Yesterday I ranted and raved about Melissa Hartwig and her crazy diet (that’s made her a very, very rich celebrity), but I went on and on without ever getting to the central question, which is:
Exactly what is this whole hoop-de-doo supposed to do for you?
Let’s get to that now. Remember, the idea for “going clean” for 30 days was an impulsive idea from Hartwig’s then-boyfriend, now-divorced-husband, Dallas:
Now you know what I’m going to say:
If it’s a fad, forget it.
And if there were ever a fad diet, Whole30 is it. It has become especially popular among young(er) people, with Facebook groups and the whole nine yards. Meanwhile, actual nutritionists and dieticians, people who study science, are clutching their heads and moaning.
I could just re-write the posts I wrote on the food-sensitivity tests for my material on this eating plan, but I won’t, because there are some additional fats in the fire (ha!) here. First, let me tell you a story:
So, this woman I know said that she had been in a town where she had lots of old friends, and a group of them decided to go out to dinner.
What’s the bad advice? I’ll quote two statements (actually imperatives) from the back of the bag: “Snack Often with Our Guilt-Free Ancient Grain Chips!” and “great for all day snacking.” What’s the good source? This locally-owned company, Soloman Baking Co., that produces a range of pita bread and pita chips. My mother-in-law had bought a bag of their chips on sale and boy, were they good! I liked them so much that I bought a dozen bags online. (Small bags.) But here’s the thing: they’re very tempting just to eat on their own, and their overwhelming encouragement on the bag is to eat the chips as snacks. I’ve eaten two of the bags, I think, and while I’ve tried to eat them as an adjunct to a meal probably most of them were eaten between meals–the dreaded s-n-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-k-s. I plan to use the rest of the crackers as part of a concert reception and use them up that way. They’re just too tempting! (I normally buy chips and crackers to use for parties
In the previous post I discussed what the popular “food sensitivity” tests are actually testing, which is exposure and not actual food reactions. This one fact explains why the lists of forbidden foods that people get are so similar: a conventional American diet is going to have lots of gluten, dairy, and corn, with probably a lesser amount of soy. Getting rid of these four items will mean, for most people, a huge shift in their eating, often coming with the possibility of the loss of important nutrients. But the
I don’t know how many people reading this post are following a food-sensitivity diet regimen or are supporting someone who is, but I’m sure there are some. So let me say first of all that my purpose here is not to offend but to inform. I got a little tickled/horrified recently with some comments regarding my keto diet posts. One woman said, in essence, “Why is Debi doing this? She’s not going to make any money by keto-diet bashing.” Then she named some diet celebrity whose
The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson, 2019, available in several formats. I strongly recommend the audiobook version, as Tomlinson reads it himself and has a very distinctive voice stemming from his surgery for throat cancer over a decade ago. The voice adds to the whole experience. (Amazon Affiliate link)
I hope that Tommy Tomlinson makes a million dollars net profit after taxes from this book, and I did my part by buying the audiobook instead of putting it on hold at the library. The book is actually several genres in one, any one of which would be worth the purchase price:
1) It’s a vibrant, beautifully-written and meticulous memoir of a childhood in the Deep South. Tomlinson’s parents are descended from sharecroppers (whom we tend to think of as
Hi folks!
I should have posted this right after the Super Bowl, when (sigh) Tom Brady pulled it out yet again. At least everybody said it was the most boring SB ever. I don’t care much for Tom Brady—can you tell? Of course, one might ask, “Who asked you, Debi?” And I give him full, full props for his total unflappability and steel under fire. Hey, arrogance has its upside.
Anyway, though, I hadn’t realized that Mr. Brady, just like every other celebrity on the planet, has his own very special diet plan with his own very special science. Well, it’s actually his guru who has all
On to the next fad diet floating around out there! Remember, you don’t need me yammering at you in order to be able to evaluate these ideas. There are very, very simple things to look for:
1. Does the diet have a gimmick or a hook? In the case of the paleo diet, the gimmick is the idea that we need to return to those halcyon days when life expectancy was less than 30 years, there were no antibiotics, and you were in constant danger of starvation. Right, those days!
2. Does the diet have a solid basis in fact or is it just “science-y”? The premise of the paleo diet is that not enough time has passed in our evolutionary history from our hunter-gatherer days (say 10,000 years ago) till now for our bodies to adjust to our modern diet, specifically the food we eat that comes
Year of No Sugar: A Memoir by Eve Schaub, first published 2014. 
Then somehow last week I ran across the book again and checked out the Kindle version. This time I enjoyed it thoroughly, laughing out loud several times a chapter. Eve Schaub is a very, very funny woman with a gift for ridiculous similes. I have no idea why I didn’t care for the book the first time around. Maybe I’m just more attuned now to this whole idea of severely limiting sugar in our diet than I was back then. Who knows?
This is the final post for now about the problems with following the so-called “ketogenic” diet. Today I’m addressing some issues I’ve discovered with one of the leading keto gurus, Eric Berg DC. Note that I don’t call him “Dr.” Berg, even though that’s what his YouTube channel, his books, his website and his ads call him. HE IS NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR. HE’S A CHIROPRACTOR. Sorry. I try to steer clear of all-caps ranting, but sometimes it’s just necessary.
Just a reminder: the “case study” I’m using is that of the blogger who runs the Addicted2Decoraing website. She says in a post titled “The Personal Stuff: A New Furry Family Member, More Keto Info, and What I’m Listening To” that one of her five ways to get started on the ketogenic diet is:
Find one keto expert you like and trust, and stick with him or her.
And the “expert” she’s decided to follow is Eric Berg DC. Now why on earth would you want to “stick with” just one source? That makes no sense. The best way to get a balanced view of any topic is to consult multiple sources, checking out the discrepancies that you find. Then you make your own well-informed decisions. Otherwise you’re just outsourcing your choices. (And, as I’ve said before, I love this blog, follow it faithfully, and totally respect its author. She’s so independent in her decorating choices that I find it very puzzling that she’s willing to blindly follow anyone about her health choices.)