I was using "stearic acid antimicrobial" as my search term. But I was only skimming because I thought I'd already heard about it. Perhaps I was wrong. Although it's the main ingredient of soap, the studies I turned up seemed to say that it reduces the effectiveness of antibacterial soap.


I'm not sure fish is a good example. The oceans are a dumping ground for the world's toxic waste, and my understanding is that the marine food chain is much longer than the terrestrial one.

But the heavy metal fears we have with eating all predators have to be weighed against a couple things: First of all, good things also accumulate, such as omega-3s. That's why fish has more of that than terrestrial animals too. Also, having a healthy Vitamin D status, which can be supported indirectly by eating animal foods, helps your body balance its minerals. It may be speculative, but I think that includes absorbing more minerals and less heavy metals.

Another reason the example of heavy metals in fish may not be representative of eating animals in general is this: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think pesticides don't accumulate in animals in the degree that heavy metals do. Even if that's not a significant factor, the loss of nutrients involved in eating carbs makes me think that eating conventional grains and fruits is much riskier than eating any sort of meat.


That may be true from a purely scientific point of view, but from a historic point of view I think the answer is clear. Soybeans have been eaten by humans for less than half the time that grains have, and I consider grains to be a novel addition to our diet that has only led to poor health. For centuries, the primary way to consume soy was as soy sauce, a fermented food that eliminates many of the harmful factors through heavy processing. Tofu came much later, and that also involves processing to counter soy's mineral-binding properties. Soy milk was introduced in the last century by an American - it's a byproduct of making tofu and was never regularly consumed before. And I hope no one is under the impression that "soy protein isolate" is anything but an industrial frankenfood.

Lately I've been seeing some serious shortcomings to the science of food. By isolating individual food chemicals and taking a reductionist approach to nutrition, it is possible to come up with any answer you want: simply ignore the antinutrients and the nutrients make your food look healthy... or vice versa. Even the most unbiased researcher can't possibly get enough solid data to really see the big picture. That's why I prefer the philosophy of Sir Albert Howard: We know how Nature has done it for millenia, even if we don't know why. I prefer to stick with that.

The fish issue is disturbing because there have been so many changes to the environment in the last century. I don't eat that much fish, and when I do eat fish, I go for the most "nutrient-dense" stuff - oysters, anchovies, caviar, salmon. Wild if at all possible.