Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

We are not nutritionists, we are very naughty boys and girls. We use basic science and research skills to perform a critical assessment of the work of Patrick Holford and nutritionism.

A number of people have said nice things about this blog. For example, have been described in the Guardian as one of four blogs that, compared to mainstream media coverage of Dore, “win on timeliness, accuracy, relevance, effort, ethics, and stupid names”. We have also been discussed – in broadly positive terms – in the Telegraph, Private Eye and Damian Thomson’s Counterknowledge book and Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science. We were also one of the blogs congratulated in an Early Day Motion in Parliament.

We’re not over-sharing on biographical details-this is not because we subscribe to a PoMo idea that individual credit for creative work is bourgeois but because we find that it distracts from a critique of the science and ideas.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether we are the pride of our mothers and the despair of our schoolfriends because we are so laden down with academic honours that we can’t get our heads through a standard doorway – or if we don’t have a 25m swimming certificate between us. It’s the ideas, science and analysis that count.

Holford Watch contributors have no competing interests in pharmaceutical or supplement companies. This site is funded by donations from readers and contributors (although we will not accept money from those with competing interests in the pharmaceutical or supplement industry) and payment from referrals to Amazon. Holford Watch contributors do not get paid for our work on the site.

If you have any questions for us that you do not want to post as a comment, or have any information you would like to send us, we can be contacted at holfordwatch duck googlemail and the usual that follows that (replace the fowl with @ to get a valid e-mail address).