Today, I wrapped up a weekend of Italian food adventure with a trip to Pizza Fusion in Mesa to check out their organic pies and general vibe. It's very hard to find restaurants that serve organic chow in Phoenix, and I'm a stone-cold pizza fanatic, so I was uber stoked to experience this joint.
Now, when I mention my pizza fanaticism affliction, I'm not kidding around. I was a regular haunter of Bianco's before it blew up and turned into a day trip instead of a date, and I've pored over every word of Jeff Varsano's blog like it was Henry Jones' Grail diary. Pizza gets created from scratch weekly in the DiBiase haus, and if there's a pizza on a menu, I order it. The way that some guys treat wine, I treat my ancestral home's gift to the universe.
Pizza Fusion is a small multi-state chain that started in 2006, but I never heard of it until local cool person K. Van Slyke (@KrysVS) mentioned it today. They sling organic flatbreads, pizzas, salads, and beer. We hit the joint at 3pm for Happy Hour, when drinks and certain appetizers are half-price.
First off, I'll express appreciation for Pizza Fusion's choice of brand in my preferred libation, soda water : they offer Boylan's, which even for a greaseball like me is a welcome change from the ubiquitous San Pellegrino. Boylan's comes in 12-ounce bottles with nice 50s-style graphics that please the lamp. My co-diners K.J. Van Slyke, W. Nash, and T. Trainor filled their 'Lil Jon' chalices with Lost Coast Great White and New Belgium Blue Paddle. The draft beers were $2 per pint -- unbeatable pricing, especially on a Sunday. There was a significant selection of organic beers on tap, including an $11 pint whose label insisted that the beer was free of crustaceans!
Notes on atmosphere : the whole place is slathered in strangely-attractive green paint, with digital prints everywhere that are emblazoned with green slogans. The prints are a little hokey, but nothing really bothered me until I got to the bathroom, the mirror inside which has the words "This person is changing the world" written on the bottom BAAARF . Some points were won back, though, after I tried the hand dryer, which appears to be a reclaimed jet engine from a downed MIG or something -- it's one powerful blower! My hands were drier than a boozehound in Bridgewater, Connecticut after about ten seconds. One thing that was really great was the countertop of the bar, which was made of concrete mixed with recycled glass and high-polished; a cool touch. The manger told us that everything -- building materials, paint, chairs, etc, are totally green'd out, made from reclaimed stuff when possible, and LEED-certified. It's a nice gesture for sure.
Van Slyke ordered up and graciously shared the flatbread appetizer with marinara, which was pretty good. The flatbread had good texture and wasn't too heavily-seasoned (the latter being a common pitfall of wack flatbread); the marinara was tangy and not bitter or overly-sweet.
There was no pizza Margherita on the menu (what the hoot!?), so we strong-armed our host into making us one, with a multigrain crust. In reality, the guy was more than happy to make us the requested pie -- super nice fellow with fresh ink on his arm that offered us excellent service and didn't complain as we proceeded to nerdily occupy his bar for the next three hours.
A chicken -topped salad was ordered as well. The chow was served with good speed. The manager informed us that 75% of the ingredients are certified organic with the balance 25% being non-certified but 'all-natural,' pesticide-free.
[This last point is worth mentioning -- I've been speaking about the iffiness of the "organic" certification for a while, as it still allows a fair number of chemicals both natural and synthetic, and foods only need to be 95% organic to meet certificate standards. Places that eschew bad chemicals completely but don't jump through the government hoops to get certified, like Desert Roots Farm for example, are more desirable to deal with than mass-produced "certified organic" producers (many of which have lately been rocked with scandal).]
