In so far as a person committed to an elimination routine with their diet and found themselves to have (whatever degree) intolerance to certain foods that is a healthy rational decision. The scientists here would have you believe that if people are avoiding foods to obtain a desired health result you are practicing pseudoscience. That is absurd and insulting. Before I go further: I do not believe I have any intolerance to any bread or wheat product, at least which I can directly observe. But I do avoid them, more for other reasons than for gluten or lectins necessarily. Furthermore; while I am sympathetic to the Paleo-diet I find its premise to be useful as a guideline but not in the long run. I do not practice it. Gluten is not the only substance in plants which can cause problems among people. There are lectins. Lectins are proteins found in varying degrees in plants and animals which bind to nutrients and cells, often during digestion, and have been shown to cause damage and inflammation in this regard. Again, to differing degrees. Some, for whatever reason, none at all. ( ajcn.nutrition.org/content/33/11/2338.full.pdf+html ) Imagine you are intolerant to a particular lectin protein which you are exposed to daily, but it is only mild and you feel very little effect. Perhaps diarrhea 1 times a month which you decide is just normal, but inside you also have mild gut inflammation even a mild immune response... (lets not forget there are things which you do not see, such as gut flora disruption) Now imagine that inflammation going on for 30 years unabated. If a person has bad health, or has always taken as normal their so-so standard of health but then decides to pursue a rational diet deliberately chosen, that is NOT pseudoscience. That is what every rational value pursuing individual OUGHT to do if they wish to live life to the fullest. (I am speaking in common Objectivist terms, these words mean very specific things to us) So long as they are being completely honesty and applying the most sound reason, questioning everything and comparing it against what is known...constantly updating and reassessing as new knowledge comes in. That is good and right. Or you can choose to believe your diet AND your bodily functions are complex unknowable workings better left to over worked medical professionals taking nutritional advice from a government food department run by the likes of Michelle Obama and Laura Bush. If that is the easy option and my alternative is to be accused of pseudoscience I would rather be known as a diet mystic than die living by the standards of bureaucrats.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 16:28:58 +0000
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