19.3.13

PaleoVeganology: The Infamy & Irony Of Denise Minger

The Infamy & Irony Of Denise Minger

- PaleoVeganology

26 March 2012

Denise Minger, infamous (at least in our neck of the food-verse) alleged "debunker" of the China Study, earlier this month posted a link to her interview with the National Animal Interest Alliance. It's nice to see her waxing ethical on being a "conscious omnivore" and expressing at least token concern for animal welfare by advocating free-range, humanely-slaughtered, blah-blah-blah meat from small farms that give their animals a good life blah-blah-blah.

It's just too bad that she didn't do her homework. NAIA is a front group for a whole range of animal industry interests, including Big Ag, that actively lobbies against even the most mild and reasonable humane legislative efforts.  Try to think of the most watered-down, bare minimum legal standard for humane treatment of animals that you can; you  know, the sort of thing that almost no one would object to -- say, mandatory spay/neuter regulations for animal breeders.  This, in NAIA's eyes, makes you a dangerous animal extremist.  They lobbied in favor the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act... on behalf of animals, I'm sure.

This, this, is the group to whom Minger decided to confide her support for animals? Was the milquetoast Humane Society just not available that week or something?  For Cthulhu's sake, she may as well have planted her flag under the golden arches.

This was probably an innocent mistake on her part, but the net outcome is the same: if she wasn't before, Denise Minger has now become, however briefly, a spokesperson for the factory farming industry. For, like, reals this time.

Reference the facepalm in my avatar, then insert agricultural metaphor about reaping and sowing, here.

IN RELATED NEWS: Plant Positive, infamous (at least in their neck of the food-verse) debunker of the debunkers, is back with a new indictment of Minger, starting here:

There are four videos in the series before this one, and several after it, that are worth watching, too.
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13 comments:

  1. I've had nothing but trouble trying to find a legitimate critique of the China Study. Every time I read a claim that the study was flawed, or that it was debunked, it just leads back to Minger's analysis. I wonder if others might not have stepped up and done a proper job of analyzing the study with a critical eye if her "debunking" hadn't first staked out that ground.
    Reply
    Replies
    1. Hi Rational Vegan,

      Chris Masterjohn and Anthony Colpo both critiqued The China Study several years before Denise Minger did.

      http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html
      http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=129

      Minger wasn't even the first to call attention to note the correlation between wheat and heart disease in the study:

      http://bradmarshall.blogspot.com/2005/12/is-wheat-killing-us-introduction-maybe.html
    2. The first two links you give are utter nonsense written by cholesterol deniers, and the third seems to be just as bizarre. Minger though managed to look convincing on the surface to a distressing number of people who should have known better.
    3. OK, so can you tell me what your standard for a legitimate critique actually is? Did you dismiss those two analyses solely because they were written by "cholesterol deniers"? I'm curious why you think they are "utter nonsense"? I'm not sure Masterjohn is even a "denier" in the sense that you think, by the way.

      But since you and other vegans recklessly discriminate against "cholesterol deniers", here's another one from someone with cholesterol views that are probably closer to yours (not that it should deter from the content of any critique):

      http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/385/

      This one also appeared before Minger's debunking. :)
    4. Will, if you go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egqf7k5Lzhk&feature=BFa&list=PLCC2CA9893F2503B5 and watch the videos in that series; then I promise you will find all the answers you seek. All 4 of your references, Denise Minger, Anthony Colpo, Chris Masterjohn, and Harriet Hall of science based medicine are addressed, and legitimately critiqued specifically, in detail, and at length.
  2. I think that there's some irony in http://www.plantpositive.com/blog/2012/3/27/drug-fueled-delusions.html

    1) Being majorly deficient in B12 & DHA results in delusions.

    2) Posting a gazillion YouTube videos speaks volumes.

    3) Comments are disabled on that site.

    4) Cherry-picking is a vegan activity! ;-p
    Reply
    Replies
    1. 5) So is "picking a bone" a meat eaters delight!
    2. All the plant positive videos are on YouTube. You are welcome to post a comment there. The guy will probably reply to you.
    3. Nigel, its too bad for you that most people following a whole-foods plant-based "vegan" diet:
      1) Get plenty of B12 and DHA from the bacteria and plant foods where they respectively come from.
      2) understand that spreading out a series of YouTube videos into lots of little info-chunks makes them easier to understand, follow, and reference.
      3) aren't stupid enough to let unfiltered comments attempt to drown out legitimate questions and responses (comments aren't disabled on that site btw, just moderated)
      4) delight in cherry picking when it comes to eating cherries, but are happy to look at the meta analysis of the entirety of published nutrition research(leaving out no study of any kind) and are thus content to see that the weight of nutrition research supports a whole-food plant-based, low-fat, high-carb, vegan diet.
      The real irony here is that people like you think your ad hominem attack strategy and devotion to pseudo-science blogosphere cult leaders make you look smart, mature or well educated. They don't.
  3. I have created a couple of posts that many of you may be interested in, addressing the very serious inaccuracies and omissions in Denise Minger’s blog, in particular related to her claims about Forks Over Knives.

    Please refer to the link below for my posts:
    http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/2012/08/forks-over-knives-and-healthy-longevity.html

    I am still editing these posts so let me know if you have any feedback.
    Reply
    Replies
    1. Thanks, will check it out.
    2. I guess I'll throw my own critique on Minger onto the pile. http://mariamaestevens.com/2012/10/03/denise-minger-vs-t-colin-campbell-the-china-study-debate-and-take-home-lessons/
  4. I just stumbled across this blog posting -- interesting! The comments are helpful as well.

    As far as I can see, Denise Minger is little more than a "Paleo-Kardashian" Internet celebrity. She sure enjoys the spotlight, doesn't she! But there is truly little substance to her words and, while her own blog admits "I am still a raw foodist", she has become a cheerleader for enthusiastic meat-huggers everywhere. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for this post.
    Reply
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