The pizza verdict :
The oblong pie was good, though the most crucial aspect, the crust, didn't have a lot to do with my concept of what pizza crust is about. It was very dense and totally flat. The denseness is probably partially attributable to the heavy multigrain dough; as an amateur pizzaiolo myself, I can attest that whole-grain doughs don't rise as much as white doughs do. Still, there were no air pockets or structure at all -- weird. So I asked the nice manager guy if they rolled the dough out; it happens that they feed it through some kind of flattening robot before loading it into the fancy rotary oven. I'd have much preferred a nicely structured hand-shaped crust. These issues aside, the crust had very good flavor; not too salty and with plenty of interesting grain flavors. The outside was well-charred after a nine-minute cook time. I asked what the oven temperature was set at, expecting it to be in the 700 Fahrenheit degree range; it turned out to be 525, just 25 degrees more than a standard residential oven (which never char well) can get. Props to the oven designers for getting great results at low heat. The crust was also confirmed made in-house, which is a philosophically important point. [Note : they do offer gluten-free crust, but it's not made on-site]
The crust was very crunchy and satisfying to eat; i enjoyed it. It had a real hearty texture that complemented the riot of grain flavors.
The sauce had good flavor and excellent color, though I suspect that it may have been pre-made and bottled rather than made that day from whole tomatoes; it didn't have that fresh kick that just-made sauce has. It wasn't bitter, grainy, over-sugared, or flavorless though; instead, it was a mild, soft-textured sauce.
The fresh mozzarella was undoubtedly the real deal, judging from the characteristic uneven melt pattern. It had a pretty firm texture and wasn't too salty -- nice choice. Mozzarella is probably th' least important ingredient in a pie, but it's much appreciated when they don't skimp on it.
The chicken salad thing was big enough to feed MC Hammer's posse circa 1992. Massive, it was like a huge platter of vibrant greens topped by about a pound of diced chicken breast and accompanied by two vessels of Chelten House Raspberry Vinaigrette. I don't eat birds, so I can't attest to the flavor of the salad directly, but my compatriots seemed very well pleased and scarfed it down like a college kid with an overdue assignment and a bag of Chee-Tos [Am i projecting too much here?] I did sample the vinaigrette, which ranks with my favorite flavored dressings -- specifically, it's not overly sweetened. Nice choice.
The bottom line : Pizza Fusion has good food, though it's not in tune with my preferences for "pizza proper." Tasty and not your average pie, though; a welcome new flavor in flatbread. The beverages and pricing were outstanding. The atmosphere, while a little overwrought, was sufficiently inviting. And the recycled-glass-n-concrete countertop and the hi-power hand dryer were nifty bonuses. the fact that they use strictly organic and pesticide-free ingredients alone makes it a must-visit for Phoenicians who like to avoid poison.
Nicholas' EatHouse Rating : B+
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A window into the DiBiase pizza method and results :
Above you'll see my preferred sauce ingredients : very fresh local pesticide-free Roma and little yellow tomatoes and fresh garlic, all from Desert Roots Farm. The tomatoes are de-seeded and crushed with a hand blender; never cooked. It takes less than ten minutes to make the raw sauce, including washing time. The cheese on this pie was Trader Joe's very good organic shredded mozzarella; the knife of choice is a Wusthof Classic. Not shown in this shot : fresh basil, also from Desert Roots; organic olive oil; true Pecorino Romano cheese, which I apply liberally (even though it voids the 'true Margherita' status, it's hella tasty).
This dough has lots of structure; it's prepped the night before using only flour (one-third whole wheat, two-thirds unbleached white; all organic), water, yeast, and salt. I knead it by hand (even though I should probably start using the pictured KitchenAid mixer for efficiency's sake) and it ferments in the fridge overnight for best flavor. The dough is at just about 50% hydration before cooking; very wet indeed. I prefer it like this to promote structure. In defiance of the Neapolitan rules, I coat my hands with olive oil before hand-shaping in the air. The entire dough process from mixing to shaping only takes about 5 minutes, fermentation time excluded.
The results : Delicious pizza. The crust is thicker and puffier than the Neapolitain rules alllow, but that's just how I've come to like it. The 500-degree maximum heat on my oven precludes good charring, sadly. The sauce tastes incredibly fresh, yummy, and flavorful, with a strong hint of garlic kick. I like my pizzas that use shredded mozzarella to be very cheesy [I use fresh mozz more sparingly]. The basil is put on the pie about 5 minutes into an 11-minute cook time. I used to cook for only 8 minutes, but have come to value a more-cooked crust with cheese at the edge.
