Opinion on misinformation in the nutritional profession
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:42 am
Jeff,
I often wonder about something I experienced a few years ago. My employer sponsored a “health” seminar where a registered nutritional dietician, with a master’s degree, talked. During the talk she answered two questions of mine and the answers seemed to be wrong on what I would think is very basic knowledge in your field. I wonder if you agree that it was a case of incompetence and I wonder if you see this lack of knowledge often entertained by some in your field (while not to the extreme sited below, I often see similar missinformation in print, etc.) And if you do see that it is common, do you see any particular cause for it?
The two topics/questions:
During one point of her seminar, she said fruit had no protein. I raised my hand to ask if she meant it had low protein or if she actually meant none. She said, “none, fruit has no protein.” After the seminar I researched fruit nutritional information and found that while some fruit, such as apple, is very low, that others have over 10% of their calories as protein and that an assortment of commonly eaten fruit balances out to about 8% of their calories being protein (which is more than human milk has) and certainly is not “none.”
Then later she said vegetables have not fat. Again I raised my hand to ask if she meant low fat (which is not even the case as many vegetables have 10% to 15% range) or no fat. She said, “no fat, vegetables have no fat.” At that time I did not have the knowledge to quote the fat percentage of different vegetables, so I offered as a rebuttal, “how do you get vegetable oils then.” She said something along the lines, well there is a very scant amount of fat but it takes huge quantities of vegetables to get oils, so for single servings of vegetables, there is no fat.
I often wonder about something I experienced a few years ago. My employer sponsored a “health” seminar where a registered nutritional dietician, with a master’s degree, talked. During the talk she answered two questions of mine and the answers seemed to be wrong on what I would think is very basic knowledge in your field. I wonder if you agree that it was a case of incompetence and I wonder if you see this lack of knowledge often entertained by some in your field (while not to the extreme sited below, I often see similar missinformation in print, etc.) And if you do see that it is common, do you see any particular cause for it?
The two topics/questions:
During one point of her seminar, she said fruit had no protein. I raised my hand to ask if she meant it had low protein or if she actually meant none. She said, “none, fruit has no protein.” After the seminar I researched fruit nutritional information and found that while some fruit, such as apple, is very low, that others have over 10% of their calories as protein and that an assortment of commonly eaten fruit balances out to about 8% of their calories being protein (which is more than human milk has) and certainly is not “none.”
Then later she said vegetables have not fat. Again I raised my hand to ask if she meant low fat (which is not even the case as many vegetables have 10% to 15% range) or no fat. She said, “no fat, vegetables have no fat.” At that time I did not have the knowledge to quote the fat percentage of different vegetables, so I offered as a rebuttal, “how do you get vegetable oils then.” She said something along the lines, well there is a very scant amount of fat but it takes huge quantities of vegetables to get oils, so for single servings of vegetables, there is no fat.