In his March 18th article, “Food news can cause indigestion,” The Seattle Times staff columnist Jerry Large humorously begins, “Do you eat food? If yes, then maybe you haven’t been reading all the latest news.”
Large writes how he is striving to adapt to changing nutrition recommendations and doing “whatever it takes to stay healthy.” For instance, Large is considering a weekly plan of meatless Mondays, fish Fridays, tofu Tuesdays, and maybe water-only Wednesdays.
I thought, Water-only what? He must be joking, but it’s hard to tell. Before anyone considers a diet that includes regular fasting, perhaps they should consider what the Bible says on nutrition and spiritual, health-promotive thoughts – but more on that in a minute.
Reading the online comments to the Large article, I found that I’m not the only one viewing nutritional reports in the media with a grain of salt. Have you noticed how the reports are often contradictory? Experts have noticed this also, including science writer Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories - Bad Calories, who has questioned the validity of many widely accepted ideas regarding carbs, calories, and what is considered healthy eating.
Another critic of nutritional studies is respected meta-researcher Dr. John Ioannidis, of the Stanford School of Medicine. Ioannidis has spent his career uncovering bias and wrong conclusions in medical research. His findings have shown that studies often sharply conflict with one another and are prone to numerous errors. When asked by The Atlantic "How should we choose among these dueling, high profile nutritional findings?" Ioannidis suggests a simple approach: ignore them all.
That’s right, he suggests we ignore all the nutritional studies.
It leaves me wondering where we should turn when it comes to finding healthful eating guides. It may not be everyone’s first place to look, but I’ve noticed that relevant perspectives regarding today’s discussions on eating and health can be found in the Bible. Here are a few:
Article comments
1 - NorCalCS
One of your best blogs yet, Bill. Great job!
2 - zingzing
holy claptrap!
3 - Dr Dreadful
Another demonstration of how you can take pretty much anything said by anybody in the Bible and contort it to support any argument.
The Old Testament does actually have some pretty specific dietary advice, mainly involving things you're not allowed to eat. Personally, I reckon Jews aren't allowed to eat things like shellfish because some rabbi long ago didn't like shellfish and figured that if he couldn't have any, nobody else ought to be able to either.
4 - Zingzing
More for me.
5 - Bill Scott
Eric - I appreciate the thumbs up and for following my posts!
Zingzing - sorry you didn’t find my post worthwhile, but love your concise comments.
Dr D. - I agree that the spiritual meaning of the Bible is susceptible to misinterpretation. I’d prefer not to dive into Old Testament dietary restrictions, but welcome your views on the four Bible references I made.
Thanks for the comments!
6 - Dr Dreadful
Well, Bill, with the possible exception of Daniel, I don't think the references have anything to do with nutritional advice.
7 - Bill Scott
Fair enough, viewing nutritional advice from a conventional perspective, but I think Jesus was offering healthful advice. Nonetheless, ask yourself-- what value is something experts encourage us to ignore?
8 - Dr Joseph S Maresca
Life expectancy was much lower two thousand years ago. People ate essentially the Mediterranean Diet of fish, fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds and water.
Our life expectancy improved over the centuries due to better sanitation, medical advances, refrigeration, mass media, penicillium, better education etc.
9 - Bill Scott
I wonder if anyone really knows how long people lived 2,000 years ago? I mentioned how the French are less considered with what they eat. This cultural characteristic has apparently not harmed their life expectancy, since it is higher than that of Americans.
10 - Dr Dreadful
I wonder if anyone really knows how long people lived 2,000 years ago?
Yes, we do. Bones and teeth can tell us the age at which people died and can also tell us a lot about their state of health.
11 - Bill Scott
Good to know. Getting a little off topic, but do you know of any studies that have answered the question?
12 - Dr Dreadful
Yes, many thousands of them. If you go to Google Scholar and type something like "determining age at death" into the search box, you will find all the papers on the subject you can handle! (A lot of them will be abstracts or summaries that ask you to subscribe and/or pay in order to see the whole thing, but you should find at least a few full-text articles.)
13 - Dr Dreadful
Although any discussion of life expectancy ought to keep in mind the fact that the human genes that control aging haven't changed much over the last hundred thousand or so years. Life expectancy statistics are an average, and are skewed low in most historical populations by their extremely high rates of infant mortality.
Nevertheless, if you could make it past childhood and manage to avoid disease, you had every chance of living to a ripe old age.
14 - Bill Scott
Thanks for the feedback. Getting back to a mental diet of health-promotive thoughts-- there is an interesting report recently published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. It’s called, “Happy People Live Longer: Subjective Well-Being Contributes to Health and Longevity.” Interesting read.