Parallel between Promoting Vegetarianism and Liberalism

I honestly regard Gary Taubes as a legitimate hero - odd praise for a science journalist. Because of his brazen skepticism and excellent research, Taubes has literally saved thousands of lives. Taubes wrote the excellent book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, which fastidiously dismantles the lipid hypothesis. For those unfamiliar, the lipid hypothesis contends that saturated fat and meat cause modern disease, a claim without any merit and perhaps the impetus for our current health crisis:

"The country's big low-fat message backfired," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "The overemphasis on reducing fat caused the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar in our diets to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today."

I've argued before that vegetarianism is an aspect of leftism intended to devalue masculinity and American culture, a notion that I'll tie into the following.

Taubes recently appeared on Dr. Oz's "medical" program. Oz, who has dethroned LSD-loving and Native American shaman-admiring Andrew Weil as the chief purveyor of the high-grain, low-meat, low-fat diet, invited Taubes onto his show to act as a foil. Taubes writes about his experience:

The Dr. Oz Show is one part health advice and discussion and quite a few parts entertainment, as Oz’s producers kept telling me in the days before we taped the episode. To make for what they consider good television they played me up as the second coming of Atkins – a persona that my wife likes to refer to as “meat boy” — while Oz got to play the role of the harvest king, extolling the healing virtues of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. This made it more difficult than I would have liked to get across the important messages from my books, but television is television and I certainly knew what they had in store for me.

Even when confronted by Oz's condescending hubris, Taubes, ever the gentleman, responds with sound science. And in his blog article, he continues speaking truth and explaining the good science behind his position. But unlike his adversaries, those that have promoted a myth that has poisoned and killed people, Taubes isn't a doctrinaire. And that's a very bad thing:

The way I see it, Oz, who’s naturally skinny, can eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains to his hearts content and remain lean. For him, they can be the bulk of his diet and he can tolerate them and burn them off. They give him energy. They don’t make him fat.

Assuredly some proportion of the population and so Oz’s audience will lose a little weight eating as Oz recommends and getting rid of the refined grains and sugars in their diet, and they’ll be a little healthier for the effort. Getting rid of the sugars alone might make a significant difference on both counts.

Taubes is obviously correct - the paleo diet isn't a panacea for every single individual. There is variation amongst the population so whole grains and sugars might not affect some people too much (still doesn't mean it's any good for you). But because Taubes makes this accurate concession that not everyone is the same, he loses the public relations war. And in the end, one must win the hearts (not the minds) of the people to motivate progress.

Medical salesmen like Oz, the flashy ab roller infomercials, and whatever crap Andrew Weil peddles are successful because they present a glossy, pristine product that will work for you! They don't appeal to individual variation or alternative perspectives; they stick to their selling point without question. And the public, literally, eats it up. When someone like Taubes comes around with his medical apostasy, it will take more than just good science to sway the public. The masses yearn for assurance that their risk will prove successful, that whatever magic potion championed will actually work for them.

So Taubes gets it wrong in that he doesn't understand how myths get promoted. And now back to the political biases of leftism. Leftism reflexively rejects any traditional concept and, as I've shown, meat-eating is a subtly entrenched aspect of Western tradition, including hunting, Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham, and protein as a means of male muscle building and aggressiveness. Yet it doesn't stop there; the left functions as a late-night infomercial, flashy graphics replaced by esoteric journal articles, sexy models by unctuous politicians, unrealistic promises by..unrealistic promises. But note that these infomercials always have a foil. For example, the ab roller machines always show a fat person struggling through crunches, with cacophonous music in the background and the picture a bleak gray.

In other words, what you've been doing isn't working so try this brand new whatever - it's gauranteed to change your life and work way better than the crap that has failed you so far. Note the parallels - shysters like Oz denigrate the traditional (diet), promote a one size fits all cure, then ignore the undeniable failure of their initiatives. Sound familiar? The promotion of vegetarianism is not only a means of undermining traditional culture, but it's promoted in the exact same way as others leftist lies.