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  1. .
    This blog entry scrutinizes articles on the Internet for intellectual dishonesty, especially the following:
    1. Serious omissions.
    2. Using weasel words.
    3. Treating an opinion or theory as a matter of fact.
    4. Looking for confirmation evidence.
    5. Treating an controversial idea as though it is factual.
    6. Engaging in Obfuscation.
    7. Relying on outdated data or research that since shown to be wrong.
    8. Factually wrong.
    9. References that do not support the argument.

    Entry no 1.
    Skeptoid Podcast #608
    Palm Oil Facts and Fiction by Brian Dunning .
    FACTUALLY INCORRECT.
    I would not doubt Brian's sincerity, here he has clearly misunderstood the issues, the first being hydrogenation. This is an industrial process oil- usually seed oil- is heated to a high temperature in a catalyst and in layman's terms converts a percentage of unsaturated fat into saturated fat. For edible products - I am reluctant to use the term food- only partial hydrogenation takes place. Generally applied to margarine and hardened vegetable oil but also some other products such as peanut butter. It would seem that in north America hydrogenated lard is for sale. Why anyone wants to turn a health food into an unhealthy food is one of the great mysteries of life. Anyway as a result of partial hydrogenation, trans fat or more specifically Elaidic acid is produced as a by-product. There is a substantial body of scientific evidence that Elaidic acid is extremely harmful to human health. As it does not occur naturally in nature, the human body has difficulty processing it.
    Quote,"Fat that has not been hydrogenated at all is called unsaturated fat, and it's of least concern for health."
    Every fat and oil has varying percentages saturated, unsaturated and polyunsaturated fat. Animal fats are naturally high in saturated fat; palm kernel oil and coconut oil are even higher. There is no requirement for any of these fats and oils to be hydrogenated as Brian is suggested and the only time it happens is with some lard in north America.As a side note you can buy hydrogenated coconut oil sold as Copha.When legislation started coming in around the world limiting trans fat in food, manufacturers started switching to palm kernal oil because it is naturally 75% saturated and contains no trans fat.

    It would seem that Brian thinks all fats high in saturated fat are hydrogenated.This is simply not true.
    As for the idea of saturated fat being unhealthy, I will deal in another entry.
    Mark Twain once said it is easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled.
    I would agree some of the health claims made about palm oil are exaggerated but it would be certainly more healthy than margarine or seed oil. The case of a woman reversing her husband's Alzheimer at this point in time is just anecdotal.
    Palm Oil Facts and Fiction

    Entry no 2
    Vegans Were Right All Along by George Monbiot.
    SERIOUS OMISSION.
    This quite an old article but the issues are still current today. Here George Monbiot brings up that old chestnut that farming land produces more food used for horticulture than for animal husbandry. This is true for arable land but overlooks the fact that much livestock is raised on dry-land that is unsuitable for horticulture. This is a serious omission. Only 6% of the land in Australia is arable.In any case I have seen with my own eyes irrigation land left fallow due to low prices of crops that could be grown.Also, this article fails to mention the non food products that come from farm animals.See my National Cattle Day essay.
    There are many critics of the food business.It is complex and difficult to understand . A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
    Why Vegans Were Right All Along

