Here’s an interesting little article on the link between home cooking and health by NPR’s Melissa McEwen that illustrates how we have to be careful about the assumptions we make. There is a tendency with science reporting in the media to simplify complex ideas. This, of course, is necessary when you have to contend with word limits. But that same simplification can bleed over into policy statements, as illustrated in this article. It has been taken as a truism that cooking and eating more frequently at home will lead to overall better health, especially in terms of conditions like metabolic syndrome, a precursor to type 2 diabetes. New research indicates that this may not actually be the case – but importantly, the article also points out that more research needs to be done to see exactly what the connections really are. This is the scientific method and critical thinking in a nutshell and shows how important it is to be skeptical of broad claims.
Tag: health
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Daily Reads: Exercise Vs. Diet
Did you make a New Year’s resolution to get healthier, eat better, exercise more, perhaps lose some weight? Read this article from Dick Talens at Lifehacker that looks at meta-analyses of research on whether it’s better to focus on calories or exercise when it comes to weight loss. Spoiler: diet is the key factor for weight loss, while exercise is the key factor for health.
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Affording to Care
As readers of this blog know, I advocate looking at an issue from multiple perspectives and using facts, logic, and an arsenal of critical thinking skills to reach a conclusion about just about everything. For some issues, this is easy. For others, it is very, very difficult. I am facing that difficulty right now. I don’t usually like to post about current events because I want my posts to be generally applicable instead of linked to a specific issue, but this post will be an exception. I am having an incredibly difficult time keeping any sense of perspective over the fact that the federal government shut down at 12:00 am on October 1, 2013 because of what seems to essentially be a game of chicken – or more accurately, a hostage situation. I just don’t get it. I am trying to remind myself that as much as I believe in my point of view, the people on the other side believe in theirs and have a right to it… but I am also reminding myself that sometimes, it’s okay to come to the conclusion that the other side is just. plain. wrong. This feels like one of those times to me.
Much of my current state of mind comes from emotion, and I admit that it can color my analysis, but in this case I also think the facts are on my side. The thing is, this showdown over the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is not just about facts; it’s about ideology. It’s about a fundamental disconnect between two ideological realms: one that believes the government has a duty to provide for all its citizens, and one that believes that individuals are solely responsible for taking care of their own needs. Of course, there are nuances to these two ideologies, and a broad spectrum of positions between their poles. But my training in anthropology has taught me about the structure of culture and society – from the simplest hunter-gatherer band to the most complex industrial civilization – and I am convinced that the hunter-gatherers have it right. These groups stress interdependence among their members, with an egalitarian structure that doesn’t allow for status hierarchies or any one person having more power or possessions than others in the group. In fact, hunter-gatherers must provide for each other, because the survival of individuals depends on the survival of the group. Group survival is paramount. In many industrial societies, this notion has been turned on its head. Status, materialism, and individual achievement are paramount. However, this does not mean the burden of the ruling class to provide for societal needs is negated; in fact, it becomes more important than ever, because a class-based, stratified social system is by its very definition a system that allocates more resources at the top, and fewer resources at the bottom. The bootstrap individualist will argue that any individual has the capacity, with hard work and gumption, to climb to the top of the ladder. This is loosely true, but it ignores the complexities of living within an entrenched class system. In a class-based system, the playing field is not level. When you are standing 100 yards behind the starting line when the gun goes off, you have to run harder and surmount more obstacles than the runners who start ahead of you… and those runners are apt to leave even more obstacles in their wake. And, of course, there are only so many spots on the winners’ podium, so even if you see it and keep running towards it, chances are the people already standing there will fight tooth and nail to retain their position.
In many ways I believe that the hegemonic lie perpetuated by this system – that is, the lie that there is space on the podium for everyone and all it takes is hard work to get there – is the root cause of our current crisis. The fight to defund the Affordable Care Act is championed by those who believe it is unfair for government to provide care to its poorest citizens. It is fought by those who believe that the poor just don’t work hard enough, or don’t try hard enough, or are lazy or entitled or accustomed to government handouts. Unfortunately, there are examples of people for whom this is true; but I don’t think it is true for the vast majority of those who are too poor, too sick, or too underemployed to afford health insurance. A successful culture is defined as one that secures the survival of the individuals that comprise it in a way that is fulfilling for most of them, most of the time. Clearly we are not meeting that definition in the United States. Other industrialized nations are having similar troubles, but at least most of them seem to have figured out that taking care of people’s physical (i.e. medical) needs is one thing that government should be responsible for. Our individualistic hegemony has obscured the path to a successful culture and society, so that opponents of the health care act criticize it as “unfair” because money they consider theirs – that is, the taxes they pay – is being spent to subsidize health care for those unable to pay for it. It’s “unfair” because those without health insurance now have a way to afford it because it spreads the risk amongst a much larger pool and allows for much cheaper premiums. It’s “unfair” because low-income people are being subsidized with taxes from individuals and businesses when they should just be working harder so they can get off the dole. It’s “unfair” because Congress is “exempt” (forgetting, conveniently, that the ACA is meant for people whose employers don’t provide health coverage, which Congress – also known as the federal government! – does provide for both elected officials and their staffs). It’s “unfair” because the burden of keeping the population healthy is being borne by those higher up the status hierarchy. To me, this is like those people on the winners’ podium – who know damn well that space on the podium is limited – flaunting their trophies and doing end-zone dances instead of shaking the hands of their fellow competitors and offering to help them over some of the barriers that they themselves may not have had to face. Instead of acknowledging that we are all in the same race, and working to make that race an equal chance for all, the winners instead blame the other competitors for having to race on an uneven track that they had no hand in devising and have very little ability to change.
