Book Review: "Eat to Beat Disease" by Dr. William Li

Dr. William Li is a physician and research scientist at his institute, the Angiogenesis Foundation in Massachusetts.

Eat to Beat Disease:
The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself 

I recently had the opportunity to interview him with DavidGornoski, and in preparation for that read his book.

“EAT TO BEAT DISEASE shows you how to integrate the foods you already love into any diet or health plan to activate your body’s health defense systems —Angiogenesis, Regeneration, the Microbiome, DNA Protection, and Immunity —to fight cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, autoimmune disease, and other debilitating conditions.”

Introduction

It’s an interesting book, and a bit different from any I’ve seen before, in that he starts from what he says are the five functions essential for health and repair: Angiogenesis, Regeneration, the Microbiome, DNA Protection, and Immunity, and then backs into foods that support those functions. This leads to his 5 x 5 x 5 “framework” for eating better. It’s not meant to be a strict program of eating, but is a series of guidelines to pick better foods in your day-to-day life, while allowing for flexibility and not requiring perfect behavior. Aside from the list of foods, it’s also not complicated.

He starts from a presumption which should be self-evident, that medicine has made many advances, “But, despite all of the success, the sobering fact is that the rates of new disease are skyrocketing.”

He attributes this, correctly I think, to our diet, and to Medicine’s lack of attention to it:

“Not many doctors know how to discuss a healthy diet with their patients. This is through no fault of the individual doctors, but rather a side effect of how little nutrition education they receive. According to David Eisenberg, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, only one in five medical schools in the United States requires medical students to take a nutrition course. On average, medical schools offer a mere nineteen hours of coursework in nutrition, and there are few postgraduate continuing education classes on nutrition for doctors already in practice.”

Being at root a physician of the vascular system, he starts there (which of course allows him to look at every system in the body, since all depend on the vascular system to some extent). Angiogenesis is the process of the body growing new blood vessels. Surprisingly, this takes place regularly, and is involved in wound healing (good), and atherosclerosis, cancer, and blindness; and is an area in which Dr. Li is a pioneer.

“The goal of an angiopreventive diet is to keep the body’s angiogenesis defense system in a healthy state of balance. This sometimes becomes a point of confusion among Western-trained doctors, because balance is not typically part of their lexicon for disease treatment. Balance is a more familiar concept in Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine, in which the focus is on balance for preventive health. Health is viewed in those systems as the presence of balanced systems in body and mind.”

Lack of balance leads to dysregulation, where the homeostatic systems that are supposed to keep things in balance (within reason) get out of order, leading to the chronic diseases.

It’s an approach I whole-heartedly agree with.

The book is presented logically, in an easy-to-follow manner. He goes through each “5” of the framework, so the first five chapters cover the topics mentioned above (angiogenesis, etc), and so on.

He offers a suggestion of surviving in the kitchen, and a bunch of recipes. You have to like a book about food where this is the first recipe!

From Eat to Beat Disease.

Background

Li seems to approach this with a strong “plant-based” (aka vegan) view. (“Vegan” appears in the text nine times, and “plant-based” 32, “paleo” appears eight times, "red meat" appears 13 times (mostly negatively), and “carnivore” does not appear at all.) However, while I think it is fair to say that Li is biased in that direction, or at least influenced by that school of thought; he is open-minded. He is somewhat critical of the Paleo diet (calling it an “elimination” diet, a critique he does not level the vegan or vegetarian diets he discusses, but he also describes the success of Loren Cordain’s autoimmune protocol, a Paleo-based diet geared towards reducing autoimmune disease. He expresses some concerns (unfounded, I think) about the ketogenic diet, but also describes some successes of that diet for treating cancer.

“Glioblastoma was used to study the ketogenic effect, in part because of the importance of cancer stem cells in this disease. Even if this cancer is successfully removed or treated initially, the glioblastoma stem cells help it return aggressively. Avoiding added sugar and adhering to a ketogenic diet are strategies that may be helpful in fighting brain tumors.”

Many of the papers he cites or discusses start with an assumption that a plant-based diet is optimally healthy, and even those that he has authored himself make this claim:

“A plant-based diet is increasingly becoming recognized as a healthier alternative to a diet laden with meat.... We suggest that a shift toward a plant-based diet may confer protective effects against atherosclerotic CAD by increasing endothelial protective factors in the circulation while reducing factors that are injurious to endothelial cells.” (Tuso et al., 2015)

Another paper contrasts a “plant-based” diet to a Western diet (Fotsis et al., 1993), and that’s a comparison where the PB diet will win (in the short term, at least) as nothing seems worse than a Western diet.

But this is not a vegan or plant-based diet book, by any means.

“Because the 5 × 5 × 5 is a framework, not a prescription, it is adaptable to whatever diet plan you’re currently following, whether it’s Paleo, Whole30, Ornish, low-carb, plant-based, gluten-free, allergen-free, or ketogenic—and it’s easy to adopt if you don’t follow a plan at all.”

Many of the foods he recommends as part of his list of prescribed foods are indeed fish, but the only meat is dark chicken. He does not proscribe red meat, although he certainly discourages it.

Pros and Cons

Ultimately the cons to this approach are quibbles. The pro is that it’s a flexible, relatively easy-to-follow diet plan that you can overlay on whatever you are currently doing. Adding foods that are healthy—and it’s fair to say they are all healthy, and he includes beer and wine in moderation—will make any diet better, so even if you are on a junk-food Modern American Diet your diet will improve.

“For the 5 × 5 × 5 framework you first create your own personalized preferred food list (PFL) based on foods you actually enjoy. You create your list from the master list of all of the foods that follow.”

It’s a long list, so I won’t reproduce it here, but the sections are:

• Fruits 
• Vegetables 
• Legumes/fungi 
• Nuts, seeds, whole grains, bread
• Seafood
• Meat
• Dairy
• Spices/herbs
• Oil
• Sweets
• Beverages

Three sections only contain one item, and these sections tell you the most about this framework: Meat is only dark chicken, Oil is only extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), and Sweets are only dark chocolate.

He obviously doesn’t like red meat, and recommends dark chicken, along with lots of cheeses, because of the vitamin K2—which is what your body needs, not the vitamin K found in vegetables. K2 is thought to be important to vascular health. He does recommend not eating the chicken fat. Li is not a fan of organ meats, although he does recommend oysters, the liver of the ocean.

Recommending only EVOO is due to Li not being a fan of omega-6 seed oils. While this is a major pro in my view, it’s also a con, as he doesn’t explicitly say so.

Instead, one must read between the lines:

“Tilapia has a high unhealthy ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 PUFAs, making it a less desirable fish from a health perspective.”

And:

“There was no cancer-risk-reducing benefit seen with seed oils.

And:

“For cancer protection, researchers have found that the higher the overall intake of marine omega-3 in the diet, the greater the benefit. In contrast, higher omega-6 PUFA consumption in relation to omega-3 PUFA (the omega 6:3 ratio), which comes from vegetable oil, for example, is linked to unhealthy inflammation and an increased risk of disease.”

I fully agree with those ideas, but I would have been helpful if he had been more explicit. (I asked him about this in the interview, he was quite explicit there.)

