Food Isn’t Medicine

Product Information

Het is ook leuk om nog eens bevestigd te zien dat "op dieet gaan om liefst zo snel mogelijk af te vallen" iets zinloos is, gelijk welk (populair) dieet hiervoor gevolgd wordt. De meeste diëten zijn toch niet vol te houden en gewicht komt er dubbel en dik terug bij. Dat het ketodieet en (in mindere mate) intermittent fasting nonsens zijn had ik al wel door, maar het doet me plezier dat ik nu ook weet wat het precies inhoudt en wat er allemaal juist fout mee is.

The fact that food isn’t medicine is not a bad thing by any means; it’s actually a really good thing that it’s not! Our health is too often sold as something we have complete control over, and treating food as medicine only serves to encourage this rhetoric of personal responsibility. We need to stop shaming people for what they eat and implying that an illness was their fault for not making better choices. Een zeer interessant boek dat al mijn collega-artsen wel eens zouden mogen lezen, alsook iedereen die gezondheid belangrijk vindt (ik hoop dus iedereen). In my humble opinion there is one simple truth that I believe would solve a lot of the difficulty sifting through the misinformation when it comes to nutrition: food isn’t medicine*. No, no and absolutely not - NHS doctor and nutritionist Joshua Wolrich is on a mission to set the record straight. De belangrijkste conclusies die hier genomen worden zijn de volgende: lichaamsgewicht is geen goede merker voor algemene gezondheid, voedsel mag je niet op dezelfde manier beschouwen als medicijnen, en op dieet gaan om af te vallen is onzin.Basically the above should suffice, but to add that Mr Wolrich adds nothing new, has no special insight to share, just more opinion and belief... and of course... using intuition to choose which foods are most suitable for you. Funny how instantly intuition is developed, and with such accuracy.

There’s also trigger warnings included by the author which is fab, and it’s written with so much respect, delicacy and sensitivity as well. It’s certainly not an on the pedestal account and derogatory to anyone who follows any type of lifestyle or diet. You don’t get a dressing down for being a victim of diet scams or for diets you follow but instead, replaces new foundations and builds you up in a friendly and informative way. Mr Wolrich dismisses all other fully qualified Doctors who have written on nutrition, written on integrating diet into health, who have decided to look deeper for themselves, to study the studies, and share their own research and results with the public. I'm not saying that some have not come to erroneous conclusions (Dr. Akins for instance), but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater... simply because the bathwater is dirty. Some of his claims are also a bit self-contradicting and misleading. For example, in his response to the claim that "vegetable oils are toxic" the author shortly replies in saying that some of the components of vegetable oils are omega 6 and omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are proved to be beneficial in brain and heart health, and mentions the positive health effects of canola oil and fish oil (not even a vegetable oil), that both contain these fats.

He is treating these subjects as "not controversial in the scientific community" although unlike his claims that saturated fats are undoubtedly harmful for heart health, some studies did not reach the same conclusion, or even have the reverse effects in some studies ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20071... ). Nutritional science actually knows an incredible amount about food and its impact on our health, but facts like ‘eat more veg’ aren’t exactly sexy, are they? It’s much more exciting for someone to claim they’re ‘challenging the status quo’ and dogmatically promise a new solution to health and weight loss, even though those two categorically aren’t even the same thing. We’ll get to that. As an NHS doctor with personal experience of how damaging diets can be, he believes every one of us deserves to have a happy, healthy relationship with food and with our bodies. His message is clear: we need to fight weight stigma, call out the lies of diet culture and give ourselves permission to eat all foods. There are also amusing moments throughout the following chapters. Favourite moment: The Great Beyonce Apple Fail.