Scratch-made organic pizza is a taste revolution! Once you start taking command of your pizza supply chain, you'll be rocketed into unexplored realms of deliciousness. Give it a shot and demand better pizza from your local pizza joint! (493,704)
Pardon the pun, but this ad, like HFCS found in soft drinks and juice drinks, is pretty corny stuff. Let's cut through the saccharine images of an All-American family and the folksy populist spin. First, "juice drinks," as defined by the USDA is different from "100% juice." Juice drinks only constitute a small percentage of actual fruit juice, and can contain added water, sugar/HFCS, coloring, and vitamins. In these USDA health guidelines (PDF), the example juice drink only contains 5% juice. The proposed tax is on soda and juice drinks, NOT on 100% juice or fresh fruit. Last time I checked, soda and juice drinks were not essential foundations in the food pyramid.
I'm no fan of big agro-business lobbies or a Federal nanny state, but guaranteeing all Americans basic access to health care is an important issue that needs funding. So where do we go from here? Well, if we follow the money (and the trail of corn kernels), we find that soft drinks and juice drinks are able to be sold relatively cheaply because of existing government intervention in the form of subsidies. These government subsides—our taxpayer money— artificially lower the price of corn and corn derivatives like high fructose corn syrup. When we buy a soda, we aren't paying the REAL market price because the cost of producing corn syrup, a major ingredient, is subsidized by our tax dollars. Hey, isn't that soda socialism or something?
Now here's the part where I might even get mistaken for a conservative: Instead of levying taxes on soda and juice drinks to fund health care, why not just cut costs by reducing or even eliminating the corn subsidies, and use the savings to fund health care reform? These subsidies are taxes that we have already paid that are a standing government bailout that props up an essentially non-market-based business model.
Insert folksy Fox News-worthy soundbite: "Calm down about socialized medicine 'cause corn subsidies ain't so capitalist either!"
The Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database shows that there were $21.6 billion in corn subsidies in the four-year period from 2003-2006 (inclusive). The Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University found that HFCS producers received an implicit $234 million dollar a year subsidy derived from overall corn subsidies. Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that "adding a tax of three cents per 12-ounce serving to these types of sweetened drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years." If the amount of money spent on four years of corn subsidies were redirected towards health care, we would already be 90% of the way to the potential $24 billion that could be raised by new taxes on soda and juice drinks.
Why bother with new taxes on struggling American families when the government can just stop using our taxpayer money to subsidize artificially-cheap corn, the staple of the industrial agro-businesses, and use it as a down payment on health care reform? (61,188)
Last time on poisoned foods, I explained how PhDs are full of crap, and how it is that this comes to effect doctors and their advice to patients (you).
Unfortunately, this time I'm going to have to get a little bit more scientific on you. Sorry for the diversion, but once you understand at least some of the science behind metabolism, you too will be able to "call bullshit" on the PhDs. They'd like to keep science confined to the narrow confines of their tiny pinheads, but the reality is that science is for everybody, and it doesn't take an especially smart person (or someone who just thinks they're smart, in the case of the PhD) to come to conclusions based on scientific fact.
First, we're going to talk about insulin. If you get nothing out of this article, you should associate insulin with weight gain. So if I were to say that "this food stimulates insulin release", you would say ....? ...? That's right! it makes you fat!
Insulin, under normal circumstances, is created and released by the pancreas usually, BUT NOT ALWAYS [ -- Note this], in response to a rise in blood sugar. The insulin is merely a SIGNALING hormone that tells your muscles, fat cells, etc, to take up sugar from the blood (sugar is actually converted to fat in the liver and dumped into the blood, then the fat cells take it up and grow plump). These muscle/fat/liver cells are primed and ready to suck up the free sugar. As soon as insulin gives the go-ahead, *FOOM* the sugar is burned / stored like an inferno from that movie Backdraft. This is why when diabetics inject insulin and forget to eat, they can put themselves into a fucking coma™ due to lack of blood sugar.
So, to kind of summarize: in the same way that 'roids tell your pecs to turn into a couple of chest-hams and balls to turn into peanuts, insulin tells your ass to get fat and your belly to inherit the Earth.
