I was reading a post today on a blog that I sometimes follow concerning health and nutrition. The author was pissed off that his opinions and information were being taken out of context to help someone else's agenda. He was blogging about the other blogger's post and what he had written on their blog. I found his comments very amusing, and out of curiousity, I went to read the other blogger's original post that had stirred all of this up. I could see why he was pissed off.
But I won't get into all of that, this is not what this post is about.
I read down through all of the comments left on the page. Then I came across Edward Edmonds. I loved his comments so much that I had to follow the link to his website. It led me to a blank page. Boo. Then, I found a blog he had started about training for the 2016 olympics but never actually posted anything to it yet. I am now his only follower, just incase he does actually post something.
Which also means that if he sees that I am his new and only follower and follows that link to my blog, I am totally busted here. Oh well, I am gonna say it anyway...
I have a crush on Edward Edmonds.
I have no idea who he is really, other then what I have derived from my internet sluething, and yes I am a very happily married woman, BUT I absolutely adored his comments so much that I wish I could meet him. He summed up how I feel about the whole health food and nutrition debate so well, better then I ever could, that I instantly wanted him as my BFF.
I am going to copy and paste his comments below:
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Edward Edmonds said...
“I’ve consulted with Don in the past, I found his advice to be useful in some ways and in other ways not useful. But any advice is context sensitive. Not once did he cram a vegan/vegetarian philosophy down my throat. The fact still remains that you should eat what gives you the best well being. End of story.
Science at it’s present state can’t give us a definitive answer. If anything the only thing we’ve learned is that if you eat real fucking food that’s a good start. Whatever our thresholds are for shitty food varies from person to person. There is no getting around that, we are not blackboxes. Our self-preserving nature is inevitable, but if we spent time eating real food for the time being we could focus on doing cooler things with our intelligence like exploring space. Then when we actually know something about the human body we could start discussing whether or not eating this particular food or that is the fountain of youth. That’s a long way off. First we must preserve the future, once we do that we can preserve youth.
We forget in the detailed darkness of science that around the world diets are varied. There are some cultures that tend to be disease free and others that tend to suffer. Sometimes it seems the controlling factor is diet sometimes it doesn’t. But Price proved beyond a reasonable doubt (at least in my mind) that good health is beyond the realm of picking starch over fat. Price proved that it’s what’s in what you’re eating that is the governing paradigm.
A head start is to adopt the philosophy that if you eat a clean mixed including food from all sources your on the right track. If you adopt a philosophy of chugging cream all day long or eating spinach all day long is it not reasonable to suggest that some problems are going to arise? Good health rarely arises out of extremes. And even when a culture is able to thrive on an extreme diet, we have to remember that it might not necessarily represent the optimal solution, it might just be that it’s the optimal solution for the particular environment which allows sufficient reproduction. The idea of an “optimal solution” is negated by the fact that again around the world cultures eat diets of varying extremes and exhibit similar life expectancies.
Dr. Harris has a sensible approach to eating. No bullshit attached, sure his views on carbohydrate have changed over time, but so what, everybody’s views change over time as we search for some type of optimal solution and optimal advice. Duh.
What we do know is humans are dynamic creatures. I think it’s reasonable to suggest that at one point in time our diets were dynamic as well--their is no reason not to think so just like our environments were dynamic. I’m certain there were times where we had to survive eating vegetation and tubers just as I’m certain there were times that all that was available was animals. It was the act of survival that brought about the balance. Something we no longer have to do anymore, so we search for that balance, going from one way of eating to another way of eating. Don’t you think there is a reason for that? Don’t you think that there is a reason why as soon as us humans started settling down and getting habitual that disease started becoming a problem? We evolved for a dynamic changing environment, it’s clear, look how we populated the entire world like a goddamn virus. Look around is there any single multicelular species quite as successful as us? We humans as animals are a fucking evolutionary masterpiece. Now look at us. We are dropping dead because we are getting too clever for our own good. Our adaptability to varying environments that gave us the edge is changing, we are now a lazy sophisticated brainy species we adopt the environment to our needs now, and we’ve done it all so cleverly but we’ve forgotten the environment were we came from, now we must adapt to the clever environment we’ve created for ourselves or face destruction. Pretty simple shit. Don’t know how anybody reasonable person could miss that. Pass me two sticks, no pass me the lighter.
Would you pour fucking diesel into your gasoline engine? So why would you eat anything but real food? If you mixed a little bit of diesel into your gasoline would the car start. Sure would. Would it get you from point A to B? Sure would. Would your car last as long as if you just used gasoline? No. We are products of the environment. And unless Twinkies grow on trees then all we’ve ever eaten is real food. You eat real food you’ll be fine most of the time. Sure shit goes down. You’re an idiot if you think any one way of eating (besides eating real food and in a sensible way) is going to give you a 100% confidence level that you live a long healthy normal life. That’s life, it’s the lottery, some people hit the jackpot, eat shit all their lives and live to 110 years old. And some people get the shaft, eat seemingly well throughout their lives and drop dead. That’s life. There is no such thing as rocket fuel for humans. What is optimal is individual, you might fit into certain paradigms but you aren’t a machine where all you need is regular oil changes and gasoline. We aren’t “designed” that way. Would be pretty limiting.
I’m so sick of these stupid debates it does nothing for progress but highlight how incredibly fucktarded people are, real food isn’t going to kill you. And if you eat something and it gives you a headache, WTF? Don’t eat it. If you eat a peanut and you break out in lepersy... use your head.
Instead we should be looking at prime suspects like soy feeding your baby and eating Twinkies and jelly beans but instead we are fucking worried about eating green beans and rice. Perhaps if we learn those mechanisms that make eating 20 pounds of Twinkies and jelly beans a day kill us (besides the common sense part) it will give us some insight into how the human body works and down the road to finding something useful and practical to apply to our lives. Standard reverse engineering. In the end if that means for each green bean pod you eat shaves 1 second off your life, than so be it, we won’t eat green beans.
Back to Don. Don is a nice guy, if you read his wife’s blog you know that he cares and he works diligently in his own way to help at least those who he loves or care about. He’s got a degree in philosophy so of course he is dense. He does over analyze grammar and it often seems dishonest the way in which he does it. I see this often in people who’s blogs I’ve read for long periods of time where they are paradigm shifting. It’s classic of people who can never settle for “Well, that’s just the way it is.” People who are constantly searching and want to give the right answer to everybody. I’m sure that one day through his experiences of different extremes he’ll find the right balance. But I just wish Don, for the sake of his own dignity would be more honest about that search and what he is thinking.
If there is anything that we in this community have learned in the past few years is that eating real goddamn food will make the biggest difference for the most. Instead we are worried about legumes and “safe starches”... give me a fucking break. Is there anybody left on this goddamn planet with common sense?”
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REAL FOOD. That's what it's all about. My philosophy is if it comes from an animal or grows out of the ground (and in a
NATURAL way), and doesn't have anything added to it that also doesn't come from an animal or grows out of the ground (and in a
NATURAL way), then it's probably good for you. Otherwise, try to avoid it.
Incase you are super bored and really want to know, the original article I was reading can be round
HERE. I then was curious about the blog he was referring to so I went to go read that article
HERE, and that is where I found the above comments.
I also found
THIS article about Edward with an interview on his views of barefoot funning and his training for the upcoming olympic trials.
Anyway, I just loved his comments and wanted to share. It's all about common sense and it's not near as difficult as some people make it out to be.