And by recommending only dark chocolate for your sweets, what I do personally, he is recommending against too much added sugar, something he discusses at length in the book.

I would have liked to have seen a similar discussion of omega-6 fats, which I think are a much bigger health issue than sugar.

His recommendations on meat are unfortunately not well-founded in science, unfortunately. He is concerned that meat can increase the production of TMAO, a chemical which is often cited in the vegan literature as a reason not to eat meat. However, “Among food groups, TMAO directly correlated with the intake of fish, vegetables, and whole-grain products, but not meat, processed meat, and dairy products,” which is from a paper titled, “Plasma TMAO increase after healthy diets: results from 2 randomized controlled trials with dietary fish, polyphenols, and whole-grain cereals” (Costabile et al., 2021). Li’s diet is indeed a healthy one, and it will indeed raise your TMAO. Fish is the single biggest source of TMAO production. It’s not a reason to avoid Li’s framework, or red meat. The biggest issue with red meat consumption that I’m aware of is when it is consumed with high levels of omega-6 fats (Guéraud et al., 2015; Pierre et al., 2003), which, happily, Li steers his readers away from.

Quibbles aside, if you follow Li’s framework, and increase your consumption of fruits, vegetables, fish, dairy, and avoid seed oils and sugar, you will surely improve the quality of your diet immeasurably.

Conclusion

When David suggested interviewing Dr. Li, it was at the suggestion of his listeners. Frankly, I was rather dreading it, as it pretty quickly became apparent that he was on the plant-based side of things as I did my initial research.

So I was quite happily surprised when I went through his book, and in speaking to him. While we have some disagreements, it’s a well-founded book that takes a reasonable approach to nutrition, and is more cognizant of the science behind a lot of the issues in the Modern American Diet than, say, the Dietary Guidelines.

I’d recommend this book to anyone that is looking to fix their diet for the first time, as it’s a good introduction to some basic principles of diet and health, or to someone who is simply looking to expand their understanding of what makes a healthy diet, and is looking for a more holistic view. From either perspective he has a better approach than a typical physician with little interest or training in the subject. The advantage of Li’s background in vascular health is that he starts from a holistic view, and thus makes a series of very practical recommendations.

The recommendations in Li's book reminds me of both a traditional Japanese diet, with its emphasis on fish and vegetables, while avoiding fat and sugar; and also of Dr. Terry Wahls’ excellent Minding My Mitochondria (Wahls, 2010), also heavily focused on plant nutrients and from a vegetarian background.

I recommend Eat to Beat Disease, it’s a helpful addition to a happily burgeoning literature of how diet can improve health..

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References

Costabile, G., Vetrani, C., Bozzetto, L., Giacco, R., Bresciani, L., Del Rio, D., Vitale, M., Della Pepa, G., Brighenti, F., Riccardi, G., Rivellese, A. A., & Annuzzi, G. (2021). Plasma TMAO increase after healthy diets: Results from 2 randomized controlled trials with dietary fish, polyphenols, and whole-grain cereals. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, nqab188. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqab188

Fotsis, T., Pepper, M., Adlercreutz, H., Fleischmann, G., Hase, T., Montesano, R., & Schweigerer, L. (1993). Genistein, a dietary-derived inhibitor of in vitro angiogenesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 90(7), 2690–2694. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.90.7.2690

Guéraud, F., Taché, S., Steghens, J.-P., Milkovic, L., Borovic-Sunjic, S., Zarkovic, N., Gaultier, E., Naud, N., Héliès-Toussaint, C., Pierre, F., & Priymenko, N. (2015). Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids and heme iron induce oxidative stress biomarkers and a cancer promoting environment in the colon of rats. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 83, 192–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2015.02.023

Pierre, F., Taché, S., Petit, C. R., Van Der Meer, R., & Corpet, D. E. (2003). Meat and cancer: Haemoglobin and haemin in a low-calcium diet promote colorectal carcinogenesis at the aberrant crypt stage in rats. Carcinogenesis, 24(10), 1683–1690. https://doi.org/10.1093/carcin/bgg130

Tuso, P., Stoll, S. R., & Li, W. W. (2015). A plant-based diet, atherogenesis, and coronary artery disease prevention. The Permanente Journal, 19(1), 62–67. https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/14-036

Wahls, T. L. (2010). Minding My Mitochondria 2nd Edition: How I overcame secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) and got out of my wheelchair. (2nd edition). TZ Press. https://amzn.to/3v6G03s

 

Review: Jane Brody of the "New York Times" on the Paleo Diet

Ms. Brody (I presume it's Ms., since she does work at the Times) is the Times' august "personal health columnist, a position she has held since 1976," and as such, one would think she'd be well-suited to examine the details of a diet.

So let us see what she has to say about my own personal diet.

"Is the Paleo Diet Right for You?"

"In the Paleo era, people ran around all day and rarely lived past 40, so their risk of developing the so-called diseases of civilization is unknown."

That's not even the article, it's just the starting blurb, which ought to entice us to read further, not induce wincing, as is the case here.

1. "...people ran around all day..."

This no doubt refers to the debunked calories-in, calories-out model, oft summarized as "east less, move more".  We now know that human movement appears to be largely constant, and the fact that paleo man ran around more doesn't per se have an impact on their weight, obesity being the primary current manifestation of the Diseases of Civilization. See here:

"Energy expenditure and activity among Hadza hunter-gatherers." [1]

2. "...rarely lived past 40..."

This is a familiar trope, and indicates that Ms. Brody does not understand arithmetic. Forty would represent (assuming her number is correct) an average, not a max lifespan for a paleolithic person.

"Life expectancy is an average, and it fluctuates with age as the risks we face change throughout our lifetimes. Both those facts make it a frequently misunderstood statistic. High infant-mortality rates depress the figure substantially. This can lead contemporary observers to the false conclusion that most humans died quite young, even in the not-so-distant past."

That's from this article, "Who Lives Longest?" that appeared in the NYT in 2013. It includes a discussion of paleolithic lifespans. The max was higher than 40. Ms. Brody should read it.

3. "...their risk of developing the so-called disease of civilization is unknown..."

Hard to know, but not unknown. Paleopathology is the field of determining ancient health, and what it tells us is clear: the diseases of civilization appeared at the end of the Paleolithic, and people got sick, fast. From Jared Diamonds 1987 article, "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race":

"Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9'' for men, 5' 5'' for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3'' for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors... 

"...Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly 50 per cent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a theefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. "Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was about twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive.""

I haven't even gotten out of the blurb yet, and we've discovered 81% of the words in the blurb are untrue or at least grossly questionable statements.

Welcome to the New York Times! And thus you see the problem with fake news. It takes me 469 words to debunk 21 bogus ones.

The article doesn't get any better from there, but having demonstrated the general tone (most of these points are repeated in the body) I'll just hit a couple of high points.

Ms. Brody observes:

"There have been no studies of large groups of people who have followed the currently popular versions of the Paleo diet for decades to assess their long-term health effects."

This is a nonsensical criticism, as there are no such long-term studies of ANY DIETS for their health effects, with the exception of the Dietary Guidelines we are all forced to follow. The Dietary Guidelines failed to show any benefits for the health problems they were purported to ameliorate. The few paleo diet studies (as she mentions at the very end) have shown greater benefits than almost every other diet studied, including the ability to reverse many of the diseases of civilization.

