What defines someone as a 'nutrition researcher'?
I asked myself this question after encountering this piece on the SMH website.
Initially, I went to the herdshare.com site because I thought the concept of having a 'share' in a cow and receiving a share of the raw milk that the cow produced was a fascinating one. I was curious to see whether Brisbane customers would be able to partake of the scheme.
Then I thought- a 'nutrition researcher' in Byron Bay? There's no university in Byron Bay where nutrition research would take place, right? When I think of Byron Bay, I think... hippies (and rich Sydney people driving up real estate prices). When I think of raw milk, I think... hippies... hang on... so who is this Joanne Hay, who 'journalist' Samantha Wright of the Sydney Morning Herald calls a 'nutrition researcher'?
Joanne Hay is:
Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader.
Soooo that may make Joanne Hay an Editor, a Kinesiologist (a what?), possibly even an Acupuncturist. Someone with an interest in nutrition, sure. But a nutrition researcher? No, not really. I suppose I'm technically a nutrition researcher, and all the people I work with are nutrition researchers. But by SMH journalist Samantha Wright's definition of 'nutrition researcher', every single person who read Nourished magazine would be a nutrition researcher.
I'm not bagging Joanne Hay, her beliefs (I don't know enough to make comment) or her raw milk shares scheme (which sounds kind of cool- I'm a bit iffy on the food safety aspects of it, but I'd have to look into whether there was any recent research literature on the subject and whether the authors of said literature had any particular barrel to push), but geez it annoys me to see people with questionable credentials promoted as credible authorities on matters pertaining to diet and health. Bleh.
10 comments:
Times are tight for journos - they're all getting sacked and replaced with robots run on the same programs as Microsoft Word Spellcheck.
Go easy.
Mm not someone i'll rush to use as an expert in court!
Meanwhile, TB really does make your Weet bix taste better!
I told Samantha I was a Super Hero but she obviously didn't think that was gonna wash. I AM a Super Hero, for real though and I hope you are too. I'm called The Nourisher. Nutrition research is just on of the things I do to save the planet.. Tongue firmly planted at all times, of course. Crumbling civilisation and life systems in jeopardy is the best time for humour.
Samantha could have said I was editor of Nourished Magazine but I asked to avoid publicity for NMag, not needing any and not wanting to confuse the article.
Here's more information about raw milk:
http://realmilk.com
Philbert83 - Bovine TB is not transferable to humans it is a separate disease to human TB, both of which have been eradicated in Australia. More details in link above and for Real Milk in Australia:
http://realmilkaustralia.com
Pasteurisation is a great idea for industrially produced milk from animals in confinement, living off bakery waste and out of date confectionary..
We want to drink fresh raw milk from healthy, pasture fed animals like our ancestors have for at least 30,000 years.
And no, I don't think we'll see Super Heroes as experts in court any time soon. But let me know if your expensive education gets you a position in the much sought after witness box, or any position come to mention.. ouch sarcasm is one of my negative powers, have to watch that.
It's not exactly elitist to have an educated opinion. You spent your money on a 'kinesiology' course and I spent mine on a nutrition degree. There's no point in being bitter and twisted about that. If I don't use my expensive education to sell snake oil that's my prerogative. It's nothing to do with not being able to 'get a position'- it's to do with this concept called maintaining one's credibility.
Incidentally, were you aware of the fact that tuberculosis in humans can be caused by a number of different bacteria, including Mycobacterium bovis? I may have no problem with raw milk consumption (I have consumed it on occasion, as well as raw milk cheeses), but I do have a problem with people perpetrating misinformation, whether out of sheer ignorance or malice.
Samantha Wright misled her readers by referring to you as a nutrition researcher.
"Back in the 20s, Americans could buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in various colors and thicknesses. Today's milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when Americans could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare."
i don't know anything about nutrition (you don't need an education to know when you don't know) but i know a false correlation when i see one. that's from your realmilk link and by its logic, real milk causes polio and measles.
there's nothing wrong with having an education. you have one too 'nourisher'. the only problem is that you arrogantly assume your education makes you an expert in things you didn't put the hard yards into studying to qualify as an expert in.
