4 ms·

Americans Don't Trust Scientists' Take on Food Issues

11 points by evo_9 10y ago

nkkollaw 10y ago
It's working pretty well, isn't it.
h4nkoslo 10y ago
Why should they? The "consensus scientific advice" on diet has changed so many times over the past 100 years that scientists have quite appropriately lost credibility on the issue.
douche 10y ago
Literally everything I have ever heard in scientific "news" about food and nutrition has been contradicted by some other piece of "news". Now, the lion's share of that blame falls on the absolutely deplorable state of popular scientific journalism, but the net result is a strong suspicion that the so-called experts are making shit up as they go along and haven't the foggiest idea what they are talking about.
Neliquat 10y ago
The fat vs sugar myth. The carb myth. The last 40 years have been generally abysmal for food science, besides making more food cheaper. Dozens of non profit professional orgs were, and are still, paid off by corporate interests. Maybe the problem is more with the reporting of information than the studies, both need to be examined critically.
JPKab 10y ago
In the 90's, I watched my dad cut out as much meat as possible and replace it with things like pastas and other low-fat foods because the scientists and the FDA told us that it was healthy. I was stuck eating this high-carb diet myself. I'd go over to my friend's house, whose parents both viewed the government recommendations with suspicion. They were a typical country family who fed us eggs and bacon for breakfast. I loved staying there and I always felt much better eating like that. Now I know that all these changes my family made were based on bullshit science, and were detrimental to our health. My dad got heart disease, several of my siblings had weight problems..... Fuck food science. The entire nutritional science community is rife with terrible science and bad ethics. Studies that don't fit the narrative are buried, and scientists that speak out are discredited. All the while, the public health is bearing the brunt of these fools.
- devoply 10y ago
  That's because the science is not influenced by just scientists but pseudo-science backed by industry selling stuff. Our science establishment sucks to a degree and it's mostly because of money. Money for grants comes from benefactors and often has strings attached. Scientists can't just do science they must constantly publish, and publish even if they don't have good findings. etc. etc. Science itself has become an industry beholden to economics. With all the problems that go along with that.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  Organic Chemistry, 1985. The professor specialized in biological organic chemistry. One class on fats and whatnot, he described how, while the public and media were focused on the supposed risks of saturated fats, he and his colleagues were coming to believe that the highest risk fats were the partially hydrogenated -- the manufactured fats. Only took 20 years for this to begin breaking in the mainstream media and public awareness.
pc2g4d 10y ago
I count myself among the skeptics. As others commenting here pointed out, the track record of food science is terrible. And it's true that the incentives guiding scientific publication _about_ food are not directly aligned with the incentives of average Americans _eating_ food (though presumably the scientists also eat....) Publish or perish. Overinterpreted associational studies. Clear accounts of industry manipulating the scientific literature over decades (tobacco, sugar). The endless substances assumed safe but later proven to be damaging to health, sometimes horribly so. So the recently proclamations of the safety of GMO food, at times made by people with a deep interest in one particular outcome, are rightly received with skepticism. As the election of Donald Trump recently reminded us, the mainstream can be very, very wrong in spite of very smart people expounding its views. It's so easy for systemic bias to become accepted as truth, and so easy to become invested in _not_ seeing that.

11 points by evo_9 10y ago

It's working pretty well, isn't it.

Why should they? The "consensus scientific advice" on diet has changed so many times over the past 100 years that scientists have quite appropriately lost credibility on the issue.

douche 10y ago

Literally everything I have ever heard in scientific "news" about food and nutrition has been contradicted by some other piece of "news". Now, the lion's share of that blame falls on the absolutely deplorable state of popular scientific journalism, but the net result is a strong suspicion that the so-called experts are making shit up as they go along and haven't the foggiest idea what they are talking about.

Neliquat 10y ago

The fat vs sugar myth. The carb myth. The last 40 years have been generally abysmal for food science, besides making more food cheaper. Dozens of non profit professional orgs were, and are still, paid off by corporate interests. Maybe the problem is more with the reporting of information than the studies, both need to be examined critically.

JPKab 10y ago

In the 90's, I watched my dad cut out as much meat as possible and replace it with things like pastas and other low-fat foods because the scientists and the FDA told us that it was healthy. I was stuck eating this high-carb diet myself. I'd go over to my friend's house, whose parents both viewed the government recommendations with suspicion. They were a typical country family who fed us eggs and bacon for breakfast. I loved staying there and I always felt much better eating like that. Now I know that all these changes my family made were based on bullshit science, and were detrimental to our health. My dad got heart disease, several of my siblings had weight problems..... Fuck food science. The entire nutritional science community is rife with terrible science and bad ethics. Studies that don't fit the narrative are buried, and scientists that speak out are discredited. All the while, the public health is bearing the brunt of these fools.

devoply 10y ago
That's because the science is not influenced by just scientists but pseudo-science backed by industry selling stuff. Our science establishment sucks to a degree and it's mostly because of money. Money for grants comes from benefactors and often has strings attached. Scientists can't just do science they must constantly publish, and publish even if they don't have good findings. etc. etc. Science itself has become an industry beholden to economics. With all the problems that go along with that.
pasbesoin 10y ago
Organic Chemistry, 1985. The professor specialized in biological organic chemistry. One class on fats and whatnot, he described how, while the public and media were focused on the supposed risks of saturated fats, he and his colleagues were coming to believe that the highest risk fats were the partially hydrogenated -- the manufactured fats. Only took 20 years for this to begin breaking in the mainstream media and public awareness.

pc2g4d 10y ago

I count myself among the skeptics. As others commenting here pointed out, the track record of food science is terrible. And it's true that the incentives guiding scientific publication _about_ food are not directly aligned with the incentives of average Americans _eating_ food (though presumably the scientists also eat....) Publish or perish. Overinterpreted associational studies. Clear accounts of industry manipulating the scientific literature over decades (tobacco, sugar). The endless substances assumed safe but later proven to be damaging to health, sometimes horribly so. So the recently proclamations of the safety of GMO food, at times made by people with a deep interest in one particular outcome, are rightly received with skepticism. As the election of Donald Trump recently reminded us, the mainstream can be very, very wrong in spite of very smart people expounding its views. It's so easy for systemic bias to become accepted as truth, and so easy to become invested in _not_ seeing that.