Nutritionism

what determines food quality?

-Caloric density -Nutrient density -Speed of digestion -Removal of nutrients -Addition of nutrients -Addition of chemicals

Who benefits from nutrition confusion? (4)

-Food industry (profit) -Nutritional Industrial complex (food scientists/researchers/experts, food publishers, supplements) -journalists: the speed of information (quality vs quantity) -alternative practitioners

3 pernicious myths re: nutritional science

-nutrients matter more than food (reductionism) -you need an experts help -eating scientifically

Correlation does not equal causation

Correlation does not mean cause and effect. A correlation of 1 between two variables does not mean that one necessarily causes the other. A correlation of 0 does not mean that one prevents the other. For example, height and weight in people have a positive correlation. However, the height does not cause the weight or vice versa. It's just that they are most likely to be strongly related.

what is the zero sum relationship?

Eating more of one thing means eating less of another

Why do we eat? (3)

Energy (carbs/fat) Building Blocks (protein) Micronutrients

how do we study nutrition

Epidemiology studies -Observational -retrospective & prospective -selection bias -Case control studies -reporting bias Randomized controlled studies (*gold standard) -typically designed for drug studies

what makes a food protective?

The micronutrients it contains: -vitamins -minerals -accessory minerals -antioxidants Fat soluble vitamins (not energy, not a building block, gives body info)

what is parking lot science?

assuming what we can see/measure is important (and what we can't isn't)

protein

building blocks

macronutrients

carbohydrates, proteins, and fats

carbohydrates

fast energy

What's wrong with moderation?

it's subjective

compare food culture and food science

mom and undernutrition vs. govt, expert, overnutrition

orthorexia

obsession with healthy eating

how does the food industry bypass the fixed stomach?

pre-digested liquid delivery increase in eating occassions

fats

slow energy

what are the characteristics of a western diet?

sugar, fat, salt quick, convenient processed portion size cheaps

what is the nutrition transition?

the shift in dietary consumption and energy expenditure that coincides with economic, demographic, and epidemiological changes affluence + choice

What is nutritionism?

the widely shared but unexamined assumption is that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient

what problems arise when we wish to asses what people eat?

they have to track and can't they underreport

What is sort-of-science?

treating hypothesis as fact

what is the problem with the food frequency questionnaire?

underreporting mis and over reporting data

what is the significance of the 1977 Dietary Goals of for the United States?

where we start blaming nutrients the start of nutritionism