    Entry no 3.
    Ancel Keys and saturated fat.
    SERIOUS OMISSION

    In 1950s America doctors were puzzled. Although general life expectancy had increased, one third of deaths were from Myocardial infarction - a disease almost unheard of just fifty years prior. People were looking for an answer, Ancel Keys had one - his 6 Countries Study, later revamped as the 7 Countries Study. The graphs in his study appeared to show the higher the per capita consumption of saturated fat, the higher the rate of Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD). The only problem was he had access to the data from sixteen other countries but decided not to use it. This is a SERIOUS OMISSION.
    To this day there have been no other research that concurs with Ancel Keys' findings. Ironic he got things so wrong even with two PHDs. His research has been promoted by the margarine industry a part of their corporate propaganda and by animal liberationists who suggest that because animal fats are saturated, which they predominately are, that you can extend your time on the planet by going vegan.
    As margarine is far more lucrative than butter production, the industry is able to spend more money on promotion than the butter industry can. When you see recommendations to reduce the amount of saturated fat in your diet, they are suggesting you buy more margarine. Some years ago in my local newspaper there was an advertisement by Kelly Bell, a dietician from Griffith. I wrote to her asking for scientific references. She did reply and said she could not supply any scientific references but said that her recommendations were the same as the Australian Council of Aging and the National Heart Foundation. None of the aforementioned had even heard of the 6 Countries Study. Such recommendations are not science but dogma and marketing.
  2. 2003 was the year I cleaned up my diet. When I saw my doctor about an
    attack of Menieres, she took my blood pressure, said it was too low
    and I should consume some salt. The worst attack I had was in 1999
    when I had to be hospitalized for five days. I was connected to an
    intravenous machine as my electrolyte levels were way too low. Other
    previous attacks I had previously were once when I worked at Reading
    University, on my 18th birthday and two previous attacks.
    Since I have increased my salt intake, I have had a few attacks on
    Menieres but they have only lasted one night, not several days. All
    blood pressure tests since then have come back normal. Usually
    Hypotension gets worse with age. One of the symptoms of Hypotension is
    an inability to concentrate.
    https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/low-blood-pressure/symptoms-causes/syc-20355465
    I have done a number of vocational courses since 2003. Everyone of
    them has an exam at the end. I am always the first to finish. It was
    not like that with me at school. What changed?
    For some time I have been buying 25KG bags of unrefined salt crystals
    intended for livestock from a farm supplies shop. I have just bought
    a grinder of E-bay for under $15.
    2003 was also the year I found out that skimmed milk was giving me bad
    haemorrhoids.I thought the opposite would by consuming butter. It
    worked. About his time I read about margarine not being the health
    food it was claimed to be. I also discovered the WestonAPrice website.
    I was always a tad confused about nutrition. Finally I found a place
    where everything made sense. It was Mary Enig from WAP who blew the
    whistle on trans fat.
    After three months of eating butter and cooking with dripping I quit
    smoking. There is some science behind this.
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-mental-health/202002/low-fat-diet-can-make-you-angry-irritable-and-depressed
    Being angry, depressed and irritable is hardly the state of mind to
    quit smoking is it?
    Ancel Keys was a fraudster, a
    conman an egotist who fooled millions. A real scientist welcomes
    scrutiny and criticism. Why endorse the dogma of a bigot? Everything
    he said should be completely disregarded. The evidence against
    saturated fat is just not there.
    Whenever I come across a book on nutrition that talks about saturated
    fat in negative terms, I put it back on the shelf and leave it there.
    Similarly a website that talks about saturated fat in negative terms,
    I close off the tab and don't go back there again. If they have got it
    wrong about about saturated fat, what else have they got wrong?
    Candy Gal likes this.
  3. 1. At the first Confest I went to in 2000/2001, I got talking to a vegan about the fertilizer quandary, that is to say organic fertilizers are animal based or to use chemical fertilizers that are not organic either as is kills the micro-organisms in the soil. His reply,
    "You don't need fertilizer. Old growth forests have existed for thousands of years without ever being fertilized!"

    2. On FB, I came across young man who was 100% certain about AGW; 100% certain about the efficacy if every vaccine made, past, present and future; 100% certain about LDL cholesterol being the one and only cause of CVD. In his words "There is no other plausible explanation."
    I replied that science is about scrutiny and verification, not certainty.

    3.
    At a Confest (the biggest hippy festival in Australia) I watched a young woman a start nodding her head to the live music, her face broke into a smile, shaking her head , she lost control of herself and had to go and dance to the music.
    A couple of Confests later, I was on the information desk . I asked her, she replied,
    "That's me!"

    4.
    The Novocastrian.
    A couple of decades ago before I dropped out of the rat race, I worked as a chef in motel. Karen who was a waitress-receptionist was an upside-down, back to front, sideways thinker. As Karen hailed from Newcastle, NSW, she acquired the nickname of The Novocastrian.
    One night she was making up the breakfast trays and she told me she goes streaking. When the manager came into the kitchen, I told him and he looked nonchalant.
    The next night when The Novocastrian was working and it was time to go outside for a break, I said,
    "OK Karen when are you going streaking next?"
    She looked up at the sky with a thoughtful Umm. Back in the kitchen she quizzed me and was astonished to find I had never been streaking. I had skinny dipped once before.

