Georgia Ede Steals Back Christmas

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’Tis the season for TV Specials, which were always my absolute favorite viewing as a kid.  When that rainbow-colored “SPECIAL” popped up on the black screen, spinning through space to the time of drumbeats, my heart swelled with anticipation.

So I was thrilled today when I discovered this 2015 blog post by Dr. Georgia Ede, a holiday poem in the style of Dr. Seuss’s classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. 

A psychiatrist and researcher, Dr. Ede explores the connection between food and mental health, and she’s the author of one of my favorite quips on the topic: “Studies have shown conclusively that the head is part of the body.”  (You can check out her talk here).  

In this post on her Diagnosis: Diet site, Dr. Ede writes a charming, Grinch-themed holiday poem about whether or not meat causes cancer.  Sounds crazy, right?  The connection is The World Health Organization (WHO), and their well-publicized 2015 report that called meat a carcinogen.  By now, the WHO’s advice is well-known and well-accepted by pretty much everyone.  But is it true?

Dr. Ede drops a truth bomb on little Cindy Lou WHO

This is where Ede comes in.  She points out that the “WHO-Ville” researchers found 800 studies on the meat-cancer connection, but cherry-picked just 29 as the basis of their conclusions. Of these, most were correlation (not causation) studies, some were rat studies, and just three were actual intervention studies on humans.  Further, over half (15) of the studies in the report fail to support the recommendation. 

The post also contains a link to an in-depth analysis outlining the many faults of the WHO report.  Her funny, sarcastic poem and the fascinating analysis point to a sad truth: that nutritional authorities are often too quick to make dietary recommendations based on incomplete evidence.  

In the end, I always come back to the same question: why do we look to government organizations to tell us what to eat?  I think in the end, sticking to real, unprocessed food (or what our grandparents would simply call, “food”) and cooking traditional recipes is probably the best bet for a long, healthy life.

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