One thing to note about Wrangham’s thesis regarding the different caloric potential in cooked vs. raw foods is that he was including the calories burned in his analysis; in his view, digestion of raw meats consumes an substantially greater amount of calories than digestion of cooked meats, meaning that you will net sigificantly fewer calories when eating raw meat. Your response to this aspect of the query seems not to account for this, although I’d be interested in your take.

Thanks for your important work.

By that measure, we should also be skeptical of any research sponsored by the American Heart Association, or the NIH, or any other government body, in that they have a vested interest in preserving and protecting whatever policies and recommendations they have been making for years now.

They would NEVER, EVER sponsor research that would potentially negate all the stuff they’ve been espousing. . . fat will kill you, vegetables are perfect food, eat whole grains.

Nutrition research is not really science, like physics is science. There is way more religion and preaching involved.

Marion noted in a recent post that Nutrition is an infernally difficult field. (A ‘science’ not quite.) Research is ambiguous and hard to interpret (or spin).

Yet, curiously, it’s the only ‘science’ that continually makes bold pronouncements, recommendations, and prescriptions based on iffy and shaky evidence.

“we don’t really know, but do what we say, anyway.”

Phooey.

I read that NYTimes article about two minutes after I have posted on this blog during my morning Internet rounds. I just knew a savvy person would link to it by time I got home.

still stand by my initial comment because in this instance, there is evidence of patterns from the national Dairy Council and many corporately funded nutritional research projects. I understand the point John Tierney is making in that article, but he’s speaking in generalities.

In her book “What to Eat,” Marion Nestle lays out solid reasons to hold a certain degree of skepticism when reviewing research sponsored by the dairy industry.

Again, it doesn’t nullify the study, but we should weight this knowledge with everything else.

John Tierney wrote a piece in today’s times on this issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/26tier.html?ref=todayspaper

A mass refusal of industry money would only serve as a major hindrance to researchers and greatly limit the amount of new research that is produced. I agree with Tierney’s sentiment; quality research is quality research, regardless of who pays for it.

That doesn’t make it automatically erroneous but it is something to bear in mind, especially with the track record you have recognized in the recent past:

http://www.foodpolitics.com/2008/07/guess-the-sponsor-rbgh-milk-study/

Micro-analysis doesn’t really help anything – just look at the history:

Animal fat eaters have thrived for 2 million years of evolution. We will continue to do so, so long as we get rid of the grain-fed, factory-farmed industry and get back to supporting the life cycle through permacultural animal husbandry. Animal fats are the key component of the human diet – we need them in order to thrive both physiologically and psychologically, so we have to stop science messing with our fuel at the molecular level!

Sugar eaters (i.e. processed sugars and grains) have been feeding their habit for a much shorter length of time, and just look at the explosion of diabetes and obesity and cancer… The fact that so many people CONTINUE to be aware that SUGAR is what makes you fat & causes heart disease etc horrifies me – just look at the way we ‘treat’ diabetes and don’t tell cancer sufferers that glucose is what fuels tumor cell development!

Eat real food. Organic meat & veg. Leave the grains to the herbivores & don’t eat anything that required detoxification and processing to make it even slightly edible.