I'm not an expert, I'm a Super Hero and I don't need letters to be a nutrition researcher. You're right, though I am probably as educated as you, just don't have a whole fraternity behind me, who recognise my education and who's agenda I unwittingly push.
Nourished Magazine contributors, many of whom have many letters, are unperturbed that we do not include suffixes and preffixes in their names. They understand that we are creating a culture without experts. The variables in human health are way too numerous for anyone to truthfully call themselves an expert. In the end, we're left with little more than opinion. Personal health freedom and open forum is of more value than any expert opinion. Hence the desire to choose the food of our ancestors and not a bastardised version.
BTW I never said elitist why did you bring it up?
suffixes and preffixes
I prefer to call them titles and postnominals.
I guess the issue in the modern world is that anyone can publish online or in magazine form and it is up to the reader to discern just how many grains of salt they take with it, and just how much basis the writer really has.
The issue I think Sarah has rightly raised is that an established quality publication from a publisher with circa 150 years history shouldn't suggest that random websites they googled are all fact. And certainly not without flagging to the reader what exactly they were quoting, and from whom.
The modern world of trash online journalism has a habit of not only failing to check facts and sheer laziness...but also woeful spelling and grammar.
(For what it's worth, I was brought up on milk from a house cow named Murp. My Mantouxs are clear, my mothers aren't. Odd but comforting for me at least.)
Sad your mother was affected. Interesting you weren't. Note the work of Weston A Price showed that TB only crept into the bodies of primative peoples once they were introduced the 'foods of modern commerce'. People of exact same stock suddenly fell prey to TB, Cancer, Heart Disease, tooth decay and difficult labours once they began eating sugar, flour, tea and vegetable oil. His work is available for free here:
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html
The photos he was lucky enough to take (before the isolated populations he studied disappear completely) are amazing. Tubercules on 'captured' Aboriginal Australians compared to the same racial group of perfectly healthy 'natural' Murris - very sad. Science can help us to right the wrongs of modern 'healthy eating' but only if it is free from agribusiness agenda. Unfortunately, our universities are not.
Trash journalism aside, asking questions is way more valuable than stating fact from 'expert' stance. For example, why do we see nutritional dogma that was created by the USDA (US dept. Agriculture) as fact? Does cholesterol really cause heart disease, when we're eating less than ever and have higher than ever CHD morbidity rates? Is fibre really a nutrient? Most importantly, who is benefitting from us following these dogmas? More important questions than, "is Samantha Wight being a good little journalist?" I feel.
"They understand that we are creating a culture without experts. The variables in human health are way too numerous for anyone to truthfully call themselves an expert. In the end, we're left with little more than opinion."
and yet when you or someone you know are really sick, you go to a doctor. when you are mugged, you go to the police, when your car or bike breaks down you go to a mechanic. it must be nice to be as doubtless as you are.
just because you do not know and can't be bothered to learn from those who do, doesn't mean that those with knowledge are wrong. to show that someone is wrong, you must first learn what you intend to prove to be wrong. otherwise you come up with rubbish like tb being spread by food. of course isolated indigenous communities didn't contract tb. they were isolated so colonists couldn't infect them.
it's beyond stupid to rely on a book written before antibiotics were invented to support your case. honestly, you can't be serious.
forget about samantha wright's journalism credentials. i'm starting to suspect that she can't even read. now there's an agribusiness conspiracy to deny the beneficial effects of coconut oil, an agribusiness product (have you ever visited a coconut plantation?). i wish they'd start sending sarah some cheques for her part in the conspiracy, we could use the help.
BTW I never said elitist why did you bring it up
My apologies. I hadn't realised that when you referred derisively to my 'expensive education' that you were in fact raising the issue of the financial hardship facing many students and the cost burden that university study places upon them. Instead I mistakenly thought you were implying some kind of socioeconomic elitism inherent in my education.
Post a Comment