Author: [[Person - Denise Minger]] [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18054967-death-by-food-pyramid) ## Notes p.34: [[Person - Nathan Pritikin]] He caught my attention because he was multidisciplinary - "After securing patents in fields ranging from photography to aeronautics to engineering, Pritikin turned his gaze to the most intricate machinery of all: the human body." p.57: Credentialophilia Reflects my thoughts on why one shouldn't implicitly trust MDs because of their credentials, although in this section the critique is against their nutritional advice specifically. - She cites a 2004 study showed that US Medical students average less than 24 hours of nutrition instruction, and I also found [this study](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jbe/2015/357627/) from 2014 which shows that on average, 19 hours of nutritional content is taught at US medical schools. - The information they do have may be influenced by pharma companies based on the research she cites (reference 8). p.62: Was a nice introduction to [[Logical Fallacies]] that may intentionally or unintentionally be used in arguments and debates. p.67: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Nutritional Research Explanation of scientific terms. Ones that stood out for me: - Correlation != Causation - Negative and Positive Associations - Absolute vs Relative Risk - Statistically Significant vs Clinically Significant p.73: [[Types of scientific studies]] (in order of relevance to humans) p.79: [[How to read a scientific paper]] p.131: [[de novo lipogenesis can happen even on low-calorie diets that include an excess of high-glycemic carbohydrates.]] p.139: [[Israeli Paradox]] p.181: [[Eating healthier meat]] p.187: Blood tests to check for iron storage disorder p.188: History of vegetarian/vegan diet in the US p.210: Summary of an optimal diet. p.214: [[Preparing legumes, grains and nuts for healthier eating]] ## Summary I really liked this book and found Denise's writing and humor entertaining while also very informative. She strikes me as someone who tries to be unbiased and objective without leaning towards any sides. Chapter 5 - "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Nutritional Research" was very interesting for me as I have no background in research. In this chapter she explains key scientific terminologies, types of scientific studies and [[How to read a scientific paper|how to go about interpreting scientific papers]]. A couple times in the book I had "aha" moments when I also got fooled into thinking a study was sound only to have Denise explain how confounding variables (which I never would have thought of) and "correlation doesn't equal causation" - make the researcher's conclusions questionable at least and invalid at most. An example of this would be a study showing that moving to a vegetarian diet led to fewer heart disease, which gives the impression meat is bad for you. Yet it turns out that while also having the participants stop eating meat, they also had them stop smoking, start exercising and also added multivitamins to their diet. Each of these are confounding variables that make it much more difficult to conclude that eliminating meat is what led to the reduction of heart disease. The chapter on meat taught me a couple things. First is that [[Cooking meat at very high temperatures, especially exposed to direct flame, causes carcinogenic properties to enter the meat.|cooking meat at high temperatures can lead to carcinogenic compounds]], so it's best to [[Cooking healthier meat|steam/stew/bake it]]. Secondly, the muscle meat we eat is actually the least nutrient-dense meat of the animal as compared to its other organs. It is therefore recommended to [[Eating healthier meat|eat "nose-to-tail"]]. It was cool to see how, in the last chapter, she analyzed the different diets of healthy peoples across the world to arrive at core features which we can then use to create a [[Healthy Diet]] for ourselves. *** ## Footnotes