Have you ever noticed that some websites bring you information that is backed up by evidence and valid scientific studies, while other websites tell you things that are based on speculation, hearsay, hype, and anecdotal evidence?
In our new feature, Gullible Lives Matter presents Get Smarter vs. Get Stupider. In each installment, we will give you an overview of a reliable, informative website and its clueless, moronic counterpart, in an effort to help you use those critical thinking skills your teachers tried so hard to cram down your throat in middle school to decide what information you read on the internet is believable, and which is questionable.
SciBabe tells you some stuff about health and nutrition that is fact-based instead of hype-based, and dirty jokes.
Wow, an intelligent, educated, informed scientist who gives you factual information about nutrition and health! It’s Science Babe! (no relation to Food Babe, except when SciBabe pokes fun at her.) Gullible Lives Matter is pleased to present a website chock-full of valuable information that you can use to live a healthier lifestyle, plus dirty jokes! SciBabe aka Yvette d’Entremont, according to her website, is actually educated: she “holds a B.A. in theatre, a B.S. in chemistry, and an MSc in forensic science with a concentration in biological criminalistics.” At Gullible Lives Matter, we don’t know what that means, but it sounds pretty impressive with all those big words.
SciBabe gives you diet advice.
And it’s from actual dietitians who know what they are talking about instead of something she made up while trying to figure out how to pronounce the big words on a food label. “We do a lot of talking about diets on this page. What makes a healthy diet? Why do people follow ridiculous diets? What the fuck is up with gluten?” Learn the answers to these questions and more, from a registered dietitian who eats at In-N-Out, Joe Leech, here.
SciBabe kicks nature right in the ‘nads.
photo credit: ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com
“How many times has nature tried to kill you? Strep, staph, weather, tsunamis, all the vaccine-preventable illnesses, tooth decay, allergies that range from life-threatening to “goddamnit, it’s spring and the trees are fucking,” and whatever the fuck Gwyneth Paltrow is getting stung by bees to cure.” If you’ve been buying into all that NATURAL IS BETTER hype, you might want to read her post explaining the many ways that nature lets you down and modern medicine saves your life, here.
SciBabe takes on Food Babe for the win.
On Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone’s immediate impulse is to drink something green. According to SciBabe,”…instead of telling people that the gallons of beer they’re drinking for St. Patrick’s Day is carcinogenic (because it is), reminding them to Uber it home or have a designated driver tonight (you should), she’s warning them about…
Milkshakes. Because big words scare her.
And of course, telling them to make her much healthier ice cream laced with unicorn tears and kale or some shit.”
Oh, SciBabe, you’re so funny! But wait, you’re also so right! In this post, SciBabe presents the math proving that Food Babe’s alternative home-made, natural, non-GMO, ‘healthy’ green shake is actually higher in calories than McDonald’s Shamrock Shake. MORE FATTENING THAN SOMETHING YOU GET AT MCDONALD’S! Ha ha, Food Babe, what a bimbo. Read all about it here.
And that’s just the first page of SciBabe’s blog. Have fun learning more interesting and TRUE stuff about nutrition, and you’re welcome.
Vani Hari aka the Food Babe thinks she knows her food LOL
Food Babe, or Vani Hari, is an uneducated moron, but since her target audience is also uneducated morons, she has become very popular by spouting nonsense that has no scientific backing. When she started getting popular, she realized she had to hire a copywriter and an editor so that her content would appear intelligent, but if you look behind the carefully-paid-for words, you will see that some of the ideas are bunk. Let’s take a look at a few cases in point.
Food Babe claims that “There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.“
Food Babe, do you even know what a chemical is? Before Food Babe became a monetized blogger and quack book writer, she was a financial consultant, a job that suggests she must have at least had a high-school education. Let’s think back to grade-10 chemistry. A chemical is something made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms, and atoms are the building block of all matter. “All matter” means everything. All things are made of matter, i.e. atoms, i.e. molecules, i.e. chemicals. Let’s break it down even further. Air is made of chemicals: oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium, among others. Water is made of chemicals: hydrogen and oxygen. Our bodies are made of chemicals, heavy on the carbon. An organic, non-GMO, pesticide-free apple picked straight off a tree in your backyard where you used compost for fertilizer is made of CHEMICALS. All matter, everything that exists in the entire universe is made of chemicals. So according to Food Babe, we should neither eat, drink, nor breathe, because “There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.”
Food Babe does not use microwave ovens for no valid reason except that she’s a misinformed idiot, and she wants you to be one, too!
Food Babe is afraid of microwaves.
She spouted out a bunch of bullshit about microwaves in one particular blog post that she later took down from her site, presumably because for once she listened to someone who knew what they were talking about. In her anti-microwave post she claimed that microwaves destroy nutrients in your food, but the reality is that cooking your food in the microwave actually retains more nutrients than many other conventional ways of cooking. For example, when you boil broccoli, many of the nutrients transfer out of the broccoli and into the water, which you likely pour away, but when you microwave broccoli, the nutrients have nowhere else to go so they stay in the broccoli. Food Babe also thought microwaves could give you cancer, but with the decades of real scientific research done on microwaves, pretty much everyone else in the entire world is now aware that they don’t. Read some actual science before making ridiculous claims in the future, okay, Food Babe?
Food Babe is afraid of pasteurized milk.
“I believe that 100% grass-fed raw dairy is the best choice, if it’s available to you locally.” She thinks that pasteurizing milk removes all the nutrients (but she is wrong.) Pasteurizing milk is a process of heating the milk to kill germs. According to Anna Maria Siega-Riz, PhD, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, someone who actually knows what she’s talking about when it comes to food and health, “Raw milk, which means unpasteurized, can carry dangerous bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli, and listeria, which are responsible for numerous foodborne illnesses, especially among people with weak or developing immune systems, young children, pregnant women and older adults.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, someone else who knows what they’re talking about, says raw milk is the most dangerous milk to drink, since it can cause horrific, life-threatening diseases. So if you drink raw milk and die of salmonella, make sure you write Food Babe and thank her for her excellent advice.
Read more ways that Food Babe is wrong and can give you life-threatening advice here and here.