While being introspective and self-critical is harder for me than getting a politician to cut taxes, nevertheless I have winnowed out several supposed healthy practices that I have harped on in the past which now appear either completely useless or downright ignorant.
1) Eating low fat. I have had to eat low-fat crow on this one for the past few years. I landed squarely in this camp, like many of you, based on the propaganda masquerading as education. Ever since the notorious Seven Country Study by Ancel Keys in the 50’s, we had been indoctrinated to believe that fat consumption led to weight gain, heart disease, and bad breath. The reality is that certain types of fat are worse for you than others, but sugar is the real baddie. An eight-year trial involving almost 50,000 women, roughly half of whom went on a low-fat diet, found that those on the low-fat plan didn't lower their risk of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, or heart disease. Plus, they didn't lose much weight. If you have to watch anything dietarily, watch the carbs!
2) Going gluten free. This movement has all the makings of a cult. Unless you're among the 1% of Americans who suffer from celiac disease, gluten probably won't have a negative effect on you. I know this is heresy, but the science doesn’t lie. Most folks have no issue with gluten and avoiding all the products that contain gluten can leave you with an unbalanced diet. The no gluten fanatics are about as rabid as Tom Cruise Scientology lovers, so I probably will have to hire a bodyguard after this is published, but go ahead and enjoy your wheat!
3) Juicing…anything. A few years back anyone staying up past midnight was lambasted by an infomercial touting a device that would “juice” anything from an orange to a turkey leg. Is was if pulverizing something in a blender magically endowed it with miraculous health benefits. What it really did was make it suitable for babies and old dudes with no teeth, and that’s about it. When you juice fresh fruits and veggies, you remove all of their fiber, the key ingredient that keeps you feeling full and satisfied until your next meal. What you keep is the sugar. In the short term, a high-sugar, low-protein diet means constant hunger pangs, mood swings, and low energy. So essentially when you juice you take out all the good stuff and leave the crap…that sounds healthy, right?
4) Using hand sanitizer. It was time to jump out of the nutritional world and into the world of germs. So you think that slathering on the hand sanitizer will ward off the plague, viruses, and boring small talk? Nope, it will just make your hands sticky. If you wash your hands regularly throughout the day, hand sanitizer is almost entirely unnecessary. Plus, it can't kill all the germs that plain old soap and water can. Surprise! Now, if you find yourself in the jungles of Kenya where clean running water is as rare as cellulite on a supermodel, hand sanitizer may have a place, but not so much in suburban America.
5) “Detoxing” anything. This is one of those terms like “natural” that can mean anything to anybody. In most cases, it is a marketing buzzword that sounds good but means little. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be rid of toxins? No one needs to detox. Unless you've been poisoned, you already have a super efficient system for filtering out most of the harmful substances you eat. It's made up of two toxin-bashing organs: the liver and the kidneys. The liver spends its entire lifetime getting rid of the bad junk we ingest, much better than a colonic or sweat lodge, while the kidneys spit out bad mojo in your weewee with amazing efficiency.
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