Resistance
You may have heard of insulin resistance. I'm not going to cover that here in detail, but it's incredibly important to understand:
Insulin resistance is caused by hormones released by fat cells in the belly and it forces the pancreas to secrete more insulin to compensate. The fatter you are, the more resistant you are, and the more insulin your pancreas releases;
The liver is immune to the resistance hormone, so while muscles aren't eating and burning the sugar, the liver's responding to the high insulin levels by going crazy turning the sugar it into fat, leading to weight gain and even hunger! Therefore, in a person with insulin resistance, more ingested sugar is going to be converted into fat than in a person without resistance.;
Eventually, the give-and-take between insulin and the resistance hormones may result in the pancreas being overworked, damaged, and eventually being unable to compensate. This condition is known as Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus [Pro tip: This is how most diabetics acquire their condition.];
Often, the pancreas will get so chewed up that the person can give themselves a big fat case of Type 1 Diabetes, meaning that even after the person loses the resistance-hormone-secreting fat cells (think treadmill), they will still have overly high blood sugar.
Almost everyone has some small amount of fat cells making them insulin resistant. We're going to assume that you haven't gotten to the point of extreme insulin resistance... yet. However, insulin is still a great barometer to determine how fat something's going to make you. Remember, MORE INSULIN = MORE FAT.
The Carb
Now that you've learned the magic of insulin, you're probably wondering how you're going to use your newfound knowledge to control your weight.
Sadly, there's no way around this: Carbohydrates stimulate insulin release. I know, it's sad, but those low carb numb-nuts actually had a point. Atkins is an extreme example, but really any amount of carbohydrate abstention helps.
You might be asking: "So how does my bagel become sugar in my blood? It doesn't taste sweet, it must not have sugar!" You know what it takes to turn starch into sugar? Saliva (spit). Starch (the main source of carbs from wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, and others) is actually just a whole crapload of sugar linked together in a weak chain. One tiny snip by an enzyme (present in saliva and elsewhere) and a little bit of water added and they turn into single-monomer sugar molecules that float into your intestine cells just as fast as a Jolly Rancher candy.
Carbs are pretty much all the same. The only difference is what other food you mix it with to change the peak and duration of the sugar high. FYI: Though I wont go into too much detail on it, the peak and duration of the sugar high is called the "Glycemic Index."
The fact is, carbohydrates have ZERO nutritional value outside of providing energy for cells. If you're overweight, you already have more than enough energy in your body to burn for a while. Therefore, you don't actually require any carbohydrates if you have sufficient fat stores.
By contrast, in order to burn ingested protein, the body actually has to tune down the insulin and increase levels of the antagonistic hormone glucagon.
A study done of Atkins dieters found that they routinely consumed fewer calories than those not on the diet. The rules don't say they have to do this, but the dieters found they were compelled to eat less due to the the satiety caused by the foods they ate due and due to the lack of an insulin-induced blood sugar dip (which leads to people getting hungry again quickly after carb-rich meals).
The brain, unfortunately, loves to eat sugar. It cannot eat fat directly, so the only choices are ultra tasty sugar and unpleasant, slow burning, ketone bodies, which is like leaving your brain stranded on a desert island with nothing but mulchy disgusting powerbars for eternity--you're alive, you're technically healthy, but you wish you weren't.
That's why a lot of diets simply encourage cutting back on carbohydrates and not eliminating them. The goal is to burn stored energy, so don't be a fool and introduce more energy into the system than you have to, however, keep in mind the only diet that works is one that you can stick to. Carb cravings can drive you nuts, so cutting back may be more to your liking than abstaining completely.
No Fat? No Deal!
You're probably wondering: if the goal is to consume less energy, why not ditch the energy-rich fatty foods instead of that tasty CocaCola? After all, Fat has about twice the calories per weight than carbohydrates, and it can dissolve directly from the food, float right through the intestinal wall, and fly right into that adipose tissue on your already overly-plump posterior.
The fact is: if you're overweight, you're probably already insulin resistant. If you're insulin resistant, more of the carbohydrates you eat go into making fat than being burned by muscle (when compared to a normal person). Also, since the insulin levels are higher than normal in the resistant, the liver will be making fat out of the sugar long after your blood sugar has normalized. This will actually cause low blood sugar, making you even hungrier!
So, to summarize, with sugar: you eat, you spike your insulin, you crash, you feel hungry, you eat again.
