Ray Claude
Fri, Jul-02-04, 19:18
American eaters face serious difficulties when attempting to
use information and procedures typically given them for
selecting foodstuffs that might be propitious to their
well-being. They especially lack effective and comprehensive
procedure for evaluating their intake. They face an endless
onslaught of fabrication, feigned competence, and duplicity
regarding matters of nutrition and nourishment. That which
follows, a continuation of the posting Eating: A Matter Gone
Awry (Copyright 2004, Ray Claude), treats these allegations.
CHAPTER 1 (continued)
THE TENDENCY TO CONFUSE NUTRITION FOR NOURISHMENT
Nourishment is variously a process (an effort) and an effect
(a result) of such process, depending on the aspect in which
it is seen. Such effort is necessarily in the hands of
individual eaters. Such effect is necessarily enjoyed or
suffered by individual eaters. Nutrition is a difficult study.
It is not a process and it does not necessarily have an
effect. Nourishment and nutrition are distinct pursuits.
Apparently, the distinction is not sufficient to prevent
confusion, confusion so broad and pervasive that barriers have
come to exist between the eater and his informants. For
example, eaters are most often addressed as though they are
nutritionists, as though eaters seek to be edified by
scientific insight, not by procedure. Eaters are not prepared
for such onslaught. They might conclude that they must acquire
expertise of formidable proportion. They might be left unaware
that most findings of nutrition must be interpreted and recast
before they can be applied to the matter of nourishment. They
become discouraged or indifferent. They withdraw from the
arena floor. A pathetic error has been made. To the extent
that we have been negligent in permitting such confusion, we
have been irresponsible. To the extent that we have promoted
such confusion, we have committed fraud.
THE ASPECTS OF SUCH CONFUSION
The nature of problems encountered during assessment of the
merit of an individual's intake makes it most difficult to
devise simple and effective procedures. Such difficulty has
led writers of 'popular' literature to avoid the subject or to
give it only partial treatment. It is easier to describe an
individual foodstuff or individual nutrient without once
suggesting how the eater might propitiously make that
foodstuff a part of his total intake or without once
suggesting how the eater might consider his total intake anew
in light of that nutrient. It is easier to describe a danger
of nutrient deficiency and a risk of nutrient excess than it
is to provide effective procedure for gauging intake of the
nutrient. Eaters are showered with information of
hard-to-determine import, uncertain pedigree, and (often) of
only tentative value. Suggestions are made that a given
nutrient source is so important that, if selected, detailed
consideration of alternate sources might be unnecessary.
Eaters are served with strictures of little or no utility in
the pursuit of well-being. Such is the work of hacks and
parrots, not of those who would take care to relate the
information to the matter of nourishment and to its practical
attainment. If we are negligent, we will take the easier path.
If we are in the snake oil business, we will avoid the harder
path. Either way, confusion is perpetuated and the eater is
left uninformed or (at best) improperly informed. The
practices are so pervasive that the matter of nourishment has
been masked, even displaced. Eaters are left without the
resources needed to evaluate their nourishment. They are not
even advised that evaluation has become a necessity.
Such aspects are inexcusable. They represent practices that
are unqualifiedly nonsensical. They lack a rational base.
Collectively, they produce absurd and catastrophic results,
results that reliably indicate that something has gone awry,
perhaps almost chaotic. Eaters are guided away from a sound
state of comprehension and toward a pathetically passive state
of ignorance relative to the safe and effective gaining of
nourishment.
There are enough semi-technical and popular books on
nutrition to collect and hide all of this galaxy's dark
matter. They require light-years of shelving and galaxy-size
containers for their storage. Most belong in storage. In
their totality, they might represent the most miserable genre
of literature so far produced. Few even bother with
nourishment. Even fewer deal with nourishment as provided by
total intake, that which leads variously to well-being and to
debilitation. A relatively few excellent (although usually
more technical) works are lost among piles of look-alikes
that exploit gullibility, parrot nonsense, and nurture fear.
The spirit of the penny dreadful persists.
Books are not alone in the dissemination of nonsense. Every
form of media designed for popular consumption contributes to
the din. The Federal Government, once on a track to supply
reliable data on foodstuffs, has apparently decided that a
mere show of superficially good intent might be politically
safer. Unaware eaters accept bad advice. Others are
indifferent to life's biochemical dictates. The discouraged
simply shun the noise. The effect is to push eaters along a
course that will make solution increasingly more difficult.
THE NECESSARY COURSE
The advantage of a healthy public is a certain one, an
advantage that is almost critical. Because a healthy public
depends on sound choices of its individual members (still
free, the last time I looked), there is need for members to
demand and get good information. Eaters who take the issue to
heart can, through their actions in the market place and their
voices in the forum, drive the quacks from the arena, induce
sources and vendors to abandon their drivel, and restore
governmental attention to the task of producing reliable
information. Nobody is going to step in and do it for them.