"Several short-term studies among small groups of people (often with no control groups) suggest that the Paleo diet is more effective than the Mediterranean approach..."

She nevertheless endorses the Mediterranean diet, while ignoring the fact that it also has no studies to assess its long-term health effects. Note the double standard.

She seems to be using the Paleo Diet as espoused by Loren Cordain, which is fine, although not my personal choice. It's rather odd that she doesn't look into other versions of the paleo diet, which address some of her criticisms. Some of them are fair, but couched in language that demonstrates a lack of basic knowledge of food and physiology. No, dairy is not a great source of Vitamin D, Ms. Brody, the sun is. "There is no such thing as “a” Paleo diet" she says. Which is true, and every single paleo diet book tells you that. It's a strawman argument, and could have been rectified in a few moments online.

She does go talk to one "expert", Dr. Marlene Zuk, who wrote a book called Paleofantasy [2], from which Ms. Brody apparently got the substance of her article. Dr. Zuk is an evolutionary biologist, but she studies insects, not people. Hence she's not familiar with the subject she criticizes. But don't take my word for it, here's a review, from the academic journal Evolutionary Psychology: "Throwing Out the Mismatch Baby with the Paleo-Bathwater" [3]:

"In sum, Zuk has written a wide-ranging, accessible, and stimulating book, but one that mainly triumphs in dispatching paleo-hucksters, anonymous bloggers, and scholarly straw men. In failing to acknowledge the successes of the mismatch perspective, Zuk has reached the wrong conclusion: The mismatch perspective has not been a failure; it has been tremendously fruitful."

Now what you need to understand is that Dr. Zuk's book was published in 2012, and Ms. Brody's NYT article was published on August 6, 2018. So it's six years out of date.

In the interim Prof. Daniel Lieberman, Chairman of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard wrote the masterful The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease [4]. If there hadn't been a paleo diet already, this book would have spurred it. And if Ms. Brody had based her criticism on the paleo diet on that book, she might have realized there is much less to criticize. (Prof. Lieberman is not a fan of the paleo diet per se, but cites some of the early papers from the founders, and makes the same argument.)

What's entirely missing, of course, is any defense of the paleo diet from a supporter.

So the Times turns out to be not even news, just fake; simple fear, uncertainty, and doubt. This article is basically a tarted-up book review of a book six years old combined with a snarl.

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[1] Pontzer, H. , Raichlen, D. A., Wood, B. M., Emery Thompson, M. , Racette, S. B., Mabulla, A. Z. and Marlowe, F. W. (2015), Energy expenditure and activity among Hadza hunter‐gatherers. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 27: 628-637. doi:10.1002/ajhb.22711

[2] Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet,and How We Live. W. W. Norton & Company: NY. 2013. 255 pp., ISBN #978- 0393081374 (hardcover).

[3]  Robert O. Deaner and Benjamin M. Winegard; 2013; Book Review: Throwing Out the Mismatch Baby with the Paleo-Bathwater; Evolutionary Psychology; doi: 10.1177/147470491301100123

[4] The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health & Disease By Daniel Lieberman
Publishers: Pantheon Books, Random House, USA (2013) and Allen Lane (UK) 2013 ISBN: 978-1-846-14393-9

Review: "Fitness Confidential" by Vinnie Tortorich

tl;dr: Recommended, fun and useful account of a top trainer. 
(The links on this page help support the blog!)

For those of us who participate in the health and fitness worlds in podcasts or twitter, Vinnie Tortorich has been a fixture for many years.

Vinnie is "Hollywood's go-to guy for celebrities and athletes looking to get fit fast." He's a "trainer", the guy you go to to lose some pounds and tone up before your next movie role, or for the rest of us, before summer arrives.

Formerly known as "America's Angriest Trainer", (he doesn't really push that line anymore) Vinnie seems to have mellowed in recent years, but you'll still get some of his attitude in this book, originally published in 2013. (You can see him in the photo on the cover, although it's unclear if he's angry about the dietary idiocy foisted on Americans, angry about a client not listening, or just in agony while on an ultra-length bicycle ride.)

Argh!

What you get in this book is Vinnie's biography, essentially, peppered with mostly anonymous stories of his experiences in his own life that shaped his approach to training people. Despite the subtitled tease "get the dirt", one of the things you won't find in this book is dirt on clients. Vinnie doesn't kiss and tell and name names, although there are a few names mentioned. Interestingly, one of the non-anonymous clients Vinnie discusses is his co-author, Dean Lorey, who fired Vinnie initially after finding his approach challenging.

Lorey came around, wound up thin and running a half-marathon, and then proceeded to nag and coach a reluctant Vinnie into writing this book together.

The result is a well-written and quick read. You won't find pages of recipes or workout routines, instead you'll find concise principles that (in my experience, independent of Vinnie) will work, and lots of entertaining stories to illustrate the principles and drive them home.

Of more value is Vinnie's advice on how to select a gym, and trainer, some real useful thoughts about what works and what doesn't, and tips on how to help people get motivated. Some of it is quite counter-intuitive.

I read this book on a flight from LA to NYC, and it kept pulling me along.

The surprising thing about this book, perhaps, is that he's not an angry guy, he's caring and thoughtful, and seems to be motivated to continue his career by a genuine desire to help people, both his clients and the rest of us.

N.B. When you reach the advertised "end" of the book, keep reading. The best part, I thought, was in the chapters after the story of the training and diet stuff is over. This is the story of Vinnie's battle with leukemia and his fight to conquer a 509.5-mile bicycle race through Death Valley. It's the best part of the book, in my opinion, and is not to be missed.

Overall, it's highly recommended. If you're looking for a simple and straightforward recipe for weight loss and fitness, this is a fun and entertaining way to get it, and you'll wind up with a better approach than most PhDs.

FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL: Adventures in the Weight-Loss Game

Review: Alastair Reynolds' "Poseidon's Wake"

tl;dr: I need to find a book that I like.

I've read a number of Alastair Reynolds' books in the past, and have enjoyed them all, although I noticed a flaw in a number of them that was particularly notable in this book.  So when I took Poseidon's Wake out of the library, I was quite excited.

The premise of the book is a good one: ship thought destroyed turns out to instead have been cast light years across space; a message from it is received.

The bulk of the book is then the response to this message, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that a mission to the ship is dispatched.

The world building is pretty good, although there are a number of elements that cause it to creak, some of which are the fault of the author, and some of the publisher.  In many parts it's reminiscent of the world-building of Arthur C. Clarke, with a cast that would be today described as "minority", although since apparently all the Europeans have gone  missing, that term is really an anachronism. Labels are in Swahili and Chinese, it's mentioned several times.

Ultimately though, I found this book to be supremely dissatisfying, so much so that it was a struggle to finish.  I distinctly recall page 488, as that was the page at which I looked at the page number and said to myself, "How much longer?"  Over one hundred pages, was the unfortunate answer.

So the problems: let's start with the publisher. When I finished the book, I turned to the acknowledgements page, to discover that his was the third of three books. Huh?