"Okay!!" you say "But what about fat? You said you were going to talk about fat, stop stalling!!"
I only mention carbs so that you can keep it in mind when you compare it to fat:
Fat does not spike insulin, period. It also increases satiety directly by release of special hormones.
Fat decreases the rate your stomach empties into the small intestine, leaving you feeling "full" for longer and therefore decreasing your desire to eat
Fat, when combined with a regular helping of carbohydrates, can actually reduce the rate at which it is absorbed, lowering the insulin spike. This reduces the 'crash' effect and therefore reduces the urge to eat again later.
Fat is burned highly effectively by muscle, and does not increase lactic acid levels (so you can work out longer and harder than you can on sugar).
Products that change recipes to gain their "low fat" moniker almost always raise sugar to compensate for taste. This decreases the satiety caused by the fat and increases the urge to eat again later due to the sugar
It's the combination of all these facts that lead many, including myself, to believe that the "low fat" diet craze is one of the prime reasons for America's obesity problem. Fat is not good for you, but it's a necessary addition to carbohydrates, and certainly not any worse. Fat may be more "energy dense" than carbs, but that hardly matters when you're eating three times the food twice as often because it's not filling you up, and it's making you more hungry.
Fiber
For God's sake. Eat more fiber.
Fiber lowers the rate of absorption of carbs, so eat high-fiber bread.
Fiber increases satiety, so eat more fiber.
In the same way that sawdust is used to clear up oil spills, fiber absorbs fat and cholesterol in the gut and prevents absorption--decreasing blood cholesterol and therefore the risk of heart disease. So eat more fiber.
Fiber is incredibly important for GI health and prevents a long list of possible ailments including diverticulitis.
Perforated diverticulitis is where your colon blebs off, fills with puss, gets inflamed, and then pops. When it pops, it leaks out puss into your abdomen, sending you into septic shock. Your immune system goes nuts and starts telling your platelets to clot all over your body so you get little bloody patches on your skin and your internal organs. You start out with blistering fever but the shock is so bad you don't have enough blood to fill your vessels so you get very cold. In the event you survive, you have severe damage to every organ in your body including your brain. This isn't something that takes long to develop, either. The patient I first saw this in was 30. So you're going to eat your fiber now, right?
Oh, fiber also prevents colon cancer. Heard of it? Yeah, fiber's the most important factor in preventing colon cancer behind genetics, so eat more fiber.
Fiber has somewhere between zero and almost zero calories, so why the hell aren't you eating it? Shut up, I know you aren't.
High(er) Protein
Disadvantages (?):
I'm only going to say a few words on protein. First of all, you've probably heard that the Atkins "high protein" diet causes kidney problems. Most of the hubbub about this was from exaggerated claims made by puppet organizations setup by PETA (a pro-animal and therefore anti-high protein diet organization).
Even if that were true: Far and away, the #1 and 2 causes for for kidney failure in the US are Obesity and Tobacco (I don't know which is #1, sorry). Being fat is way worse for you, stop making excuses! Having diabetes is going to eat your kidneys faster than any steak, even that one John Candy ate in "The Great Outdoors."
Luckily, it's not actually true. High protein diets will not wreck your kidneys... unless you're dumb, but dumb people run into trouble with many things.
One of the results of increased protein in the diet is an increase in ammonia (ammonium, actually, but it's almost the same) concentration in the urine. This is normal and natural in animals, and the ammonia in the urine of animals is a necessary part of the ecosystem. If you were to somehow eliminate all the ammonia from the waste of all the living things around the world, it would literally end most life on earth in a matter of months.
If the world ends, what's the body count on Panda bears?? Take that, PETA!!
Alright, fine: Theoretically, higher ammonia concentrations are bad. It may have actually resulted in one or two people suffering some problems. That's why we're going to drink more water, which lowers the concentration of ammonia to safer levels, right?
If you're losing weight, you should be drinking more water anyway. Just add another little bit if you choose to augment your diet by eating more protein.
Advantages
Protein does not increase insulin. In fact, you need to lower insulin just to convince cells to burn protein as fuel.
Protein also increases satiety, meaning you feel full faster.
