So tired of all the mixed health information out there page

[Nomad1]

I just switched from a (10 year) vegetarian lifestyle to a primal one. Trying primal for at least a month.
I have been programmed for years that meat is horrible for me, even by doctors. It's hard to go against that programming, especially when you see articles saying how meat is bad for you, will increase you cancer risk etc. Other articles saying how meat/butter will cause heart attacks, etc.
How difficult is it to get real science on this? How do we put a man on the moon, but we can't determine simple stuff like this without all the wishy washy information on it?
Do you guys know of any studies or links that talk about how the studies or findings have been refuted? That meat will not harm you? What are your thoughts on it or how do you process things in your mind so you don't think you are doing harm to your body? Heart attacks, cancer and diabetes run amok in my family.

[eelnus]

If you like to read, I would recommend reading the following books:
Good Calories Bad Calories
Life Without Bread
Primal Blueprint (of course)

And I recommend the movie Fathead. You may not like it or agree, but there are some insights in the movie about how the government chose to ignore science and push the lipid hypothesis and grains.

[Balance]

A good place to start is to read the Primal Blueprint unless you have already read it. Gary Taubes debunks a lot of conventonal wisdom on saturated fat and cholesterol in his book Good Calories Bad Calories. (Which can be very dry and technical, if you want an easier read he just released Why We Get Fat).

All I know is that my grandparents visited the butcher every week for their food. They ate lots of red meat, full fat dairy (I don't think there were other options back then) and eggs. My grandparents even smoked socially and drank liberally. But they never had heart disease or cancer. My grandmother just hit 101 this year and she still doesn't take any type of medication. They might have had stellar genes which I am very thankful for, but the truth is that in the early 1900's people ate a lot of whole foods, meat/poultry, dairy(butter) and eggs. A lot of people smoked during those times as well. But the incidence of heart disease and cancer was way lower than it is nowadays. Now they have all this lowfat crap, a multitude of cooking oils, and more processed food than ever and our rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer is at an all time high.

[Balance]

If you like to read, I would recommend reading the following books:
Good Calories Bad Calories
Life Without Bread
Primal Blueprint (of course)

And I recommend the movie Fathead. You may not like it or agree, but there are some insights in the movie about how the government chose to ignore science and push the lipid hypothesis and grains.

I was just going to say Fathead is a good documentary to watch. It highlights a lot of points on saturated fats and cholesterol as being villafied by the government and the Lipid Hypothesis (Ancel Keyes).

[pattyd]

I hear ya. I`m tired of it all too. Heart disease runs in my family as well and it`s scary with all the conflicting info out there. I don`t have any help for you, just comradery. I`m with eeinus, I`m convinced money and power has alot more to do with it than anything else. I just try to read, learn from other`s experiences, weigh it out logically and intuitively, experiment and go with how my body and mind react to what I`m trying after giving it a reasonable amount of time.

[DianeThePurple]

I think one problem is that it's very hard to study lifestyle and how it affects large groups of people. There are so many variables it's pretty much impossible to do proper experiments.

Welcome! I hope you like it here & I hope you'll stay.

[inquisitiveone]

As DianeThePurple said, doing real, controlled experiments on humans would be extremely difficult—not to mention that such a design probably wouldn't pass an ethics review board.

What we're left with are: quasi-experiments—where some variables are controlled, but others aren't (because they can't be or because it would be too difficult to accomplish); and epidemiological studies, in which researchers look for relationships among variables, oftentimes while trying to "control" (hold constant) other ones. Both still have problems, but a decent quasi-experiment has more power than epidemiological studies ... sadly, it's usually also much more expensive.

For a real eye-opening look at the state of nutritional research, I encourage you to visit Raw Food SOS. Denise Minger really knows how to dissect research.

[nachobrawler]

The problem you are describing, Nomad 1, is a political one. I live and work in a scientific field as a scientist. And I can tell you...science is INTENSELY political. It is a sad situation that the people studying the nutrition and health of our bodies cannot seperate themselves from the politics of their hypotheses and arguments. But they cant. And here's why...when you spend YEARS lobbying to get money to do research in a certain field because you have a hypothesis about something...when you finally get the money to do the research you DESPERATELY want to ensurev your hypothesis is proven true. If it is proven false....there is a feeling that all that time lobbying and all that money funding the research HAS BEEN WASTED. So, researchers do their level best to ensure data and results support their hypothesis...positive, confirmed results mean more money and more research!!!!

And that doesnt even take into account when our government gets involved!!! The USDA has thousands of lobbyists pressing for their "needs" everdyday.

Money and political clout talks....and true science suffers. And that is why the CW is as crappy and wrong as it is....

[O_O]

This study will put down that study then the new study will put down that study.... On and on it goes. It gets sickening after a while.

I say eat real food. Whole food. Avoid products even low carb products.

Eat food from a plant not made in a plant. - Michael Pollan

[Nomad1]

Thank you all, I'm watching Fat Head right now and then I'll come back and read this thread. I appreciate your feedback.