Pyramid!
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
The Alan Parsons Project is one of those acts where many people don’t “know the band”, but will recognize several songs, such as Eye in the Sky, or Prime Time.
Those familiar with progressive rock from the 1970’s and 1980’s, on the other hand, likely know them well. The only official members were Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, augmented by a large group of session musicians who worked in various capacities, but that is only one of the ways the band was unusual.
Producing a concept album (Tales of Mystery and Imagination) as a first album was innovative, as was basing it on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Using a vocoder in 1976 to create the voice effects for the recitation of part of The Raven was also quite extraordinary, and helped establish them as the virtual epitome of the progressive rock band.
Their second album, I Robot starts with the song of the same name. While I love this song, I keep worrying that it will break my brain... (Listen to the shift in the “downbeat” of the synthesizer sequence as the drums come in, between about 02:00 and 02:10... Amazing!)
And then came Pyramid. This was their third, another concept album, based on the pyramids of Giza. It came out in 1978, a mere ten years after the infamous book Chariots of the Gods?, by Erich von Däniken (who, by an interesting coincidence, just died). This was an enormously popular and influential work, even though it was almost pure, pseudoscientific nonsense. In his forward to The Space Gods Revealed, which debunked Chariots of the Gods?, Carl Sagan noted:
“That writing as careless as Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Däniken.”
Carl Sagan, Foreword to The Space Gods Revealed
I really like the album, though...
And that, in more ways than one, brings us to the new dietary guidelines presented by US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy, Jr, and US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Are they pure, pseudoscientific nonsense?
Not exactly, but that’s almost worse, in some ways.
To summarize the changes, the food pyramid is back, replacing the “MyPlate” model implemented during the Obama administration. My personal hypothesis is that, while RFK Jr might prefer the model he’s more familiar with, the main driver is his knowledge that Trump hates anything associated with the Obama administration. Either way, changing the model is comparatively unimportant.
The real issue is that RFK Jr doesn’t seem to have any process for gathering recommendations or vetting them for accuracy or reasonableness, so the updates read like a list of RFK Jr’s preconceived notions, without the filter of any sort of scientific or policy review.
It would almost be easier if everything in the policy were wrong, but it’s a Gordian Knot of fact and fiction, making it much more time-consuming to criticize. That said, Dr Steven Novella has gone into the science far better than I could at Science-Based Medicine.
The recommendations emphasize “real food”, and demonize “processed” foods.
But what does that mean?
Well, protein, dairy, “healthy fats”, fruits, and vegetables are at the top of the inverted pyramid, which is confusing enough. They increase the suggested intake of protein, state that the USDA is “ending the war on saturated fats”, and recommend three servings of full-fat dairy per day, while capping saturated fats at 10% of daily calories and recommending that these “healthy” fats come from naturally occurring whole-food sources, such as avocado.
Um, what?
Seems to me that the “math isn’t mathing”, somehow.
Both meat and full-fat dairy contain significant amounts of saturated fats, so that 10% will be filled very quickly, without the avocados. And, while present, beans and legumes do not appear to be encouraged, even though they would certainly help to “solve” the saturated fat equation.
And then there are the recommendations around “processed” foods. The first problem is that there does not appear to be a clear definition of the word. And, while too much sodium, for example, can increase health risk, this fact is buried in advice to “Avoid highly processed packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat, or other foods that are salty or sweet...”
The wording here leaves the strong impression that “processed” foods are inherently bad (in spite of the fact that they are not defined), while allowing RFK Jr, and others the escape hatch of being able to say that they only mean the ones that are salty, etc. This might be the charitable interpretation, but RFK Jr has repeatedly demonstrated that giving him the benefit of the doubt is unwarranted.
And then there’s the “advice” regarding sugar. Even if we had reason to be charitable, well, it’s nuts.
The recommendation begins with advice to “avoid sugar-sweetened beverages, such as sodas, fruit drinks, and energy drinks”. This is not necessarily bad advice, though it may be impractical for many people, depending on their income and access to groceries.
But then they go to the additional effort of telling people exactly how to identify added sugars by looking for “ingredients including the word ‘sugar’ or ‘syrup’ or end in ‘-ose.’”.
Ok. Seems a bit heavy-handed for a high-level summary, but useful to know.
Then they add that “added sugars may appear on ingredient labels under many different names, including high-fructose corn syrup, agave syrup, corn syrup, rice syrup, fructose, glucose, dextrose, sucrose, cane sugar, beet sugar, turbinado sugar, maltose, lactose, fruit juice concentrate, honey, and molasses.”
Um. I guess they needed to add some filler to this brief overview, while also implying that all of these additives should be avoided. I think most of us would find it difficult to identify many products without at least one of those ingredients listed, especially considering income and access to groceries...
I guess that’s the point, though, of his push for “real food”. He wants everyone to have diets of “unprocessed” foods, such as meats, dairy, vegetables, and fruits. And this might seem sensible, unless you consider the fact that most people don’t have the time to prepare meals from scratch, easy access to fresh produce, or enough income to spend on it, rather than the less expensive “processed” foods that RFK Jr appears to dislike so much.
But wait! There’s more!
The section on avoiding sugar ALSO says to avoid beverages with “artificial flavors, petroleum-based dyes, artificial preservatives, and low-calorie non-nutritive sweeteners”, while being sure to note that these include “aspartame, sucralose, xylitol, and acesulfame K”.
So, sugar bad, but “low-calorie non-nutritive sweeteners” also bad. Though there is evidence to support encouraging people to reduce their overall sugar intake, evidence of harm from low-calorie sweeteners range from limited to non-existent. Overall, the evidence suggests that they are superior to sugar, and despite repeated attempts to claim that aspartame, in particular, causes any number of ill-effects, there is no credible evidence of this.
So, why the “advice” to avoid these sweeteners? I think the reason is clear from the context – RFK Jr doesn’t like “processed” foods, and his definition appears to be food with “anything artificial” in it, including things like “Red Dye #3”.
But then, the funniest (to keep from crying) bit is where it says: “Some foods and drinks, such as fruits and plain milk, have naturally occurring sugars. The sugars in these foods are not considered added sugars.”
Words fail me.
I guess maybe it doesn’t matter that there are some true things included. There’s just too much inconsistency, pseudoscience, and absolute rubbish, that these recommendations should be ignored. Just use the prior ones, until RFK Jr is removed and the long, painful work of re-building the US Department of Health and Human Services begins.
Cheers!