[ale] Orthorexia Nervosa (Was: Anybody sick today?)

[Ronald Chmara]

On Dec 30, 2003, at 4:50 PM, rhiannen wrote:
> Sigh.
> Why do some people feel the need to make such a vast jump from 
> Holistic to
> Witchdoctor?  I even provided the definition of holistic precisely 
> because of
> such.

Because the vast majority of Holistic practitioners cannot use science 
to prove that the bulk of what they are proposing actually has *any* 
beneficial values beyond a placebo effect. (Note the qualifiers).

>  My point was that
> all the chemicals we now ingest and process overload the liver making 
> it harder
> for it to do it's job metabolizing food.

We used to process a diet of 100% chemicals, and still do. That never 
changed, not in the last 100 million years.

If you have *specific* chemicals you were pointing to, your argument 
would likely be more acceptable. For example, watching cyanide intake 
from nuts, or hydrogenated oils, both of which have sound science 
backing up reasons for monitoring one's intake.

You risk sounding ill-informed, however, if you insist on "proper" food 
intake that lacks any sort of credible science backing it up. It's a 
problem of generalizations, and/or making statements that have little 
quantifiable evidence backing them up.

> Absolutely amazing how the simple statement of easily verified health 
> points
> becomes an attack from out of nowhere implying the information I 
> offered is
> simply witchdoctor hocus pocus. Is someone so threatened by the very 
> concept of
> improving diet provokes such venom?

The concept of improving diet is sound. Outright blaming refined sugar, 
aspartame, or the ever-so-sppoky "chemicals", however, is less sound.

> I've spent my time doing research, my own health has improved 
> dramatically in
> the last year and that's more than enough to satisfy me.

When an individual sees god, and believes in it, it's religion.

Unless that god cannot be proven for others, in a repeatable fashion, 
it's not science, nor is it fact. It's a matter of faith, of belief.

That doesn't make it any less real for a believer, of course.

>  I've got nothing to
> gain by stating what I've learned.

Do religious missionaries stand anything to gain?

> Obviously, something in what I posted earlier hit a nerve or two. For 
> that,
> whatever it was, I apologize to the entire list as this has become 
> beyond
> ridiculous.

If you posted any other 'net hoax (re: aspartame), or a screed of a 
different kind of religion (diet religion in this case) the reaction 
would have likely been similar. :-)

-Bop