When insulin and sugar levels are low, the body makes new sugar (to feed the brain, heart, and red blood cells). It sucks ass at this. I mean it's pathetic. Animals are terrible sugar-makers, and they know it. That's why they only do it when they're hungry. In order to make sugar, the body combines protein with stored fat. The body stores fat, but it doesn't "store" protein, so it has to cannibalize itself to get it. With low insulin levels, muscle protein is broken down. This is why when people lose a lot of weight, they tend to lose muscle mass as well.
With a high protein diet, instead of burning muscle, your body will use the dietary protein, leaving the muscle intact. It's actually been proven that high protein dieters end up with more muscle mass after they lose weight than people who diet without high protein.
Verdict
When losing weight, you probably want to eat more protein and definitely want to drink a lot more water. Higher protein will keep more muscle and may allow for faster weight loss.
As an aside, it's not a choice between the Atkins "I ate Bambi's Mom" diet and the Vegan "Suck my Potatoes" diet. That's the kind of binary PhD nonsense that you see all over the literature on this. Some sources on this subject made it seem like you couldn't even eat oranges because it made Dr. Atkins hit-list. It went on to complain that this meant all higher protein diets resulted in scurvy, and that this was the reason "all low carb diets are bad." I'd just like to say that I can eat whatever 'the fuck I want, thanks very much. Yes, it's possible to eat lots of healthy foods, eat fewer carbs, and consume more protein all in the same meal, or at least in the same diet.
Diet Sweets: The Devil You Don't
I wanted to conclude this edition of Poisoned Foods with something definitive and instructive, but really everything I've told you so far is solid fact, and why start pointless controversy by mentioning specifics?
However, one of the things I can say specifically is: avoid artificial sweeteners. No, this is not a "maybe just a tiny bit" situation. Just don't.
Recently, a team of researchers discovered what many of us have already known: artificial sweeteners increase insulin levels.
Unfortunately, the study only tested Nutrisweet (present in nearly all sugar-free gums and beverages). We'll assume (because let's face it: it's true) that this applies to all artificial sweeteners, not like it matters because if we can get people to stop drinking diet coke, the world's going to be a better place hands down.
Side note: I wrote a report for my organic chemistry class on aspartame (nutrisweet). I may make the next edition entirely on that, you're gonna flip when you see the evil. EVVVVILLLLLL!!!
Remember when I said insulin decreases blood sugar in part by increasing the creation of fat? especially in people who are already fat? Hint: I said it like 10 times already.
YES: Diet drinks have no sugar, NO: You will not lose weight if you drink them.
Studies have definitively indicated that switching from regular soda to diet soda will not automatically lead to weight loss. Now you know why.
When you eat carbs, your blood sugar spikes, your insulin spikes, your blood sugar declines, you gain weight, you crash, you get hungry again.
When you consume artificial sweeteners, the exact same thing happens, only without the blood sugar spike. Artificial sweeteners make you hungry for real food, which you have to consume more of to make up for the blood sugar you've locked away into your fat cells.
Usually, these products mask some of the crash effect by being mixed in with caffeinated liquids. In the case of aspartame (nutrisweet), part of the molecule is actually converted into adrenaline (yes, that adrenaline). These effects may not be entirely obvious, but they are occurring.
I'm not saying you should switch from Diet Coke to Dr. Pepper. That would be stupid, now wouldn't it?
What I am saying is: if it tastes sweet, don't eat it if you want to lose weight. Especially soda.
In fact, there was a study done of childhood obesity. It found there was one unifying characteristic of most obese kids. We're talking undeniable correlation here. What was it? The one thing that commonly separates fat kids from skinny kids?: Soda.
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That's it for this edition. Join us next time. (82,465)
So I'm sitting up here in Cake City trotting through my second year of medical school and I thought it was time to stop and take stock of some of the things I've learned.
For instance, I can tell you first-hand now that the reason doctors give conflicting advice is because the professors from whom all us pre-doctors learn the academics of our profession don't actually profess correct information, but actually a mixture of up-to-date facts, out-of-date facts, and outright lore in unknown proportions they've concocted from many years of palling around with fellow squirrel-faced PhDs.