    5.
    For those of you who don’t know what Morton bay bugs are, they are a type of edible crustacean. Maybe the same species as the Balmain bug. Anyway back in the early 1980s I was working at a seafood restaurant in Brisbane. One day a waitress who had just arrived in Australia from Yorkshire, England started working at the restaurant. One lunchtime she came in the kitchen and asked, “Are the boooogs ready yet?” Everyone in the kitchen fell about laughing. She stopped coming to work after that. Some people are a bit over-sensitive.

    6.A few years ago I ran a hotel kitchen. One night my young female assistant who was a bit of a tomboy, hated wearing skirts or dresses was normally quite chirpy but this night was unusually mopey. At 19.55 she burped and farted in synchronicity. Her face lit up and she was back to her normal self.
    " I think you needed that."
    " I think I did."
    Her face beamed for the rest of the night.

    To be continued.
    ~Zen~ likes this.
  4. A couple of decades ago, I was working in a motel that was taken over by a chain. As the chef I ran the kitchen. Once the new management was in I was unofficially demoted. The new managers who I will now refer to as D&M wanted to run the kitchen. I could see a disaster coming with the new menu, an executive decision, no vegetarian main course. When it came to a busy night there was a vegetarian customer in the restaurant. So the waitress ordered stir fry vegies. Not being prepared, this caused a spanner in the works for the kitchen.
    The next day the D&M had words to say about the number of complaints. I pointed out that I saw the the problem of the vegetarian customer coming. Her response was that I was not organized. In other words she wanted me to cover up for her incompetency having just essentially demoted me. Furthermore, she said she as open to suggestions, in other words she was happy to take the credit for any good ideas I had. Does anyone else think she had a ridiculous attitude?
    I did manage to claw back some of my autonomy and things started to run smoother. She said that if there was any waste, she wanted to know about it. One day I came to work and she had thrown out food, left, right and centre. She would have to have been the most wasteful, un-resourceful person I ever came across in the catering business. I was in the catering business for 24 years. Not wanting to make soup with booster I resigned and dropped out of the rat race. They did find a replacement chef to take my place, but he only stayed a few weeks. He did not want to be micro-managed either. This was the quandary for D&M. Hire someone who knows what they are doing and they wont want to be micro-managed; hire cooks who have limited expertise and run into who lot more problems.
    It took the D&M 18 months to make a complete stuff up of everything. One day they were told they had one hour to leave. Replacement managers reversed all the previous executive decisions made by D&M.

    D&M wanted to get on the real estate ladder. A couple of years after the were fired the Government was making first home owner grants of $7000. Where I live you could buy a $65,000 house that would rent for $140 a week. At that rate they could have rent it out and had it paid off in seven years. That is what happens when you fill your mind with dogma and not ask questions.
  5. Why eating meat is not wrong.

    Domestic animals have had a long standing relationship with mankind. In the book Covenant Of The Wild by Stephen Budiansky ,(HarperCollins 1992) the author theorises that domestic animals made an agreement with mankind that by providing food, water and protection from predators . In return we would eat them and give them a quick death. The latter reason alone does compare quite favourably with herbivores in Africa who when they do die are first of all chased to the point of exhaustion and to be torn to pieces while alive. Nature is an unscrupulous bastard. In a way our technological development has allowed us insulated from nature. This has its good and bad points. However by engaging in factory farming the author suggests we are breaking the pact. I therefore never have endorsed factory farming. Herbivores evolved or were created to be eaten by other animals including man. Some herbivores have several stomaches in order to digest cellulose something as humans we cannot do. Domestic animals eat so we can eat.

    Even if herbivores had no predators - a situation that has been created in the eastern side of the dingo fence for kangaroos if left uncontrolled their numbers continue to grow to the point of eating grass at an unsustainable rate that leaves the kangaroos to die of starvation. Shooting programs are therefore become necessary. Sometimes it is necessary to cruel to be kind.

    In nature everything gets recycled aka decomposition. Eating meat is just the first part of the process.

    For further reading on why it is not such a good idea read this excellent essay by ex-vegetarian Craig Fitzroy.
    The Great Fallacies of Vegetarianism
    Beach Ball Lady Balls likes this.
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