Nowhere on the outside of the book is this fact mentioned, the inside flap mentions "in the conclusion of his epic saga", but one shouldn't have to hunt for this information! No doubt the publishers, noting that each version of a series sells fewer copies, decided to elide this information in order to sell a few more.

So, much of my initial reaction, that much of the world-building is absent, is likely because it was in the two prior installments.  No fault of the author.

What is the fault of the author is the bad elements of world building, the plot, and the characters.

There are a number of major world building problems, however. It won't take anything away to observe that a major plot point involves elephants in space.  As you might imagine, elephants aren't well suited to space, or space suits. Elephants, you see, are prolific creators of dung. Elephant dung is mentioned a number of times, in particular when the villian anounces that she must clear her bowels before getting into a space suit. I'd already begun wondering how this problem was handled, as the dung in spaceships issue had been mentioned as a problem earlier. The solution to how elephants evacuate themselves in spacesuits is never resolved, however. Given that elephants in space suits desperately trying to get inside becomes a issue at one point, one was left wondering if they were desperate to evacuate their bowels. This is an issue which was not resolved in the novel, however.

That's just one example of a deus ex machina approach to story-telling.  Reconfigure an entire spaceship to make it suitable for elephants?  Sure, no problem!  Couple days' work.  Fix a hole in the hull? Sorry, that's a year or more. It just makes no sense.

I enjoyed a few of the characters, including the captain of the ship dispatched to find this missing ship, and the artificial intelligence robot Swift, who plays a crucial role and is an enjoyable character. The protagonist, who appears to be an interesting, likable man at the beginning of the story, turns out to be an idiot. I can't recall a single instance where the opportunity to make a mistake arose and he failed to take that opportunity. He gets treason out of the way early on, so most of the remaining mistakes are more minor, until later, but they grate. I thought this was just ill-considered storytelling on the part of Mr. Reynolds, until he has the character recount his entire history of idiotic mistakes at the end of the book, and realize it must have been intentional. It may well have been, but it didn't make for an enjoyable read.

One additional major mistake appears just before what would have been, in a better-crafted book, the climax.  I recall an episode of an old TV series (it may have been The Dukes of Hazzard), where in order to prevent the progress of a villian, our heroes affixed a chain from the engine of his car to a tree.  What happened to that car as the villian attempted to speed away from the tree is roughly what happens to this book when the fool of a protagonist makes this crucial mistake.  The engine is ripped out, although the vehicle continues to move.

The thrust of the plot up until that point seems to be forgotten, the crucial danger that our protagonist was willing to commit suicide to prevent just disappears.  The entire story falls apart at that point. Mind you, at the very end of a trilogy!

Sadly, the book still has a ways to go.  Much of the rest involves the other characters congratulating our protagonist for his idiocy, which turns out to have been entirely pointless, as the danger never materializes, and his "moral victory" turns out to be almost entirely Pyhrric.

While I was initially annoyed that the publisher mislead me into reading the third book of a trilogy first, something I prefer not to do, I now realize that they did me a favor.

The intense dismay and annoyance that I experienced as what should have been an enjoyable read fell apart in my hands would have been far worse had I read the prior two books first.

Review: "This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol..." by Annie Grace

tl;dr: If you've ever thought about your drinking, you should probably read This Naked Mind. It's that fundamental—it's the owner's manual for alcohol.

"Can I still drink alcohol?" — Everyone's First Question About Fixing Diet

Alcohol consumption is one of the first questions that comes up after I start discussing the topic of a healthy diet with people. I always laugh, and say, "Well, alcohol's a poison, of course, so you don't want to overdo it..."

And, like most who try to eat well, I make alcohol a part of my "healthy" diet.

We also hear in the media that "moderate" consumption of alcohol is healthier than consuming none. I've never believed this, first because it's based on epidemiology, and second because I think it's a bit silly. Alcohol is a poison, and I don't think that consuming "moderate" amounts of a poison is ever really going to improve health, unless it's counter-acting some other poison. In which case the logical course is to stop consuming the first poison, not to add the second.

I was discussing the topic of booze with a friend one day recently, and she recommended this book. Despite this blog basically being a self-help blog, inspired by a self-help book (McDougall's Born to Run), I hate self-help books. Most of them I find tedious, repetitions of obvious things that we all know and know we should do.

Those that I've found valuable and compelling enough to actually alter my behavior, like BtR or Stephan Guyenet's Whole Health Source blog, contained a combination of some truths that I was aware of, and had acted upon; some validation or proof of another truth that I had considered, but had not acted upon; and then, having been pulled to that point, some other truths that I would soon be acting upon. It has been a powerful combination.

Grace's book is that kind of self-help book.

This is not a hellfire-and-brimstone anti-drinking book. I had those classes in high school, and they're a bit ridiculous. My reaction upon reading the definition of an alcoholic in that class was, "That's everybody!" Defining a disease so broadly as to include everyone is silly.

Grace does not make that mistake. She observes how widespread drinking and abuse of drinking is, as a book like this must, but she doesn't harp on it, and there are no stupid generalizations. As she explains:

"I have not given you definitive direction to stop drinking altogether. I have a hard time with rules. If there is a rule I must follow, my every instinct is to break it. A definitive statement to answer this question is difficult. I don’t want to write a rule and have the rebels, like myself, feel that they are bound. I would much rather present you with all the facts, allowing you to come to the decision that is best for you."

And, compellingly, she focuses on the subtle effects that alcohol has on the individual, the moderate drinker. She states her goal early:

"As you uncover the truth, your perception will begin to change, both consciously and unconsciously, and with this knowledge you will no longer desire alcohol. You will be free."

Then she begins to go through the facts:

"As John A. Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale, put it, “Unconscious systems are continually furnishing suggestions about what to do next and the brain is acting on those, all before conscious awareness. Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes and sometimes they’re not. ”

I've often thought that our conscious mind is really nothing more than a passenger in our body, driving to some extent, but often just carried along, so this really hit a note.

"While scientists used to believe dopamine was linked to feeling good, they now believe that dopamine is linked to learning, and learning includes wanting, expecting, and craving."

So essentially what is happening is that by activating your dopamine system, alcohol is training you, like a rat in a cage, to subconsciously crave more alcohol.

Grace goes through the consequences of that, and notes that while we can use our willpower to moderate that craving, "willpower is a finite and exhaustible resource, much like a muscle, that can be fatigued." So when you wake up in the morning and find out that you had "a little too much to drink last night", you're responding to a powerful chemical stimulus with a muscle that probably fatigued. It's no surprise that all find themselves over-indulging occasionally. The surprise would be if none did.

She does go through the many negative consequences of alcohol. It's a known carcinogen, with no non-carcinogenic dose, other than zero. We all know it alters behavior, but not how pervasive those alterations can be, and there were a few moments where I found myself thinking, "Oh...", with a bit of chagrin. None of us likes to discover we're an unwitting puppet to a chemical.

"Now that you know the naked truth about alcohol and what it has been doing to you, your body, and your mind, you’ll be able to act."

One particularly amusing little anecdote struck me, as it describes me and, probably, everyone who will read this review on this blog:

"Everyone at the table was intelligent and seemed very in control of their drinking, yet there they were, drinking a known poison in massive quantities and speculating about the possibility of plastic leaching into their drinking water."

