reading Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which is a phenomenal book. I was in a conversation a few days ago about pre WWII Germany, and I realized that although I new a fair amount about WWII history, I didn’t know squat about Hitler’s rise to power and the lead up to WWII. In reading about Hitler’s beginnings I learned that he – despite being basically a high school dropout – began to read voraciously and seriously study politics in his early 20s. He had a number of insights into how to get ahead politically that he learned from his observation of the many different political factions battling for power in post WWI Germany. He determined that the two keys to political success were a) the ability to speak in a charismatic, inspirational way without really saying anything, and b) to aim all talks at working-class people. He set out to develop himself as a speaker and always spoke to the working class. Interesting parallels.
These recommendations truly boggle the mind. As you said, so do our presidential candidates. Here are two excellent articles on that matter:
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mcbama-vs-america.asp
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122523872418278233.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
On the comment above, it is partly true. The yeast spores from a kitchen that frequently baked bread would colonize the dough… this takes longer, though, which is why people usually add yeast. So I believe Dr. Mike is right in suggesting that yeast is necessary, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be actively added, it will passively colonize. (See Nourishing Traditions for a sourdough recipe calling for colonization.) I have made sourdough in the past but I add a small portion of yeast so the fermentation takes only a few days instead of a week. Still, both of these are much longer fermentation times than what are used by most people making bread today – whether that is a bakery or at home. I have read that some people with gluten intolerance can handle real sourdough breads. Practically no one makes breads this way anymore so they think the problem is just “bread.” But no native culture eating grains ate them without first preparing them by soaking or sprouting to inactivate the enzyme inhibitors.
I don’t make any bread anymore, though. At least until I’ve lost all my weight and then it will be very infrequent as a treat.
Great articles, especially the first one. Both pretty much capture my precise sentiments about our choices. I loved the last sentence in the first one:
I may just do it. Perhaps I’ll sit down tomorrow and write the Queen Mother of all Blog Posts instead of heading to the polls.
On the bread issue…I guess the wheat/salt/water mixture would ultimately colonize and ferment from the yeast spores in the air, but I don’t see how that is much different than simply adding yeast at the start and allowing the same thing to happen. I would assume that it was the fermentation that did the trick and not the particular type of yeast used to bring said fermentation about.
I do know that the colonists in early America drank tons of hard cider, which they made by putting raw apple juice in a barrel and letting it ferment naturally. But is that a different product from that made today in which the yeast is added? I don’t know.
As someone who has spent most of his carerr programming HP3000 and HP9000 minicomputers I’m of the opinion that Carly Fiorina (the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard) wasn’t qualified to run HP either. To be fair to her, the company’s decline actually started when the founders left, which was before her arrival, but I wasn’t impressed that McCain had her as an adviser. Too many appointments these days seem to be based on the positions you have held, not how you performed in the position.
Agreed on all counts!
“edited the law review at Harvard”? haha, that’s a joke… called Affirmative Action. Just as Obama’s admission to Harvard, and every step of his along the way including this candidacy. So we now have reached the point where getting some position because of reverse discrimination is put forth as if it were an accomplishment. Add to that the fact that the grip of reverse discrimination is so powerful that almost no one dares to speak publicly about it – lest they themselves be falsely branded as being the “racist” and destroyed.
Diogenes might weep and drown out the flame in his lamp, but probably since our generation he has put his lamp away anyway.
Given the calendar, I guess I can forgive all the political posturing. But I don’t come here to read about politics, there are plenty of places I can do that. I hope this will be the end of it.
I didn’t realize my post was political.
Dr. Mike wrote: “I do know that the colonists in early America drank tons of hard cider”
Especially just before elections, I’m sure!
Always wanted a bumper stick that reads: “Don’t blame me, I voted for Thomas Jefferson.”
Dr. Eades,
I just wanted to say that bread can be made by using the yeast that are in the air around us. This is where the yeast came from originially for sourdough bread. Of course, after you make one batch, you save a piece of the dough (which is full of yeast) and add it to the next batch to ensure fermentation.
Of course, bread can be made without yeast, as well. The unleavened bread used for Passover in the Bible, by rule, could not have any leaven in it.
Please don’t listen to Brian. I always enjoy it when you express your personal views, although I disagree with some of them. In fact, I always thought it was a pity when you agreed in response to much whining to keep your posting to largely medical topics. Write what you want (especially in the comments, for crying out loud). After all, this is *your* blog!
Thanks. It is my blog. And it’s well worth the subscription price.
Yes, points well taken, and you can’t beat the price of admission.
I always learn something when I come here.
Thanks for the reference to “Economics in One Lesson.” I will add it to my Amazon wish list along with a certain tome about 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle that is rumored to be coming out next spring. Have you heard of it? Are you will willing to speculate at all about its contents??? Hmmm?
Can’t speculate yet, but will soon. Got to do the last editing go round (which arrives this Friday) first.
