Page 3 - Summer 2017 Journal

A JOURNAL FOR NEWBIES
I have just finished reading the Spring 2017 journal—what an ab- solutely wonderful journal for the newbies! I think it should be given to all first-time members. I would like to order a truckload of them! And what a great boost after a membership drive!
Letters
that only plant foods promote health and longevity, while animal products should be avoided. I wonder whether the National Geographic author made that omission on purpose, or was it due to the current general brainwashing?
Jackie Hunt Lake Jackson, Texas
INSULIN AND WEIGHT LOSS Tom Cowan's article “Under- standing Weight Gain and Weight Loss” (Spring 2017) repeats—and promotes—a common error when he
Although insulin is a necessary condition, it is not—as Tom would ap- parently have us believe—a sufficient condition for weight gain to occur. A sufficient condition for the occurrence of an event is a circumstance in whose presence the event must occur. Just as with energy intake per se, insulin per se is a necessary but insufficient condition for weight gain to occur.
This matter of “insulin versus calo- ries” was addressed—correctly—by Chris Masterjohn back in May 2016: “...the idea that carbohydrate uniquely
contributes to obesity because insulin promotes storage of fat in adipose tissue is also misleading because although that’s true, insu- lin also stimulates the burning of carbohydrate for energy. So if you have more carbohydrate coming in in the diet and less fat coming in in the diet, then insulin is helping shift the fat towards adipose tissue while you burn that sugar and calorically everything is going to balance in that way. So insulin can only promote obesity in the context of a hypercaloric diet” (chrismaster- johnphd.com/2016/05/02/the-daily- lipid-podcast-episode-6-why/).
Billy the K Tucson, Arizona
SO MANY QUESTIONS
Having read most of the informa-
tion in the latest WAPF publication, I came up with several questions for which I am having difficulty finding answers.
What is the difference in autism rates in the USA versus other countries? One report I saw online showed that
Way to go!
Mary Walkes Avon, South Dakota
A TRUE BLUE ZONE
I want to thank Gina Baker for her
article “Costa Rica—Land of the Centenarians” (Spring 2017). She set the record straight on what the people in the “Blue Zone” of Costa Rica (Nicoya Peninsula) really eat! She lists these foods as pork, liver, kidney, lard, etc.
As it happens, I had pur- chased the National Geographic special publication “Blue Zones,
the Science of Living Longer”
that Baker refers to in her article.
The author clearly pushes the vegetarian view in the National Geographic article. But if you
read carefully, the author actually mentions that they cooked with a “dollop of lard” on the grill and “fried up some eggs” for lunch and garnished with “fresh cheese” (which I bet was not pasteurized). Even worse, at the end of the National Geographic article, the author lists the “top longev- ity foods” and purposefully leaves out lard, eggs and cheese, and only men- tions squash, papayas and bananas. If you didn’t know any better (as is the case for the general public), you would have once again gotten the message
SUMMER 2017
states the following: “Basically, people gain weight because of insulin. . . Weight gain is not about the calories.”
While it is true that, as he says, “without insulin it is impossible to gain weight and become fat,” Tom fails to point out the additional critically important fact that in the absence of a hypercaloric intake, it is equally impos- sible to gain weight, regardless of one's insulin levels.
Wise Traditions
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