Indeed, nobody can.
use information and procedures typically given them for
selecting foodstuffs that might be propitious to their
well-being. They especially lack effective and comprehensive
procedure for evaluating their intake. They face an endless
onslaught of fabrication, feigned competence, and duplicity
regarding matters of nutrition and nourishment. That which
follows, a continuation of the posting Eating: A Matter Gone
Awry (Copyright 2004, Ray Claude), treats these allegations.
CHAPTER 1 (continued)
THE TENDENCY TO CONFUSE NUTRITION FOR NOURISHMENT
Nourishment is variously a process (an effort) and an effect
(a result) of such process, depending on the aspect in which
it is seen. Such effort is necessarily in the hands of
individual eaters. Such effect is necessarily enjoyed or
suffered by individual eaters. Nutrition is a difficult study.
It is not a process and it does not necessarily have an
effect. Nourishment and nutrition are distinct pursuits.
Apparently, the distinction is not sufficient to prevent
confusion, confusion so broad and pervasive that barriers have
come to exist between the eater and his informants. For
example, eaters are most often addressed as though they are
nutritionists, as though eaters seek to be edified by
scientific insight, not by procedure. Eaters are not prepared
for such onslaught. They might conclude that they must acquire
expertise of formidable proportion. They might be left unaware
that most findings of nutrition must be interpreted and recast
before they can be applied to the matter of nourishment. They
become discouraged or indifferent. They withdraw from the
arena floor. A pathetic error has been made. To the extent
that we have been negligent in permitting such confusion, we
have been irresponsible. To the extent that we have promoted
such confusion, we have committed fraud.
THE ASPECTS OF SUCH CONFUSION
The nature of problems encountered during assessment of the
merit of an individual's intake makes it most difficult to
devise simple and effective procedures. Such difficulty has
led writers of 'popular' literature to avoid the subject or to
give it only partial treatment. It is easier to describe an
individual foodstuff or individual nutrient without once
suggesting how the eater might propitiously make that
foodstuff a part of his total intake or without once
suggesting how the eater might consider his total intake anew
in light of that nutrient. It is easier to describe a danger
of nutrient deficiency and a risk of nutrient excess than it
is to provide effective procedure for gauging intake of the
nutrient. Eaters are showered with information of
hard-to-determine import, uncertain pedigree, and (often) of
only tentative value. Suggestions are made that a given
nutrient source is so important that, if selected, detailed
consideration of alternate sources might be unnecessary.
Eaters are served with strictures of little or no utility in
the pursuit of well-being. Such is the work of hacks and
parrots, not of those who would take care to relate the
information to the matter of nourishment and to its practical
attainment. If we are negligent, we will take the easier path.
If we are in the snake oil business, we will avoid the harder
path. Either way, confusion is perpetuated and the eater is
left uninformed or (at best) improperly informed. The
practices are so pervasive that the matter of nourishment has
been masked, even displaced. Eaters are left without the
resources needed to evaluate their nourishment. They are not
even advised that evaluation has become a necessity.
Such aspects are inexcusable. They represent practices that
are unqualifiedly nonsensical. They lack a rational base.
Collectively, they produce absurd and catastrophic results,
results that reliably indicate that something has gone awry,
perhaps almost chaotic. Eaters are guided away from a sound
state of comprehension and toward a pathetically passive state
of ignorance relative to the safe and effective gaining of
nourishment.
There are enough semi-technical and popular books on
nutrition to collect and hide all of this galaxy's dark
matter. They require light-years of shelving and galaxy-size
containers for their storage. Most belong in storage. In
their totality, they might represent the most miserable genre
of literature so far produced. Few even bother with
nourishment. Even fewer deal with nourishment as provided by
total intake, that which leads variously to well-being and to
debilitation. A relatively few excellent (although usually
more technical) works are lost among piles of look-alikes
that exploit gullibility, parrot nonsense, and nurture fear.
The spirit of the penny dreadful persists.
Books are not alone in the dissemination of nonsense. Every
form of media designed for popular consumption contributes to
the din. The Federal Government, once on a track to supply
reliable data on foodstuffs, has apparently decided that a
mere show of superficially good intent might be politically
safer. Unaware eaters accept bad advice. Others are
indifferent to life's biochemical dictates. The discouraged
simply shun the noise. The effect is to push eaters along a
course that will make solution increasingly more difficult.
THE NECESSARY COURSE
The advantage of a healthy public is a certain one, an
advantage that is almost critical. Because a healthy public
depends on sound choices of its individual members (still
free, the last time I looked), there is need for members to
demand and get good information. Eaters who take the issue to
heart can, through their actions in the market place and their
voices in the forum, drive the quacks from the arena, induce
sources and vendors to abandon their drivel, and restore
governmental attention to the task of producing reliable
information. Nobody is going to step in and do it for them.
Indeed, nobody can.