Yes, put like that, it seems downright stupid.

The book is also well-written, and enjoyable. She has a terrific voice, is clearly intelligent, and includes some great quotes:

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

So yes, the book is a mind-bomb.

If you've ever reflected on drinking and it's role in your life, this is a terrific book to read. It's a great book if you've wondered about the health consequences of drinking, and more important, may enlighten you to some behavioral consequences of drinking of which you had not been aware.

Her intent, if you choose to let her by reading the whole thing, is to alter how you think about and look at alcohol forever. It certainly had that effect on me. Much like first reading BtR, that niggling doubt, that nascent thought, has been validated, brought to the fore, and now demands action.

You couldn't ask for more from a book.

Highly Recommended.

Grace, Annie. This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol: Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life (p. 187). ASPN Publications. Kindle Edition. 

"But Noakes won’t shut up or go away..."

"...because he has a steel spine and refuses to be intimidated by bullies."

And God bless him for that.

Read the whole thing .

Review: "The Way of Chuang Tzu" by Thomas Merton

tl;dr: The Way of Chuang Tzu is a fascinating look at Eastern philosophy from a Western, Catholic perspective, many of Tzu's writings as presented here are almost poetic, and do not require being read in sequence. Well worth reading to understand the commonalities in philosophy between two great religions and civilizations.

It may seem odd to read a book about Eastern philosophy written by, of all people, a Catholic monk, but I became interested in the intersection after being dragooned into watching Japanese anime such as Noragami and Kamisama Kiss and being surprised by what I initially thought were strong Catholic elements to the stories and morality.

But as I quickly learned, the Catholic influence on Japan was rather minute, as the Japanese government was not receptive to Catholic missionaries, and in fact banned them from the country, and killed those they found along with their converts.

The influence instead stems both from Japan's native Shinto, and from Zen Buddhism, the two dominant religions in the country. And Zen derives largely from Chinese Taoist philosophy, hence my interest in this book.

Chuang Tzu was a Taoist writer who lived and wrote during the third and fourth centuries B.C., and is regarded as one of the greatest such writers, although he is not the most well-known. Tao (道) is a Chinese word meaning "way" (the Way of the title of this book), and while it has roots in the Hinduism from which sprung Buddhism, is more of a philosophy of living than a religion, although it clearly has religious aspects. It is the foundation of much of Chinese culture.

Thomas Merton was a Catholic monk who became quite famous in the middle of the 20th Century, and had a fascination with Eastern religious practices and philosophies.

As Merton states in his Introduction:

"The rather special nature of this book calls for some explanation. The texts from Chuang Tzu assembled here are the result of five years of reading, study, annotation, and meditation. The notes have in time acquired a shape of their own and have become, as it were, "imitations" of Chuang Tzu, or rather, free interpretative readings of characteristic passages which appeal especially to me. These "readings" of my own grew out of a comparison of four of the best translations of Chuang Tzu into western languages, two English, one French, and one German. In reading these translations I found very notable differences, and soon realized that all who have translated Chuang Tzu have had to do a great deal of guessing."

So far from being a primary source, it's is a translation twice removed, once from the Chinese, and once through Father Merton's unique lens.

Lest you think this makes this work less important, Amazon lists it as their #1 Best Seller in Asian Literature, and the it features an introduction by the Dalai Lama, who was a friend of Merton during his life, and a fan of this work.

Merton has a short discussion of Tzu and his work and influence at the beginning, but most of the text are from Tzu, or from his disciples.

Topic covered include "The Importance of Being Toothless", "The Need to Win", and the surprising "Flight From Benevolence":

"When justice and benevolence are in the air, a few people are really concerned with the good of others, but the majority are aware that this is a good thing, ripe for exploitation. They take advantage of the situation. For them, benevolence and justice are traps to catch birds. Thus benevolence and justice rapidly come to be associated with fraud and hypocrisy. Then everybody doubts. And that is when trouble really begins.  

"King Yao knows how dutiful and upright officers benefit the nation, but he does not know what harm comes from their uprightness: they are a front behind which crooks operate more securely. But you have to see this situation objectively to realize it. 

"There are three classes of people to be taken into account: yes-men, blood-suckers, and operators..."

A rather astute observation from 2,300 years ago!

Much of the book, however, revolves more around what it means to be a man of Tao, or a man of the way.

"For Chuang Tzu, the truly great man is therefore not the man who has, by a lifetime of study and practice, accumulated a great fund of virtue and merit, but the man in whom 'Tao acts without impediment,' the 'man of Tao.' Several of the texts in this present book describe the 'man of Tao.'"

Much of what is presented here will not prove at odds with Christianity, in fact the many commonalities are what drew Merton to his study of Eastern philosophy and religion.

It's a terrific introduction to a wide area of study and understanding, and for those not steeped in Chinese philosophy, Merton serves as an excellent guide.

Highly recommended.

Review: "Dune: The Butlerian Jihad"

Dune, if you're not familiar with it, is the most popular and well-regarded science fiction novel ever written.  It's one of my personal favorites, I've read the entire six-book series many times over.

Meh.

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, is not one of the original six books, however, and is not written by the same author.  It's the fourth pre-quel book written by the original author's son and his co-writer.

I've avoided the Dune prequels for the same reason I avoid most other attempts to capitalize on successful stories by other authors.  They usually disappoint.

In this case I skipped the first three pre-quels and started with the fourth, as it's largely an independent story, and I hoped they'd gotten their writing and story-telling sorted out, as I'd heard not-good things about their earlier efforts.

Luckily, I took it out of the library.

I won't go into great detail about this book, other than to say the low-star reviews at Amazon or Goodreads reflect my views.  The writing is poor, the story-telling implausible, character motivation is often questionable, and large swathes of what this book was supposed to be about were discarded. The authors do away with the religious motivation for the jihad, for instance, which guts the story. Happily that's not made clear until the very end. Dune was notable for its intelligence,  they did away with that, too.

So if you're looking for an extension of your experience with Dune as I was, skip it.

I did find the story some what entertaining, however, as some of the attempts to fill in the story from the original novels was interesting (it was supposedly based on the original authors notes), but it was soured by the poor and in-your-face story-telling.  So I'm not entirely unhappy that I read the thing.

But I am very happy to have taken it out of the library.  I'll skip the rest.

Dune and the other five books in the original series are magnificent, however.  I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Numena: The Absurdity of Certainty

A new documentary a friend of mine is working on.  Check out the promo below.  It looks very interesting!

"An Inspiring, Surreal, Cerebral Documentary

"Explore the rise of certainty in the Western worldview with quantum physicist turned reclusive philosopher, Dr. F. David Peat, as he makes a humorous plea for Gentle Action."

NUMENA: The Absurdity of Certainty from Numena: Absurdity of Certainty on Vimeo.

"Trek Ascent Insulated Vibram FiveFingers Review"

I need more Vibrams like a need a hole in the head, but these look nice!

via Toe Shoes, Barefoot or Minimalist Shoes, and Vibram FiveFingers Reviews, News, Forums | Birthday Shoes

Book Review: "Pure, White and Deadly" by John Yudkin

Dr. John Yudkin (1910 - 1995) was a British scientist and medical doctor who founded a prestigious Department of Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College in London. He was in fact a pioneer in the field, founding the first Bachelor of Science degree program in nutrition in a European university.