Let me tell you about PhDs. PhDs are funny. If you get a medical doctor (or DO) in a room with two PhDs and ask them what the best flavor of ice cream is, the two PhDs will debate for hours and then pat themselves on the back, for they have somehow served "the scientific community" by spurring debate, though they have not reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, the real doc has walked out hours ago, leaving a note in his stead reading "Best flavor? sometimes chocolate, sometimes vanilla, and sometimes PhDs are as useful as sex organs on a pair of Nikes."
After the two PhDs are done giving each other high-fives and reach-arounds, they'll meet up with the D.O. at the bar, much to his dismay. Some girl will walk up eyeballing one of the three, introduce herself and gesture for reciprocation. The PhDs seem to always push their title around like it demonstrates some kind of social prowess, so they'll answer Drs. Douchebag and Pedant, while our buddy the MD will simply say "Jim." It's baffling, really, because all a PhD represents is that you had a masters degree and then fellated a few other PhDs for a couple more years--sort of a bizarre hazing ritual--in lieu of joining the workforce. With the infinitely more expensive, difficult, and humbling feat of a medical degree, one would think medical doctors would be showing off their "Doctor" status at every occasion; not so. In fact, we call those kind of doctors "assholes." You can look it up in Dorland's medical dictionary.
With their anal-retentive attention to detail, one would think that PhDs would be the prime source of accurate and up-to-date information in their respective fields. This is not always the case, since PhDs are also incredibly lazy. They complain endlessly about their "terrible" jobs in which they have no responsibility but to read, word for word, the same slides they wrote 5 years ago at least 3 hours a week. It is true that some PhDs do revise their lectures and put in some effort to teach effectively, however it is not a requirement for employment.
Luckily, medical students like myself don't have to suffer PhDs and their ilk for more than the first two years of medical school. The last half of "school" is on-site training. Unfortunately, the poisoned seeds of misinformation have already been planted in our minds and we'll carry those with us until such time as we can have patients of our own to recommend chamomile tea instead of nitroglycerin--just like Dr. Douchebag told us to.
Obviously wrinkles in reality such as substituting vasodilators with diarrhea-flavored herbal teas would get ironed out in training. However, things such as patient education are very commonly tainted with the narrow-minded pea soup that gets sprayed on us daily in our first two years of hell (think Gallagher stand-up).
Calories Are BULLSHIT
The first thing PhDs will tell you about dieting is the synopsis we've all grown tired of: Eat fewer calories and burn more energy, and the pounds will disappear magically!
Yeah, no shit. Thanks Dr. Dipshit, who's you're employer? I want recommend they promote you to full fucktard.
Yes, everybody knows they need to exercise more, eat less, blah blah blah. That's of course technically correct, and I'm sure Dr. Obvious will roll you around in the dry-rub of thermodynamic laws for a few minutes before baking you in the "energy dense foods" oven. I'm sure that's what Dackow was really all about: just a friendly debate between the prison guards about calorie counting.
What people really want to know are what foods to eat, not how much of it. Obesity essentially fries your hormones and makes plain "calorie counting" extremely difficult. It takes an incredible amount of willpower for an obese individual to lose 10% of their body weight without use of a malignant cancer (which you may order from our online store any time!)
Of course if you eat enough of anything with any nutritional value, the body will retain weight, but there are simple things you can add to or subtract from foods to actually increase satiety--the feeling of fullness--so that you will not feel the need to eat so much.
This doesn't just work on the obese, it works on anyone, including the mildly overweight and even athletes.
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Well this is my intro to the 56-part series on "poison foods".. it may be two weeks for the next one (85,365)
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As an aside, it's not a choice between the Atkins "I ate Bambi's Mom" diet and the Vegan "Suck my Potatoes" diet. That's the kind of binary PhD nonsense that you see all over the literature on this. Some sources on this subject made it seem like you couldn't even eat oranges because it made Dr. Atkins hit-list. It went on to complain that this meant all higher protein diets resulted in scurvy, and that this was the reason "all low carb diets are bad." I'd just like to say that I can eat whatever 'the fuck I want, thanks very much. Yes, it's possible to eat lots of healthy foods, eat fewer carbs, and consume more protein all in the same meal, or at least in the same diet.
