

We're Fat and Sick and the Broccoli Did It - praptak
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/were-fat-sick-broccoli-did-david-l-katz-md-mph

======
mathgeek
> True, we produce more vegetables than we did 45 years ago. But are we eating
> more produce? In absolute terms, probably a bit. But as a percent of
> calories? Not at all.

I could be misunderstanding something here, but my gut tells me that "as a
percent of calories" is not a metric to measure produce intake. You can eat as
many heads of broccoli as you want, and that portion of steak is still going
to be most of your calorie intake.

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dalke
There's no evidence that broccoli is mentioned as anything other than link
bait. This looks like one of a large number of interpersonal conflicts that
appear in the discussion of what constitutes a good diet. I don't see anything
of important note.

The essay at LinkedIn derides an op-ed on the NYT. The LinkedIn author assumes
that op-eds are supposed to be reliable, and that the 'New York Times would
allocate its imprimatur and rarefied real estate to an infomercial
masquerading as an Op-Ed' is 'a genuinely big, genuinely fat, and lamentably
disappointing surprise'. This is a misunderstanding of the op-ed page, which
frequently contains "informercials". These are considered opinion pieces, and
not journalism, and definitely have contained outright lies.

(A Google search finds many claims for lies. See
[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117240/nicolas-maduros-
ne...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117240/nicolas-maduros-new-york-
times-op-ed-distorts-venezuelan-history) ,
[http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_nyt_spread_the_big_lie_of.p...](http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_nyt_spread_the_big_lie_of.php?page=all)
for two.)

The reference to "broccoli" is apparently in reference to an unpublished
exchange between the two authors ("The author in question ... engaged me
recently in such an exchange to tell me: the broccoli did it!"). None of the
links given refer to that exchange. The NYT article doesn't use the word
"broccoli". The closest there is a lament about the increase in eating starchy
vegetables. Broccoli is not a starchy vegetable. (See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-
starchy_vegetables](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-
starchy_vegetables) .)

The LinkedIn essay also ends "The broccoli didn’t do it. We are fat and sick
for rather obvious reasons. If we’ve had enough of that, it’s time to act
accordingly, by getting sick and tired of business as usual."

------
barking
you have to sign up to linkedin to read this article

~~~
dalke
I read it fine from a private window in Firefox. I don't, however, think it's
an interesting essay.

~~~
barking
Thanks, still didn't work for me in chrome incognito or firefox private, kept
getting redirected to login sign up for linkedin. Maybe it's because i'm using
a vpn?

