Comments on: Holford gives poor advice about dietary restrictions for children. Again

By: gimpy

gimpy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:35:08 +0000

Heathens, porridge needs little more than a pinch of salt before consuming at room temperature. PS It seems Holford is popular in some parts of the press of Namibia as well.

By: BrickWall

BrickWall — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:34:47 +0000

Ah, porridge freaks! Porridge plus golden syrup and nothing else! I’ll bet you go for pb and jam on the same piece of toast as well? Or even bananas on toast? No, no, no!

By: jonhw

jonhw — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:23:44 +0000

Marmalade and pork is tasty. Less sure about the addition of porridge, though :)

By: Claire

Claire — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:43:41 +0000

@ jonhw, if the pb and apples don’t appeal, a friend swears that porridge with marmalade and sausages is ambrosia. Haven’t tried it myself!

By: jonhw

jonhw — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:16:30 +0000

Hm, not sure about pb and apples. Maybe will give it a try :)

By: Neuroskeptic

Neuroskeptic — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 09:07:34 +0000

“I often flavour porridge with raisins, apple, cinnamon and/or peanut butter (not all at once, of course)”

I don’t know – that could work…

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 07:51:53 +0000

There are some drugs that have to be taken with food and due care and attention has to be paid to how much food and how much fat. E.g., there's a drug that goes well with a Rice Krispie square that has around 180 calories and no more than 2g of fat (10% of the calories from fat). Anecdote alert concerning a ridiculously length disagreement with a nutritionist who had advised a 6oz piece of salmon with mashed potato and oven-roasted vegetables as a meal option for a client when he was scheduled to take a drug that had to be taken with a low-fat meal. Broadly speaking, the fat content of the meal had to be low in order that the drug didn't dawdle in the stomach but was passed along at a predictable rate to the part of the gut where it would be absorbed in a fairly predictable manner. (There were other drugs involved and the timing of all these and their predictability was crucial.) At approx 22g of fat for the salmon (never mind the rest of the meal) there was too much fat to allow the necessary transit of the drug. Just to add to this, the mashed potato was made with olive oil and the vegetables were roasted in lashings of the stuff. The nutritionist decided that it would be wise to use the broken record technique. She kept saying, "But it is low fat. Omega 3s don't count and neither does mono-unsaturated fat from olive oil". As if somehow "healthy oils" didn't act in the same way on the stomach and retard emptying. At the end, following an intervention from a very senior, well-respected RD who specialises in the area of that particular disease, the family dispensed with the services of that nutritionist. But - she couldn't be reported. There was nowhere to complain that her advice was plainly wrong and, in this case, potentially impeding the efficacy of a course of essential drug therapy.

By: jonhw

jonhw — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:43:40 +0000

Heh – excellent.

By: Dr Aust

Dr Aust — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:39:10 +0000

The subject of dietary advice and those who give it out turned up in one of my Nursing degree student “Case based tutorials” this week. I got to have fun explaining to the students precisely what the difference between a dietician and a “nutritionist” was. Even better, one of the students asked about “Dr” Gillian McKeith, a discussion of whose background amply illustrated all the points I was trying to make.