May 17, 2009

Whole Foods recovering from the anti-fat witch hunt?

I'll try to keep it short since I'm about to go out for the night, but I just checked the health and nutrition part of Whole Foods' website and was very surprised to see how much they've become deprogrammed of the elite's anti-fat hysteria. Examples:

Section on fats has no demonizing of saturated or animal fats -- jesus, they even give props to lard! They also remind us that most animal fats are monounsaturated anyway.

Section on carb consciousness is pretty even-handed, but more importantly: there is no counterpart section on how to follow a low-fat diet.

Section on heart health
does not vilify saturated fat or cholesterol, emphasizing instead omega-3 fats and antioxidants.

Section on pregnant and nursing mothers tells them, in not so many words, to completely ignore the FDA's moronic food pyramid and eat lamb, fatty fish, eggs, yoghurt, nuts, legumes, fat-loaded avocados, dark green leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes, and berries (which are mostly sugar-free). No mention of bread, rice, pasta, cereal, etc. -- it's as though they don't want pregnant mothers to give their kid hyperinsulemia and Type II diabetes before it's even born.

Section on men's health mentions in passing that fats increase the absorption of antioxidants from tomatoes -- a point that is true for any vitamin, or whatever, that is fat-soluble.

And that's just the good -- as I say, there are no sections on how to cut the fat out of your diet, how to put more soy in it, etc. Since a large corporation like Whole Foods doesn't stick its neck out for no reason, it must be that they've picked up on a change in sensibilities among their consumers -- if the tide hadn't begun to turn at least somewhat among them, the company wouldn't dare talk about how great lard can be or how little carbs pregnant mothers should be eating. If their consumers haven't changed, then I'm very impressed at how iconoclastic Whole Foods is behaving, at least in cyberspace.

I just got back from one, and their entire stock of Turtle Mountain's So Delicious coconut milk beverage was all gone, except for one quart, which I took just to stockpile. Ditto for Organic Valley's summertime-only butter from pasture-fed cows -- I took the last two they had. Just within the past half-year, they've started to carry four or five brands of coconut oil, rather than the one I saw when I first started eating low-carb food. Meanwhile, no one seemed interested in the untouched rows of soy milk.

Protein Power author Michael Eades noticed something similar at a recent food expo -- lots of coconut products, much less soy, and little in the way of fat hysteria generally. Let's hope these trends aren't passing. Maybe Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, Bad Calories has had a larger impact than he believes (as a neurotic Jewish Manhattanite, he's afraid that most readers will respond to it with a polite smile while inching slowly away). The low-carb trend peaked in 2004 and has been pretty dead since then -- perhaps we're seeing a rebirth.

14 comments:

  1. I'm experimenting with low-carb diet after watching Fat Head and reading this blog on your recommendations.

    I have to say, it suits me quite well. I feel more energized, a bit more touchy too. But I've read it increases testosterone -- although, I don't know if that's BS or not.

    Anyway, I think I'm skipping pasta, rice, whole grain bread, cornflakes, soda and potatoes from now on. My father suffered and died from MS and his family gets fat and diabetic easily. I've read that low-carb could have stalled the MS, now I know what could have been one of the reasons. He only ate carbs, he was fat, he had high sugar, optic neuritis, depression, and more.
    http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/ms.html

    We all need to cut carbs. I'm not going paleo, but I can do without starch and sugar carbs. I don't like sugar anyway, pasta and bread are going to be harder, but it's for the cause, so..

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  2. By the way, Gary Taubes is very good looking.

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  3. I could never do paleo since they don't eat dairy. Poor fools will never enjoy sheep's milk yogurt or butter from pastured cows. Not to mention the once-in-awhile bowl of ice cream (although I guess they could get Turtle Mountain's coconut milk-derived ice cream).

    If you check out that Protein Power Lifeplan book by Michael Eades, they have adapted their plan to three levels of commitment, recognizing that not everyone wants to be a purist.

    "By the way, Gary Taubes is very good looking."

    Is he? I can never tell. You'd think I could, since good-lookers ought to be able to detect who their competition is. People say that about evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller too, but again, it was news to me.

    It's probably not good for their academic careers, since good looks pay off more in the task of addressing crowds -- people will at least half-believe anything a good-looking person says.

    And don't underestimate the temptation to leave boney-ankled academia for the world of larger but still educated audiences. Gets you more groupies.

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  4. I'm also trying low carb, but as a vegetarian. It's not easy, but having the base of my diet as veggies, beans, nuts, eggs, and cheese seems to be enough.

    It's actually more of a South Beach diet than anything else. Any tips? The wheat gluten fake meat seems to do a pretty good job of replacing chicken dishes.

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  5. Geoffrey Miller?

    Yes, though not as he is now.

    He used to be pretty darn cute, in that English school boy sort of way.

    http://www.edge.org/books/images/miller200.jpg

    http://members.cox.net/travis.prall/Geoffrey%20Miller.gif

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  6. Since a large corporation like Whole Foods doesn't stick its neck out for no reasonIt's easy to assume that a large corporation is always going to be acting like some sort of unholy profit-maximizing machine, but in my limited experience this doesn't usually happen until the founder is dead and gone. And John Mackey is still around.

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  7. agnostic,

    You wrote: "Is he? I can never tell. You'd think I could, since good-lookers ought to be able to detect who their competition is."

    You're not good looking at all. And I'm not saying this because I'm a racist. You're just not really good looking. And you look weak and soft.

    And re the comment about Gary Taubes, I think the commenter was being sarcastic. He just looks like a typical New York Jew, big nose, owlish eyes, etc.

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  8. Nah, I've been getting catcalls pretty regularly from cute girls since I was about 23, so I know by now that I'm good-looking.

    And I'm one of the few guys in a club who they'll form a circle around while staring up with their doe eyes.

    Nice try, though. You're cute.

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  9. No, I wasn't joking about Gary Taubes.

    By the way, I don't think he looks like the typical New York Jew at all, except for the aquiline nose. I guess I'm thinking of the John Podhoretz type.

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  10. Check out the latest from Testosterone magazine on high fat diets and Gary Taubes work:

    http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_interviews/eat_your_lungs_out_while_getting_leaner

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  11. I love how you let that insulting comment through just so you could talk about how good-looking you are. Modest as always, I see. Not to mention full of yourself. Now let's see if you let this one go through. Just like you didn't let that comment about how you're so wrong about South Asian American girls and 'exotic' go through, because it revealed your theories (some of them) as the bullshit they are.

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  12. Nah, I was 100% correct in assessing why that SWPL comic artist had to tip-toe around the issue of exotification among South Asian girls.

    If you think it through -- why else would he bend over backwards to prove how anti -- ANTI! -- exotifying his mind is?

    "Modest as always, I see."

    Anonymous losers on the internet have no power to shame me into changing my behavior.

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  13. Unecat -- I'm flattered that you're obsessed with what I look like, but I'm strictly against doing fags, as dire as your need for pity fucks may be.

    Be sure to send your teenage sister or cousin over, though. I'll allow you to watch for a thousand dollars. Hell, I'll throw in some free Viagra so you can at least get a half-chubby.

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  14. Seriously dude, the stalking was flattering at first, but now you're just coming off as needy -- even if your man-crush were gay, I don't think he'd dig your clingy vibe.

    (Just trying to help you dust yourself off and do better in the future with someone else.)

    Coconut oil was a staple among South Sea islanders -- people who would crush your skull for being one of those yap-yap doggies that constantly circles and pesters the getting-shit-done dog.

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