Cartoon by Tom Cheney in The New Yorker. Buy his cartoons here.
Before you wonder why a weblog about the environment and business would be reviewing a diet book (Seth Roberts' The Shangri-La Diet), here's what piqued my interest:
- The publisher (Putnam/Penguin/Pearson) is going all-out to market this book virally, using the blogosphere as a key launch-pad (I got my copy free). I've always believed that viral marketing success is strictly a function of individual
perception of the value of the product, and hence more a reflection of
the quality of the product and market research, rather than the quality
of the marketing campaign. If this book becomes a smash (it's #63 on
Amazon today, so it's already on its way, though it's only #2302 in
Canada) how much will that be due to the publisher's efforts, talk TV
appearances, plugs on the Freakonomics blog etc. and how much to word
of mouth? Would it inevitably have sold as well, just more gradually,
without any proactive publicity at all? The book's author speculates on this on his own blog.
- The
diet is very much a 'gift economy' product. It's very simple, and you
don't really need the book to get the benefits of the diet. So the business model
intrigues me. Just as I'm watching the sales data for Neil Young's new
CD Living With War, which is streaming free on his site and blog and was launched with a viral flurry, I'm really interested in knowing: Will people pay for a book they don't have
to buy, out of gratitude or just sense of fair play, to compensate the
author for the value they've received from his research and ideas?
- I'm
intrigued by the idea of using yourself as the only 'test subject' that
matters, ignoring the testimonials and animal experiments and
double-blind tests on 'representative groups', and especially the 'ask
your doctor if x is right for you' crap, and taking responsibility for
your health into your own hands. The learned helplessness that has us
to believe we're incapable of knowing how to treat our bodies properly
without the advice of some 'professional' or 'expert' who's being
pumped with gifts, biased 'research' and free samples by Big Pharma,
sickens me. Rather than being put off, I'm kind of impressed
that the book's research is the author's own, personal,
'unprofessional' work, conducted diligently and systematically over
years.
- The diet 'industry' is big business, and I was curious
to know whether it would fight back against a diet that could, if it
works, put them out of business. So far there has not been much
response (though this critic would have you believe that a couple of tablespoons of sugar in water each day, or a couple of tablespoons of canola oil per day, will kill you -- this nutritionist disagrees, though I'll leave it up to you to make up your own mind).
- I
am convinced that our food cravings are addictive behaviours. I was a
junk food addict in my single years, and I am still addicted to foods
with high concentrations of sugar and salt. The author suggests his
diet also profoundly curtails cravings, which I think is even more
important than its success at weight loss. "Only foods that always
taste the same become addictive", he asserts. While that may strike you
as counter-intuitive ("I've never met a chocolate I didn't like") it
does make some sense -- in nature, this could be a learning mechanism,
a means to prompt you to eat familiar (and proven safe, since they
didn't harm you last time) foods. Of course, a healthy diet is a
diverse one, so addiction to sameness of flavour could also be bad
for your health, but gatherer-hunter cultures in rich ecologies eat an
astonishing variety of foods. Perhaps this very diversity, and the
infinite number of flavour combinations, preclude addiction to, and
hence preference for, any single flavour.
- It is the strong,
uniform, quickly digested flavour of junk foods (and ubiquity of access
to foods with these flavours at supermarkets, vending machines and
chain restaurants) that Roberts blames for the US obesity epidemic. The
implication, if he's right, is obvious and huge: Significantly increase
the variety of flavours and
flavour combinations we eat (with, or more likely without the help of
the packaged-, junk-, and fast-food industries) and you've gone a long
way to solving both our obesity and health-care cost crises.
Oligopolies are not only bad for innovation and the economy, they are
bad for our health.
If you want to know about the diet itself, here's a link to Kathy Sierra's explanation. It's really as simple as drinking a tablespoon or two of flavourless oil (light, non-virgin
olive oil or canola) and/or sipping two or three tablespoons of sugar
(not low-cal sugar substitutes) heavily diluted in water over half an
hour, each day, no closer than an hour to consuming any foods with
flavour (that includes juice, tea, coffee, and even brushing your
teeth). The claim is that this lowers your body's 'set-point' (the
weight your appetite aims to keep your body at). Increase quantities
(maximum 3 tbsp/day sugar plus 2 tbsp/day oil) to lower your set-point
and reduce weight faster, decrease quantities if you're losing weight
or appetite too quickly. Read the book for more on the science, FAQs, and complementary practices that can help you lose weight.
I'm
only a few pounds over ideal weight now. But I am terribly unfit,
though I began a rigorous exercise program two weeks ago and have stuck
with it so far. In the past, exercise has not caused me to reduce
weight, but rather just redistribute it and convert fat to muscle, so I
look and feel better.
But I continue to have evening cravings,
especially for sugar and salt. Unless I have morning meetings, I get up
at 9am and often work until 2am, consuming nothing except tea (one
milk, one stevia) until about 3pm (a small late lunch, toast with
homemade fruit juice), followed by a full dinner (my wife is an
excellent cook, so I eat whatever she makes) and then a distressing
amount of junk in the evenings. So I'm going to try 1 tbsp of canola at
2pm each day and see what happens (I just took my first dose; not
disgusting at all). Will the new exercise program mess with my
metabolism and screw up the diet? Will my unbalanced eating schedule
interfere with the diet's effectiveness at reducing cravings? Will the
economies of Idaho, Atlanta, Oak Brook IL and Hershey PA collapse as
millions get the monkey off their back? Will I die a terrible death
from consuming fat straight instead of processed and hydrogenated?
Stay tuned. |
MADE IN CANADA
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