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I'll grant you that there appears to be a thin line between mystical thinking and genuine curiosity when it comes to the whole-foods movement. But we do a disse
by jonnathanson 13y ago
I'll grant you that there appears to be a thin line between mystical thinking and genuine curiosity when it comes to the whole-foods movement. But we do a disservice when we conflate the two.
The more rational argument in favor of whole foods isn't that there's something fundamentally, irreducibly complex about them. It's that we don't yet know everything there is to know about how various nutrients work, and we're learning more all the time. While it's true that a chemical is a chemical is a chemical [1], we don't fully understand which chemicals are necessary, which are unnecessary, and which ones need which other ones to absorb or function properly. All we can say is that whole foods offer the whole package; what we can't yet say is that we've completely reverse-engineered that package. Someday we might, but today's science would beg to differ.
That's not Vitalism. Vitalism is something very different. It's a belief in some sort of "life force" that imbues the animal and vegetable kingdom, along with the implication that we'll never be able to recreate it. There are a lot of armchair Vitalists in the whole foods and organic foods movements. But dismissing the entire whole-foods hypothesis based on their beliefs is attacking a strawman.
[1] To an extent, of course. If we really want to go down this rabbit hole, we need to get into subjects like chirality, enantiomers, methyl groups, etc., and how the food industries tend to choose the cheapest version X if it's similar to Y, rather than choosing Y itself. Y may or may not have the same bioavailability as X, metabolize into the same byproducts, etc. For a good example, look into "Vitamin B12" in methylcobalamin form vs. cyanocobalamin form, as well as its other chemical cousins. All of these compounds can be labeled "Vitamin B12" in consumer products, even though they behave differently in the body.
- steveklabnik 13y agoCan you help me grok the differences between > The more rational argument in favor of whole foods isn't that there's something fundamentally, irreducibly complex about them. And > It's a belief in some sort of "life force" that imbues the animal and vegetable kingdom, along with the implication that we'll never be able to recreate it. ? Is it that in the first, we have the possibility of knowing, but dont have the power yet? "Irreducably" suggests to me the same thing as "we'll never be able to recreate it."
- ryanbrunner 13y agoIt confused me at first, the "isn't" is hard to catch. He's saying that there is not something irreducibly complex about food.
- jonnathanson 13y agoYeah, it's not my finest sentence. I went back and italicized the "isn't," and maybe later I'll rethink the structure of that sentence entirely. It's a bit confusingly stated.
- jonnathanson 13y agoI think you misread my first sentence there. I said isn't, not is. :) As in: "the right argument isn't that there's something irreducibly complex. Instead, it's..." I'm going to go back and italicize for emphasis.
- steveklabnik 13y agoAh! Yes, something about it tripped me up. Thanks!
- jonnathanson 13y agoNo worries. It's good feedback. Sometimes I find myself writing quickly and sloppily on HN -- especially when I want to post comment before running off to a meeting (or what have you). When stuff like this happens, though, it reminds me to tighten up my writing. Speed is no excuse for sloppiness!
- lukifer 13y agoI see the desire for whole foods as simple gastronomic conservatism: for better or worse, our species has done very well on foods like fish and leafy greens for millions of years. Given the clear consequences of poor diet, I make the choice to play it safe. Doesn't mean there needs to be any antagonism towards those who make a different choice. I applaud the Soylent creator for experimenting with his body and his life. I just hope that those who take this lifestyle leap, or any other, don't become too certain of their choice, because it turns out that biology is really, really hard.
- jonnathanson 13y agoAgreed. Until I'm more confident that we've successfully learned all we need to learn, and reverse-engineered all we need to reverse-engineer -- and figured out which corners we can cut, and which we can't -- I'll take the whole foods wager when/if I can afford to. All of that said, I am not a Vitalist. I am pretty sure biology is reducible, and that it can be reverse-engineered -- eventually. I just don't think we're sufficiently there yet. In the meantime, I begrudge no one their choices, either way. And I applaud the Soylent team for its efforts. We should be doing more to reverse-engineer nature, so that we can get better at it. The best way to solve the problem is to keep trying and learning.
- dsizzle 13y agoA main point of the article argued against there being a meaningful distinction between whole and "non-whole" foods, but you've assumed there is. A main component of Soylent is rice protein -- do you think using just the rice protein is less "conservative" than putting whole rice in the mixture?