Yudkin became interested in the correlation he noticed between sugar (sucrose, properly) consumption and coronary thrombosis, the formation of a clot in the heart. Yudkin had already become a best-selling proponent of a low-carbohydrate diet for losing weight, and was therefore familiar with the health problems associated with the excess consumption of carbohydrates. Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease often come as a package, and in the 1960s Yudkin came to the conclusion that there was sufficient epidemiological evidence to link sugar consumption to not only obesity but to the new epidemic of coronary thrombosis.

 Epidemiology is not, as Yudkin is careful to make clear with many amusing examples, sufficient to prove a cause-and-effect relationship, so he commenced to perform many experiments over the following decades in an attempt to discern a real relationship. He then proceeded to explore other harmful effects of excess sugar in the diet, some of which are quite surprising. He goes into detail in the chapter "Eat sugar and see what happens", and among other effects the cholesterol profile took a dramatic turn for the worse, insulin rose, glucose tolerance declined, and blood pressure rose. Additionally, in support of his theory that sugar might be related to thrombosis, the platelets of humans on a high-sugar diet in the blood became more sticky (in subjects eating the amount that he'd found was typical of consumption for those who'd already suffered from thrombosis). The platelets behaved just like those in people who already had atherosclerosis, in fact.

He also makes clear that all carbohydrates are not created equal, as he found that sugar (50% glucose and 50% fructose) has far worse effects on the body than starch (100% glucose), as some of the feeding studies he and others conducted compared the effects of both.

After making a very strong case for the fundamentally damaging effects of the over-consumption of sugar, in the chapter "A host of diseases" he lists those which are reasonably thought to be caused, at least in part, by sugar consumption:

• Damage to the eyes
• Damage to the teeth
• Damage to the skin
• Damage to the joints
• Is there a link between sugar and cancer?
• Sugar and drug action
• Sugar and protein
• Sugar and indigestion

He also details the evidence that a high sugar diet leads to a substantial reduction in lifespan, on the order of from 71 to 50 years, comparing rat lifespans to human.

In an earlier chapter he'd already detailed the astounding increase—25-fold!—in sugar consumption in the wealthy countries over the previous 200 years as sugar went from being a delicacy stored in locked boxes to an ever-present food additive. It's not unusual to see children getting 50% of their daily calories from sugar in one form or another.

So it's not hard to see how it's perfectly reasonable to connect the dramatic increase in morbidity, the chronic diseases of affluence that most of us now suffer from, to this huge change in the human diet.

But Yudkin is careful throughout to explain the limits of his knowledge and experiments, and to include the contrary viewpoint, noting that many don't agree with his conclusions.  This is, of course, the mark of a true scientist: knowledge is limited, and often imperfect, and any who claim to have perfect knowledge are often frauds.

Paleo diet fans like myself will be pleased to see Yudkin explaining that a low-carb diet like those of our ancient ancestors is likely the best option:

"In nutritional terms, the diet of prehistoric human beings and their ancestors during perhaps two million year or more was rich in protein, moderately rich in fat, and usually poor in carbohydrate....

"...The effect of the Neolithic revolution was thus to alter the components of the diet so that it was now rich in carbohydrate and poor both in protein and fat.  The carbohydrate was overwhelmingly starch, with sugars supplied only to a small extent as before by wild fruits and vegetables."

Pure, White, and Deadly was originally published in 1977.  The currently available version published in 2012 is a reprint of the 1986 revision.  As such, it's a bit out-of-date on certain topics.  Yudkin nevertheless uses his evolutionary perspective to good effect:

"It may turn out in the end that people would reduce their chances of getting heart attacks if they took large quantities of polyunsaturated fats such as those found in maize (corn) oil or in sunflower-seed oil, or in the special sorts of margarines made with these oils [omega-6 fats, specifically linoleic acid].  I have to say however that I think it very unlikely that this will happen.  I believe that the best diet for the human species is one made up as far as possible of the foods that were available in our hunting and food-gathering days.  The oils rich in polyunsaturates have been available only because of recent advances in agriculture and in the even more recent elaborate industrial techniques of extracting and refining oils; the complex chemical processing of these and other oils [hydrogenating] to produce margarine removes this product even further from the sorts of foods available to humanity during millions of years of evolution."

The last chapter, "Attack is the best defense", is an account of the many attempts to silence Yudkin and his research, most at the request of the of the sugar industry, but some by other scientists such as Ancel Keyes.  Cancelling conferences, suppression of speeches he did give at conferences, refusal to fund research that might prove contrary to commercial interests, propaganda, and flat libel were among the tools used to silence his message.  This is perhaps the most disheartening part of the book, as the sugar and food companies seem to have a great deal in common with the tobacco companies, despite a few ethical individuals with open minds.  They're not the worst villains that Yudkin details, however.  One would have to reserve that title for the parents who feed their children foods that the parents know to be harmful, as almost all parents do know that sugary foods are not the best options.  The child who ate 65% of his calories as sugar and promptly rotted his teeth out was probably not buying all his food himself, and Yudkin mentions the large number of people in Britain who are entirely without teeth, even at a young age.

What comes across in this book is that Yudkin is clearly an intelligent and eminently fair man.  His message is one that those concerned with the health of themselves and their children would be well-advised to adopt.

Personally, I suffered from countless cavities and had eight teeth pulled in my sugar-eating days.  At the age of 18, I decided to finally listen to my dentist and largely eliminated sugar from my diet.  I went 20 years without another cavity, until my company installed a mint bowl in the lobby.  I got one cavity, where I held the mints against my tooth while sucking on them, and have since reverted to my largely sugar-free ways.  Like Yudkin, I'll indulge in the occasional treat, but sugar's no longer a staple.  I wish I'd read this book back before I'd ruined my eyes, as that and missing teeth are the two effects of sugar that don't seem to regress on a sugar-free diet.  The steady increase in my myopia did cease, however, and I've had the same prescription for over 25 years.

The introduction to the 2012 edition is written by Dr. Robert Lustig, a specialist in childhood obesity.  Below is his hour-long lecture, "Sugar, the Bitter Truth", in which he expands on some of the topics of Yudkin's book.

"I stumbled upon Dr. Yudkin quite by accident in 2008.  I was in Adelaide, Australia, giving a talk at the Australian Association of Clinical Biochemists on my research into the role of sugar in the pathogenesis of metabolic syndrome.  Dr. Leslie Bennett said to me, 'Surely you've read Yudkin,' and I admitted I hadn't.  When I got home, I looked for Pure, White, and Deadly, and couldn't find it in our UCSF library of in any bookstore in San Francisco.  Eventually I got it by interlibrary loan.  I opened the book, and it opened my eyes.  I already knew from my own work that sugar at our current  rate of consumption is a medical disaster.  But to learn that Yudkin foresaw what a problem sugar was thirty-six years earlier, and at a much lower dose ... was a true revelation.  Indeed, I was a Yudkin disciple and I hadn't even realized it.

Yudkin's unpopular work had been buried, as it threatened nutrition scientists' major source of funding: the packaged-food industries. Science deals harshly with its heretics, not matter how correct they are.

