Dietitian versus Nutritionist

There's an assload of people out there calling themselves nutritionists. You can buy books extolling the virtues of raw foodism, and claiming that changing your diet or scarfing down high doses of various vitamins will cure all kinds of diseases, all written by "nutritionists".

What most nutritionists won't mention is that there's also something called a dietitian. In most places, the term dietitian is protected by law. You can't buy a book of home remedies, call yourself a medical doctor, and start taking money to treat people, and you can't call yourself a dietitian and start charging people for advice on what they should eat.

You can, however, just call yourself a nutritionist and do the same thing (in most places, a few areas now have legal protection for the term).

This is why you'll see books by "nutritionists" claiming that eating cooked vegetables robs them of their nutritional value, which is patently false. People on raw food diets are often deficient in a variety of nutrients, (ie. calcium, b12, iron), and also often have trouble getting an adequate caloric intake. Source.

Be extremely wary of anyone who tells you that they have a way to cure a disease simply by changing your diet (unless you're suffering from say, scurvy, starvation, or obesity). Cancer and AIDS are NOT going to magically go into remission just because you start eating healthy. Of course if you're eating foods with a lot of free-radicals or contaminated with various chemicals, you may be increasing your risk for certain cancers, and avoiding excessive salt, fat, and sugar can put you at risk for heart disease or diabetes.

This doesn't mean that a change in diet will ever miraculously help you. If nutritional changes were as effective for fighting terminal illnesses as so many nutritionists claim, then these would be the primary tools physicians use to deal with these diseases.

An over reliance on vitamins is also a great clue that the nutritionist you're dealing with is a quack. Vitamins are compounds that our bodies require to grow and function properly. We generally need a fairly small amount to get along fine, and most people who eat a well balanced diet get a pretty good amount of the vitamins they need. Vitamin deficiencies can lead to all kinds of problems from deformities to scurvy... things that are very rare in anywhere but the poorest places. Some vitamins can also make you quite sick if you take doses that are excessive, which is a fairly rare occurrence from diet alone, and usually only happens when people take supplements.

Because vitamins are cheap and easy to obtain, and the public knows quite well that they're necessary, many nutritionists make extraordinary claims about what they can be used for. Some even believe that vitamins can be used to cure EVERYTHING.

My point is, watch out. If someone calls themselves a doctor, make sure you find out what their doctorate is in. Take Hulda Clark for example. She claims that she can cure all diseases with changes in diet, and a some sort of electical device. Her books all have a great big "Dr." before her name, and she even claims at times that her doctorate is in physiology, but according to the University of Minnesota, where she got her PhD, it was for zoology. Her thesis was about crayfish muscles.

It's even possible to purchase a PhD from some slimy diploma mill, so just because someone claims to have a PhD doesn't mean much of anything.

Beware of anyone who tells you that mainstream medicine is filled with people who don't want to cure you, and just want your money. Keep in mind that for this to be true, every single biologist, scientist, doctor, nurse, researcher, professor, etc.... out there would have to be involved. To claim that all of these people are greedy sociopaths is ridiculous.

Then and now.

A few years ago, there was quite a bit of talk about the "endarkenment", the idea that we're entering a new dark ages. The argument goes that we're flooded with information, and as a result, many people don't know how to differentiate real science and medical information from crackpot ideas.

I watch a lot of old movies, radio shows, and tv. I have definitely noticed that the attitude towards science in the early 20th century was a lot different from today. Reading magazines and annuals for boys in the 40's or 50's, you'll find plenty of articles about simple electronics, rocketry, and mechanical projects.

Horror radio shows (such as Inner Sanctum) dealing with the super natural would often end with the classic Scooby Doo twist, with the evil spirits turning out to be illusions created by the villain.

There's definitely been a bit of a backlash against a lot of the fringe medicine, psychics, and intense religiosity we've seen lately. Characters like Dr. House and the guy from The Mentalist have made compelling skeptical characters, and of course Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris all have successful books. Not to mention I haven't seen much about John Edward lately.

We'll see what happens. People need to be educated about things. Most people don't realize what homeopathy actually is, and there are some that can't see the difference between devil worship and atheism.

First Post!

Hello, there! This is the first ever post...
Dara O'Brian is a comedian from the UK, I suppose he's fairly well known there, but I hadn't heard of him until this week, when a video of his was posted on The Amazing Randi's Website.

Here 'tis: