This time from some group I’ve never heard of before, the “2025 EAT-Lancet Commission”, who are “a coalition of experts in nutrition, climate, economics, health and agriculture from more than 35 countries.”
Needless to say, when this august body issues a report that contains this word garbage:
“The evidence laid out in our report is clear: the world must act boldly and equitably to ensure sustainable improvements.”
…you just know that it’s going to be total bullshit.
And so it is.
If people worldwide adopted their “Planetary Health Diet” (PHD), up to 15 million premature deaths could be avoided annually.
Note the usual weaseling: “up to” [some massive figure], and “could be” avoided. No mention what the “premature” figure actually is and how it’s been derived.
Oh wait, I forgot this little snippet:
“Changing how the world eats could reduce premature deaths, save trillions of dollars and slow the impacts of climate change.”
Ah yes, the (by now thoroughly-debunked) bogeyman of Global Warming Climate Cooling Change©, and the promise of endless amounts of money to be saved — all undermined by the single word “could” — that would improve our world, if only yadda yadda yadda.
So what is this PHD master plan, exactly?
PHD is a plant-based menu that includes three to five daily servings of whole grains, at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables and daily servings of nuts and legumes. The diet doesn’t call for the complete elimination of animal proteins for those who wish to continue eating them, but instead encourages people to consume red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy in moderation. For example, the group recommends only one serving of red meat, two servings of fish and poultry and three to four eggs per week. They also call for strict limits on added sugars, saturated fats and salt.
You mean we shouldn’t all go completely vegan, then? Color me surprised. So to sum up; eat pretty much what you want, in moderation. Well, except a lot less bacon, steaks and hamburgers, you filthy carnivores.
Whatever.
What gets up my nose, however, is the implicit meaning of the expression “act boldly” in the very first paragraph of this post. To pricks like this, “act boldly” means that some authority should begin to dictate how we eat, and enforce this foul nonsense.
Because the stakes are so high, you see.
And exactly how does this new buzzword “equitable” feature in this, anyway? (I’ll save you the trouble of thinking about it: it’s just a fashionable way to add justification to the cause du jour. Ditto “climate change”.)
Simple conclusion for us: fuck right off, assholes. You have as much credibility on this topic as the assholes who gave us the (tragically wrong) Food Pyramid: i.e. none.
It amazes me that over the past half century or so, while we have undoubtedly been eating more junk food, the worldwide stats for death by starvation — surely to be included in any count of premature deaths — have plummeted. In fact, if one were to exclude acts of deliberate starvation perpetrated by government (hello, Comrade Stalin and various African / Asian warlords), there’s a convincing case to be made that starvation has become far less of a worldwide calamity than it was even in, say, 1950.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to make myself a brekkie of bacon and (two) eggs with some toasted French bread on the side, and then head off to the range.
Exactly what I’m going to be shooting must await tomorrow’s range report. It will, however, cause something of a stir.
They also call for strict limits on… salt.
For those suffering with “acid reflux”/heartburn, the decades long push to remove salt from our diet seems to be intended to deliberately cause the malady. LOTS of drug company profits to address this self-inflicted problem.
The big name medical groups used to have a short list of possible causes contained in their subject posts, and salt was the top of the list. A few years ago, ALL of them re-wrote their posts on the subject, and the short list disappeared from them. Looked like something written by AI.
Recall that the Roman army was partially paid in Salt, to be bartered to the local people in their distant postings. Salt is IMPORTANT to humans/mammals.
They call for massive amounts of highly processed seed oils as well, soy, canola, linseed, and coconut oils.
Which are a mainstay in any vegan “diet”, and are extremely inflammatory, THE main cause of IBS and leaky gut syndrome.
But at least they don’t go as far as the Dutch health ministry’s “food information center”, their official department for dietary guidelines. Those idiots went as far as to also remove all fruit and vegetables from the “ideal diet” apart from beans and potatoes, leaving a diet that’s effectively ALL nuts, grains, seeds, and beans, cooked in highly processed seed oils.
And of course no salt, as “salt causes high blood pressure”. Fruit is dropped because of “it causes diabetes and obesity”, and for some reason leafy greens as well.
Worst, they turned this into an official guideline (making it all but mandatory coming out of the ministry) for hospitals to feed their patients and staff as well as for the de-facto standard for ALL government run restaurants (meaning staff restaurants at any government building).
And before you ask, yes, the department (and probably the entire ministry to a degree) is staffed by radical vegans.
Minister of agriculture in the last cabinet (center-left) went so far as to proudly proclaim that “food does not come from farms, it comes from factories” as a defense when questioned about her policy to force over a third of the nation’s farms to shut down.
“….three to five daily servings of whole grains, at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables….”
==========
Seriously? 3-5 servings?
Man, if I ate that much stuff every day I’d be a whale in short order.
Not to mention, I’d be so bogged down with all the prep time and actual eating time, I’d never get anything else done.
But then, maybe that’s why there are so many obese ogres running around – everybody’s eating all the time.
My wife and I eat a “meal” once a day, at suppertime, and maybe a snack or 2 the rest of the day. I require serious “backbone” in that supper.
Food, it seems, has taken on a super hero status in this country, and it shows. At the end of the day it all ends up in the septic tank anyway….
All of these “recommendations” have been discredited quite a while ago. These are not health or nutrition experts, they are advocates with a narrow view of what the world should be a desire squeeze everyone into that narrow mold.
Fun fact, the new wife is a biological anthropologist at a major university and her expertise is centered around nutrition. What does she eat? High protein (lots of meat and fish), fruits & veggies, and low carbs.
Seems sensible, although I have no idea what a “biological anthropologist” is or does.
When these reports come out, my usual reaction is “fuck off” and then I go plan a steak dinner with a loaded baked potato. Being that its morning, steak and eggs seems to be in order
Unsurprising recommendations given that one of the major accomplishments of communist governments is starving their subjects.
I checked the report – 595 cited references and papers. That’s one huge academic-level circle-jerk.
I would bet money they had a conference on this, where they flew in all sorts of experts, debated their various papers (see the circle-jerk comment above), and generally sat around in expensive hotel conference rooms. I would REALLY like to know what their catering menu was like. I would bet it didn’t match up with their recommendations. Whenever I see articles suggesting changes to the food supply, my first response is always: YOU FIRST. For at least four years. Every meal, snack, and drink – tracked, documented, and studied. For every single one of you bastards.
Its interesting that all of these “solutions” all correspond with some puss-wad activist desires.
If I could shoot or severely beat people who say shit like that I would might reduce my stress levels by up to 100 percent. I’d likely live longer and would definitely have a happier life.
All this shit SOOOO reminds me of the Buffalo Commons idea proposed by the Poppers back in the late ’90s. Both Joyseyites (he was a “professor” at Rutgers), their thesis was that high-volume high-yield agriculture was “unsustainable” in Flyover Country, i.e. Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Eastern Colorado et.al., and that the whole shebang should be returned to pre-European pristine prairie.
No mention of what to do with the folks who’d killed themselves making a living on it, or what to do to feed those who never farmed or ranched and who relied on those who did so out here. Presumably, they assumed that world depopulation back to “sustainable” levels would suffice, no doubt the losers to be selected by them and their fellow elites, or that everyone who did want to survive would suddenly become self-sufficient subsistence farmer-hunter-gatherers — no animal husbandry of any scale allowable — without any knowledge, ability, aptitude or willingness to make the evolution.
Those self-same farmers and ranchers are now producing so much that they can’t find markets for all of their commodities and dealing with (especially) grain prices so low they have to really work to make a living. By the by, there are more North American Bison on the Plains now than there were in the 1870s and there’s more diversity of wildlife out here than there was then.