The Fruit Of The Progressive Intervention In Diet

For the tl;dr crowd, if you're not familiar with Nina Teicholz's The Big Fat Surprise before,
I just came across this review of her book in "The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal)" I thought you'd all find of interest:

"Are some diets “mass murder”?" 

"From low fat to Atkins and beyond, diets that are based on poor nutrition science are a type of global, uncontrolled experiment that may lead to bad outcomes, concludes Richard Smith"

Note that in the summary they include Atkins in the list of "diets that are based on poor nutrition science", despite the author of the review's conclusion to the contrary.

"By far the best of the books I’ve read to write this article is Nina Teicholz’s The Big Fat Surprise, whose subtitle is “Why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet.”3 The title, the subtitle, and the cover of the book are all demeaning, but the forensic demolition of the hypothesis that saturated fat is the cause of cardiovascular disease is impressive. Indeed, the book is deeply disturbing in showing how overenthusiastic scientists, poor science, massive conflicts of interest, and politically driven policy makers can make deeply damaging mistakes. Over 40 years I’ve come to recognise what I might have known from the beginning that science is a human activity with the error, self deception, grandiosity, bias, self interest, cruelty, fraud, and theft that is inherent in all human activities (together with some saintliness), but this book shook me...." 

"Reading these books and consulting some of the original studies has been a sobering experience. The successful attempt to reduce fat in the diet of Americans and others around the world has been a global, uncontrolled experiment, which like all experiments may well have led to bad outcomes. What’s more, it has initiated a further set of uncontrolled global experiments that are continuing. Teicholz has done a remarkable job in analysing how weak science, strong personalities, vested interests, and political expediency have initiated this series of experiments.... It’s surely time for better science and for humility among experts."

Do read the whole thing.  The author is a fairly influential figure in medicine.

Yes Virginia, The Paleo Diet Was Low-Carb

[tl;dr: Clear evidence for carbohydrate level of ancestral diets.]

One of the "diet gurus" I follow and whose work I appreciate (the Prescript-Assist Probiotic was remarkable, thanks!) is Chris Kresser, formerly known as the Healthy Skeptic. I first came across Chris when he interviewed Stephan Guyenet, in Chris's first podcast back in 2010.

Recently, Laura Schoenfeld, who works with Chris as a dietician posted an article titled "Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health?" I scanned it, tried to comment, but as commenting on Chris' site no longer seems to work for me, moved along. Then Chris posted a follow-up, "7 Things Everyone Should Know About Low-Carb Diets" because apparently, and not surprisingly, the previous post got a bit of attention.

"Last week, my staff nutritionist Laura Schoenfeld wrote a guest post for my blog called “Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health”. Perhaps not surprisingly, it has caused quite a stir."

OK. So I read on, but stopped here:

"#1: Paleo does not equal low-carb, and very low-carb/ketogenic diets are not our “default” nutritional state, as some have claimed."

I'm just going to follow up on this one point. And not get into the rest of his post, or Laura's post. I have issues with both of them, but all those issues stem from this one fundamental misconception. So I'm going to cover just one topic: was the Paleolithic Diet low-carb?

 This post has been moved to Substack.This post has been moved to Substack.

Killian Jornet Autobiography Published.

First we had Born to Run, then Eat & Run, now we have Run or Die. Killian is not only a famed runner, but a famed skier. This review is a by another famed skier, but the book is all about running. Sounds interesting.

Merrell Vapor Glove vs. Vivobarefoot The One..

The One on left, VG on right.

Nice review: "Barefoot Inclined: Minimalist Showdown: Merrell Vapor Glove vs. Vivobarefoot The One..."

The One looks appealing when compared side-by-side.

There's this, from another review:

"I've had no problems with this design, but the laminate strips near the big toe do wrinkle up a bit during plantar flexion (when you roll up onto your toes). A friend of mine picked up a pair and had some painful rubbing issues there as the "wrinkle" pushed down painfully on her big toe. I've had other shoes that do this at the flexpoint, and I can feel where it happens here but have no issue with it."

But I've had the same thing happen in the VG when worn sockless, so I don't know if this is the dreaded rubbing issue that plagued the early VB shoes...

And when I mentioned niche barefoot-style shoe producers, I forgot to mention VivoBarefoot. I'm wearing a pair of their loafers today. Love 'em.

Thanks to John.

Interviews With Daniel Lieberman And Reviews Of His "The Story Of The Human Body"

Newest first:

Minds and Brains: Book Review: Daniel Lieberman’s The Story of the Human Body.

Lieberman argues that all of these diseases are in some sense a result of cultural evolution speeding ahead of natural evolution with the result that have humans manufactured a psychologically comfy and satisfying environment that is paradoxically unhealthy without fundamentally affecting our reproductive fitness. Lieberman calls this this paradoxical unhealthiness “dysevolution”.

The Colbert Show: Daniel Lieberman. Interview starts at about minute 14.

PaleoRunner: "The Story of the Human Body: Daniel Lieberman" (embedded below):



Food Navigator (this site is so annoying that I caution against clicking on the link, but include for completeness): "Type 2 diabetes a ‘mismatch disease’ for our Paleolithic bodies"

The Guardian: "The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease by Daniel Lieberman – Review"

National Public Radio: "How Our Stone Age Bodies Struggle To Stay Healthy In Modern Times"

Mail Tribune: "The Human Body Wasn't Built For Modern Life"

Boston Globe: "‘Human Body’ author talks ‘mismatch diseases’"

Everyday eBook: "The Story of the Human Body: Straight Answers to Big Questions"

Outside Online: "The Human Body has a Story to Tell"

Far North Endurance: "A review of The Story of the Human Body, by Daniel Lieberman"

Harvard Magazine: "Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman discusses health and human evolution"

"Shoes For the 'Primal Professional': A Review"

They sound nice.

"New Balance HI-REZ Minimus Review"

Wow.

"New Balance really nailed it with the Hi-rez. Putting these on is like putting on a pair of slippers—the mesh lining is soft and comfortable and the uppers contour to your feet with a process the NB marketers have termed “FantomFit.” I generally prefer sock with shoes, but I am comfortable enough going without in these for shorter runs. The toe box is nice and wide, with plenty of room to wiggle your little piggys and the heel cup is pleasantly snug without feeling too tight. There is no noticeable toe spring and the toe box flexes and widens as your foot lands with each step. The lacing system is pretty standard and allows you to cinch things up pretty securely if needed."

They're $120, which is quite a lot more than the $80 Vapor Glove, and the sole looks quite a bit thicker, but if you find the Merrell a bit too narrow, the New Balance Minimus line tends to run a bit wider. I'd have to try it on to tell... But read Tim's entire review over at Birthday Shoes.

I may have to see if the New Balance store has these in stock...

Stephan Guyenet Reviews: “Salt, Sugar, Fat”

Fascinating:

“Rather than demonizing the processed food industry, for most of the book Moss takes a fairly balanced view of its motives and actions (though he does demonize at certain times). One of the most interesting and unexpected aspects of the book is the seemingly sincere efforts some processed food manufacturers have made to try to improve the public health impact of their products, including imposing limits on the salt, sugar, and fat content of their foods. Nevertheless, as Moss relates, the free market dictates that these efforts typically fail or are eviscerated, because companies that impose constraints on their products are quickly out-competed by companies that don't. Adding insult to injury, publicly traded companies are savaged by Wall street investors if they attempt to consider anything other than profit in their recipes and marketing.”

