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rayinerlast Wednesday at 8:28 PM5 repliesview on HN

Didn’t those professionals give us the original food pyramid that told us to stuff our faces with bread? Weren’t they the same people that told us not to eat eggs because of cholesterol? And tell us to limit our fish consumption?

Maybe different areas of expertise aren’t equally valid, and even good experts often can’t see the forest for the trees in terms of developing actionable advice.


Replies

philipkglasslast Wednesday at 8:53 PM

And tell us to limit our fish consumption?

The only recommendations to limit fish that I have seen are due to mercury exposure risks:

https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/advice-about-eating-fish

Coal burning and incidental industrial releases drastically increased the amount of mercury in surface waters over the past century. The released mercury gets transformed by bacteria into organomercury compounds which are lipophilic and concentrate up the food chain, meaning that predator fish like tuna and swordfish can contain orders of magnitude more mercury than the water they live in.

There are plenty of fish with much lower mercury levels (like salmon, trout, and sardines):

https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/mer...

You can eat all the salmon you want without worrying about mercury, and I haven't seen government advice to the contrary.

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salutislast Wednesday at 8:53 PM

This is incorrect reasoning. Science is advancing. It is like saying we should not listen to physicists because "Didn't those physicists gave us the original heliocentric system?"

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jdlshorelast Wednesday at 8:48 PM

The food pyramid was the result of intense lobbying and political processes, not scientists and doctors.

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cayceplast Wednesday at 9:10 PM

No, that was the US Dept of Agriculture. You need to talk to an actual RD.

ericfr11last Wednesday at 11:40 PM

It was pushed by food lobbies, like a lot of topics in current admin