Cheers
Obama may or may not have been selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review based on affirmative action, we do not know that although it’s a possibility. However, the fact that he was selected as president of the Review out of a field of 19 candidates by the 80 editors is an acomplishment that cannot be wished away by claiming reverse discrimination. At what point can a smart non-white achieve a position through his or her intelligence without affirmative action being thrown out as the sole cause of the said achievement?
That being said, my personal picks for this election slate would have been Richardson v. Romney.
I seriously doubt that he was selected as the editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review. That title comes by vote of the law students after campaigning by those seeking the position. I know how all this works because of eldest son was the EIC of the SMU Law Review, and I’m assuming the process is the same everywhere.
The accusations of his being helped by affirmative action involve his acceptance at Harvard. And his wife’s acceptance at Princeton. If there is any truth to the accusation that either of then didn’t deserve their respective admissions, I would have to say that it applies more to his wife. Why? Go on Google and find her thesis from Princeton. Forget about the content, which, in my opinion, is pure twaddle, and look instead at her ability to put thoughts on paper and the writing itself. Again, it’s only my opinion, but it is far below the standards of such an institution as Princeton.
The whole affirmative action deal, again, in my opinion, was not necessarily a good thing for the very people it was supposed to help. I grew up in an era before affirmative action, and I heard countless times in reference to someone who was black (or even female) who had achieved a position of status, that he/she must really be good (implying much better/smarter than a white person in a similar position) to have gotten there despite the deck’s being stacked against them. Now, people say – as they do about Obama – that they got their courtesy of affirmative action. I think it’s a case of the law of unforeseen consequences in action.
Hello Gary,
Here’s what happened in our family after reading (with great fascination and admiration – it was a tremendous eye-opener) Good Calories, Bad Calories when it came out a little over a year ago: the three of us – husband, 59, me, 58, and our son, 23 – quit overnight all our frustrating conventional diet attempts and switched to very low-carb eating, and kept at it ever since.
Results: great improvement in blood lipid profiles (much lower triglycerides etc.) for us old geezers, but very little change in our respective weights – and we do need to lose. The son, on the other hand, lost an astonishing 65 lb. in just three months – it was like watching the kid melt in front of our eyes – and has kept the weight off, effortlessly. From a fat, shy youth he turned into a confident, lithe and handsome young man, which is of course very gratifying to see, and we always remember that this miracle occurred thanks to GCBC. So this is an opportunity to let you know how deeply grateful we are for your great work.
OK, the question: do you know of any science that would explain the different effects a low-carb diet might have on people of different ages? (We’re all pretty sedentary, live together and eat more or less the same low-carb foods, so I guess the crucial variable is age.) Does a body fed a high carb diet for many decades accumulate some irreversible damages that would prevent significant weight loss later in life? Or is there any truth to the “gradually slowing metabolism” theory of fat accumulation? What’s your take on this?
Many thanks, again.
Hey Rosie–
You put this question in the wrong post, and I don’t have any way to change it to the correct one. Why don’t you copy it and stick it in the post about Gary answering questions so it will get considered.
Best–
MRE
Totally agree. I also found this article last week in the NY times ( http://bit.ly/kugc) which I thought was equally dumb. Because they keep lowering the standards. Just ten minutes a day and that is better than nothing and gardening counts! If the standards keep getting Lower- than people will do nothing.
Hi Dr Eades,
Following your thoughts on my comment way up there on chain, I wanted to let you know that I went ahead with eating wheat 2 weeks before my blood test, with some results that I documented here:
The Wheat Experiment – Blood Test Update
It’s hard to know whether the changes were significant, but to me they appear so. If you get a chance to look at the Excel charts I created of my results, your perspectives would be of great interest to my readers!
Thanks,
M.
It’s really difficult to say. The changes (after adding wheat) are trending in a direction, but we don’t know if the trend is significant or not. It would be nice to have done the same labs on one who doesn’t have a problem and was following the same dietary regimen.
this is unrelated i think but its an exercise question: i am overweight but losing and getting in much better shape with low carb/ITing. i have started some cardio interval training that is making me feel out of sight. huge whale breaths, hot sweaty energy release, lactic acid anaerobic threshold upping, the works. nothing major, just using a tabata timer. walking, yoga never helped me so much, however, today right after exercise i got a lump in my thoat right under the addams apple. just annoying , not painful. any idea why? the exercise is very calming so i dont think its anxiety. mucus? athsma? and i a hypochondriac?
Or a moron blogger who thinks it is always acceptable to trash our government. The headline was obviously written by a Washington Post editor and probably not the author of the article, Steven Reinberg. It certainly was not written by any government worker and if you read the article it is not in a quote or attribution to any govt employee quoted.
In fact, the context of the article would indicate that the intended meaning of the headline would be something like “New exercise guidelines make it easier (to understand what is required) to get fit. It explained to the reader (obviously not you) that these were the first guidelines published in 10 years.
This is a bad faith smear on the doctor’s part and I really don’t like such knee-jerk whining. We have a government – get over it.
And we all have the right to bitch about its manifest incompetency. Get over it.