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