If you ever need a reason to avoid, categorically, “processed” foods, this book is it.

Gordo Goes Head to Head: The Merrell Vapor Glove, Trail Glove, and the Inov8 Bare-XF 210

First 5k, first age-group win.

Gordo is one of the many terrific people I've met through barefoot running. An engineer, he has the discerning and demanding approach to things which that discipline requires. Gordo is a dedicated barefoot runner, but not a zealot. Shoes are tools, and Gordo gets that. But few have met his high standards.

Gordo and I ran the Run for Rwanda 5k a few years back. It was Gordo's first running race, and he ran in bare feet, on asphalt and gravel. As a lark the Race Director had added a barefoot category, to show solidarity with the simultaneous sister race run in Rwanda. Gordo not only won the RD's age-group, but did so in his bare feet, thereby winning the barefoot category too. Flabbergasted doesn't begin to describe the RD's face.

So when Gordo has an opinion on something, it's usually a good idea to listen. Below is a review that he posted of a couple of my favorites shoes, and a third shoe.

---

Garden of the Gods

I got my new Merrell Vapor Gloves a couple of days ago and decided to run over to Garden of the Gods and do a little bouldering on sandstone friction slabs. I went for a little run first, of course. ;)

First, my impressions. I love the Vapors. They are the shoe I expected when Merrell announced the Barefoot line. They are so close to perfect that any complaints I have are quibbles. I ordered both 10 and 10.5s. When I tried on the size 10s, my first thought was "I shouldn't have bothered with the other size." Then I started getting pickier. The rubber toe cap that wraps over the top of the shoe (one of my pet peeves – who the heck runs on the tops of their feet?) was hitting one of my big toes when I walked. Annoying. I tried them on with the neoprene socks I wear for canyoneering. Hmmm, these are now pretty darn tight across the midfoot. So I tried on the 10.5s. And never looked back. They're wider through the midfoot, don't hit my toe funny, let my toes splay, etc. The heel cup is exactly what I like; minimal and clean. The construction is typical Merrell, which is to say very high quality.

I ran three miles of moderate trail in the Vapor Gloves and then switched to the Inov-8 XF-210s (size 11). They felt somewhat tight and pushed against my left little toe in an annoying way. When I took the insoles out, they were fine. I really disliked the big padded heel cup. The ground feel was similar to the Vapor Gloves, as was the traction on dirt, gravel, and rock. I didn't notice the strange flex pattern [reported in another review] at all, they're quite flexible under the BOF and stiff elsewhere. I have no idea what this is supposed to buy you, it's the BOF that gets the heavy loading when you run. I didn't run in the Trail Gloves over that section, but from what I recall, their traction is about the same but the ground feel is much less. [These are the v1 TGs, there's a v2 out soon.] All three shoes felt like too much shoe for the trail, but this is a trail that I regularly run barefoot. It's moderately rough sandstone, which tends to be barefoot friendly.

Next, I headed over to a friction slab for the main event, testing stickiness. I found a smooth, low-angle slab close to the ground and went for a little traverse in the Vapor Gloves. They didn't work as well as I might have hoped, but they weren't awful with my heels down. About what I expected. When I placed my feet sideways, the shoe rolled and slipped badly (Duh). Next up, the XF-210s with the "sticky" rubber. This was a major disappointment. I don't know what Inov-8 is smoking, but their sticky rubber did no better than that on the VG. If that's their sticky rubber, I want nothing to do with the regular stuff. Sideways, with the insole in, they were much better. No surprise. Next up, the Trail Gloves (original, size 10.5). The first thing I noticed was that putting the left shoe on was a bit difficult. OK. Then the right, which I had modified a year or so ago. I could barely get the sucker on and it was so tight that it became uncomfortable in minutes. Off I went across the slab. Exactly the same performance as the other two with heels down and the same as the Inov-8 sideways. It's clear that I'm going to have to extend the cut in the upper much farther toward my ankle on the right shoe if I'm to keep wearing them.

To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The Merrells performed exactly as expected, so the disappointment was entirely with the Inov-8s. I'm really glad I only paid $55 (delivered) for them and have a couple of trips coming up this summer that should reduce their life by half. To be fair, they aren't a bad shoe if you don't care about traction and your feet are narrow.

On the way back to the car, I ran across some 3 - 4" crushed rock half embedded in the ground with a scattering of 1" crushed rock on top where the park is trying to control erosion. Hmmm. On went the VGs. I could run comfortably and carefree across the stuff. Cool. Inov-8, up next, performed at the same level. I really couldn't tell much difference feel-wise. Trail Gloves (these are going to kick ass, right?) Wrong. They were a little better than the other two shoes, but not nearly enough to outweigh their negatives - the extra cushion, pointy toe box, and the stiff, rockered forefoot. Then, for calibration, I ran the section barefoot. I know, I know. ;) I slowed considerably, had to pick my way, and experienced enough pain that I stopped half way through the section. I guess shoes do have a use or two. ;)

Conclusions: The Vapor Glove is a fabulous shoe. Merrell hit this one out of the park. If they ever get discontinued, I'm going to pull a Harry and fill the closet. Seriously. It's enough shoe to just blast over moderate/moderate plus trails and thin and flexible enough to feel like I'm not running in combat boots. The lack of any real cleats will be the biggest limiting factor, closely followed by probably not quite enough protection on really sharp rocks. The Inov-8 wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good, either. Middle of the road, if it fits you and it's cheap, go for it. The sticky rubber is strictly marketing BS. The original Trail Glove, for reference and calibration to my tastes, is both too much shoe and too little shoe at the same time. It's too thick and stiff to be a real minimal shoe but it doesn't have the cleats necessary to be a real trail shoe. Neither fish nor fowl. Not recommended. I'll be interested in trying on the TG2 to see if the improvements make enough of a difference to put it back on my short list. But if they don't have better cleats, that's not going to matter. The Vapor Glove is all the shoe I need for anything that the original Trail Glove can handle.

Caveats: I have fairly narrow US10.5D feet that are pretty thick. Think bricks with toes. If you have wide feet, none of these shoes will work for you. The Vapor Gloves are the widest. I normally run moderate/moderate plus trails barefoot, so I tend to automatically place my feet. I did try to intentionally land on some of the pointy rocks in the challenging section, but I may not have succeeded very well. I might be pretty hard wired at this point to avoid such stupidity. You may or may not be able to run carefree across similar terrain. If you try it and it sucks, it's not my fault. ;) I could feel my feet getting pretty worked. If your feet aren't stupid strong, best not to try a rough trail ultra in them.

— Gordo

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Originally posted here. Scroll down at that link for the discussion; reposted with permission, lightly edited.

I'll observe that there's only one truism about the perfect shoe: my perfect shoe isn't your perfect shoe. I continue to love my original Trail Gloves, but I'm not Gordo, and he's not me. :) Nice to see we both agree 100% on the Vapor Glove. And it's a shame that Inov-8 continues to disappoint. I have friends that swear by them, but I just don't see it, personally.