As I said at the start, I have a very hard time maintaining my objectivity about this subject. All I can see is that a group of individualist ideologues is willing to take down the entire system just so that our weakest, most vulnerable citizens have no chance at even seeing the podium, much less standing on it. I know this part of my argument is not logical, but right now, with this situation, I can’t help but give some heed to emotion.
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Anti Anti-Bacterial
I have a confession to make: sometimes I defrost chicken on the counter. I also eat pizza or leftovers that have sat out overnight. I frequently give a perfunctory sniff to milk that is still in my fridge past the date on the carton, and if it doesn’t smell wrong I drink it. I don’t always wash fresh fruit and vegetables before eating them. If my cheese is moldy, I trim it off then eat the remaining cheese. I’ve ingested potato salad that has baked in the sun. I don’t use a thermometer to make sure my meat has reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees before I remove it from the grill or the oven, I drink water straight from the tap, and I never, ever, use antibacterial wipes to sanitize the handle of my grocery store shopping cart.
I believe we are doing ourselves a grave disservice with our obsession over cleanliness in this country. By now, most people have heard of the problems that have arisen from the misuse of antibiotics. We have bred superbugs by overprescribing antibiotics and overusing antibacterial products. This is natural selection, pure and simple: when you take antibiotics inappropriately, either by asking for them for illnesses that are not caused by bacteria (e.g. colds, flus, and other viruses) or by not taking the full course of medication for genuine bacterial infections, only the weak bugs get killed, and the strongest ones survive to pass on their DNA to the next generation. And, bacteria have very, very, very short generation times – as short as a few minutes in many cases (compare that to the human generation time of approximately 20 years). This scourge has been helped along by the proliferation of antibacterial household products – dish soap, laundry soap, cleaners, etc. – as well as a paranoid overabundance of hand sanitizers, antibacterial hand soap, and antibacterial wipes. I was stunned when handy popup dispensers of these wipes started appearing at the front of grocery cart stalls with friendly signs inviting shoppers to wipe down the cart handle. I was frustrated when I was unable to find non-antibacterial dish or hand soap at the store. And lately I have found myself furious at commercials that cluck disapprovingly at the fictional mom who uses *GASP* a dishrag to wipe her toddler’s high chair tray instead of a disposable, antibacterial towelette, or who fails to install a popup dispenser of disposable hand towels in her bathroom.
What the hell has happened to us? Well, other than breeding superbugs, we are also breeding a generation of weaker, sicklier children. New research is showing the vital importance of the bacterial colonies that live on and in our bodies, colonies that we change – sometimes irreversibly – through our misuse of antibacterial products. When we take antibiotics, we kill the healthy flora in our gut along with the illness-causing bacteria. When we constantly douse children with antibacterial gel, we don’t allow them the healthy exposure to bugs that they need to build a natural immunity. Ever wonder why seemingly mild illnesses can kill when they are brought into contact with populations that have never experienced them? It’s because they didn’t get that exposure as children. In fact, in parts of the Amazon it’s actually illegal for outsiders to try to contact indigenous tribes because they have no immunity to modern diseases. Vaccines operate on this basic, simple principle: limited exposure to a pathogen (viruses, in the case of vaccines) trains the body to recognize it the next time, and the body is already primed with the appropriate immune response. The same is true of early childhood exposure to bacteria and other pathogens and allergens. Increases in asthma and allergies in kids appears to be directly correlated with being too clean.
As far as I know, I have had food poisoning three times in my life. I’m sure there have been other instances but there’s only three that I can identify with absolute certainty. As far as I can tell, I have never gotten food poisoning from room-temperature defrosted or undercooked meat, unwashed produce, or countertop leftovers. I happily gnawed on the grocery-cart handle as a kid, and my mom never doused me with antibacterials. I haven’t always washed my hands before eating or even after using the bathroom. I have no allergies, no asthma, and a healthy, normally functioning immune system. I catch an occasional cold – maybe once a year – and haven’t had the flu since last century. Now, my experience is of course anecdotal, not scientific. But the research to show what our dependence on some mythical standard of cleanliness is doing to us is out there, and I think society as a whole would be wise to heed it. Yes, wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow, be aware of seasonal illnesses like the flu, and minimize your exposure to pathogens when possible, but be rational about it, and don’t be sucked in by the antibacterial panic.