Dr. Zoë Harcombe on the Mess: The Money vs. the Evidence
(52 minutes)
Published by:2019 CrossFit Health Conference - July 31
Zoë Harcombe, Ph.D., is an independent author, researcher, and speaker in the fields of diet, health, and nutrition.
Harcombe defines “The Mess” as “the escalating disease (and) the escalating medical costs, which many people are profiting from but none are combatting effectively.” During a presentation delivered on July 31 at the 2019 CrossFit Health Conference, Harcombe outlined many factors that contribute to this growing problem — specifically, the role of dietitians and the food and beverage industry in influencing how and what we eat, accreditation that regulates who can offer dietary advice, and the disparity between what we are told to eat and what the evidence suggests we should eat.
Early in her talk, Harcombe shares her research on the dubious back-door maneuvers multibillion-dollar food companies use to promote their products, including paying for studies that tout their products’ health benefits and adding public health advisors to the payroll. She observes that the only thing that would make their marketing efforts easier would be if these paid advisors had a monopoly on doling out dietary advice — which is precisely what they have sought to do in many states in the U.S. by joining forces with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR) and the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics (AND).
Harcombe shares the story of Steve Cooksey to offer one telling example of how these organizations and others like them try to maintain a monopoly over nutrition advice. Cooksey was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, but rather than following the medical advice he received to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, he ate the opposite way and lost 70 lb. He started a blog, sharing his story and offering free advice to others, and was promptly rebuked by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition, which claimed he was “practicing without a license.” CrossFit and the Institute of Justice helped Cooksey with his case, developing a defense based upon the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech. Cooksey won.
"The Surprising Reason Why Science is Often Wrong"
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and Gary Taubes (85 minutes)
Published by: Dr. Gabrielle Lyon - 1 Mar 2024
Gary Taubes is an investigative science and health journalist, the author of Rethinking Diabetes, The Case for Keto, The Case Against Sugar, Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories (published as The Diet Delusion in the UK). Taubes is a former staff writer for Discover and correspondent for the journal Science.
In this episode we discuss:
Why you can’t always trust epidemiological studies.
Can diabetes be cured with diet?
The reason why today’s science is often incorrect.
How did we get dietary guidelines so wrong?
"Dr. Gary Fettke: The Role of Nutrition in Everything"
Gary Fettke - (58 minutes)
Published by: CrossFit®: - 18 Aug 2017
During his talk, which is equal parts biology lesson and food-industry history, Fettke speaks out against the ideological misinformation and vested interests that have corrupted how we eat. He asks why, when we are told that the Standard American Diet is not a healthy diet, the mind turns to a vegetarian diet as the most likely alternative. That idea isn't there by accident, it has a long history. “With the right education,” he says, "my patients can be helped. The system can also be helped, and so can the environment and the planet."
