I see, so the implication is that your open minded approach to information analysis led you to coffee that tastes better and a recipe that adds butter and oil to coffee.

Good for you then.

And yet despite the fact that you admit that there is no real evidence of toxic effects from mycotoxin in coffee you chose to believe that my real point in my original post was that environmental toxins don't exist rather than his claims of harmful effects from them are unfounded.

Oh no, you've misunderstood, Mark isn't saying that he believes the toxins are harmful, he just drinks toxin free coffee because it tastes better and it's just a bonus if it happens to be toxin free.

Only, he doesn't believe the toxins are harmful. Really.

:giggle:

p.s. How dare you equate one claim of toxins with another. How is that good science?

Yes. Well, kind of. I didn't expect that you'd really argue against the existence of toxins. What I expected (and I appear to be correct) is that you rather overstated your case in your attempt to discredit Mr. Bulletproof Midichlorian and then had to backtrack and claim that I should have somehow divined from the larger context that what you wrote below isn't really what you meant.

So call it 50/50 now. Half reductionist, half poor communicator.

I see. So, rather than accept the clarification of my point at face value (even after you basically invited said clarification) and admit that I'm right and that the word toxins is often used as a scare tactic, you'll just act oblivious to that, keep harping on my original sentence and point out how there are toxins in this case even though said toxins have no real toxic effect like the fellow claims, which is the central fallacy in the whole site.

Who exactly is the poor communicator here? :giggle:

Actually, I do believe mycotoxins are harmful. I think the science is pretty solid on that. Whether the level of mycotoxins on most coffee constitutes any danger at all hasn't been determined. But I'm open-minded, and new research is being done every day. And as I said before, the "safe" levels of harmful substances varies from one year to the next, so I wouldn't be surprised if scientific consensus changed at some point.

In the meantime, I get to drink really tasty coffee brewed from freshly-roasted high-quality beans from my local roaster, so it's not exactly a bother.

You are. (I thought we already covered this?)

I use Kerrygold butter. Unsalted for my coffee. Fuckin' delish.

And I still use Trader Joe's Italian Roast because it's tasty, and I'm too lazy thus far to find something fresher.

Dammit, I posted a link because it is a tasty healthy RECIPE, not because of its mycotoxin claims.

Will you lay off it already? Nobody here is saying that guy's special coffee is better or has fewer toxins.

What I *did* notice is that the coffee+butter+coconut oil combo seems to give me a buzz over and beyond just the caffeine content - I've had to reduce the amount of coffee, and the buzz seems to last me til 3 PM.

Let's discuss the bullshit diet/lipid hypothesis.

Fine with me.

The bigger question is, how did the research community get it so wrong for so long?

I think it's because too few understand Karl Popper's teachings.
Karl Popper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many researchers and the vast majority of people do not understand the logical relationship between evidence and theory. Evidence properly used is always falsifying, never confirmatory. "Supporting evidence points in all directions at once, and therefore points usefully in no direction."

That is, after one has come up with a hypothesis that has some confirming evidence, one should design experiments that try to falsify the hypothesis. If evidence appears that falsifies the hypothesis, then one should go back and reject or refine the hypothesis.

Instead, it is a human tendency to try to "prove" a hypothesis correct. Confirmation bias sets in, and people end up rejecting data that would have falsified the hypothesis. In the case of the diet/lipid hypothesis, this went on for decades.

In this interview, Gary Taubes discusses Karl Popper's method, and the confirmation bias, in the history of nutrition research:
Taubes on Fat, Sugar and Scientific Discovery | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

LOLz if you listen to the first interview I linked,
314: Chris Masterjohn On The Health Benefits Of Cholesterol | The Livin La Vida Low-Carb Show
you will understand that

a) what would have been a fairly simple error grew legs when the government's resources got behind it ("eat low fat" campaign, and the Dep't of Agri's Food Pyramid with starch/grains at the base)

b) gov't research groups and gov't grant money decision makers are NOT unbiased:

At this point, can anyone imagine the Dep't of Agriculture withdrawing their POS food pyramid with a statement "We are sorry for giving bad advice for 40 years and all the deaths and heart attacks it caused"? Or the AHA doing the same?

Blame me for the derailment, Jason. I just thought it was funny.

I thought it was funny too until Harv kept harping on it after you clarified your position.

You should also avoid refined industrial seed and vegetable oils. e.g. Soybean, Canola, Corn, Safflower, Sunflower oil et al...
Use butter for sauteeing veggies and frying eggs, and coconut oil, lard, ghee, duck fat or tallow for high temperature frying.
Olive oil or black currant seed oil for salads.

Maybe food scientists forgot this, but there were a LOT of physicists who were extremely disappointed when they could not find any holes in the recent Higgs Boson discoveries. Being right doesn't teach you nearly as much as being wrong.

Re: high energy physics

Gary Taubes, one of the guys who has written books on the myth of the diet/lipid hypothesis, has written an earlier book on the same dynamic happening in the high energy physics world:


The book ended up being an exposé. There was one character in particular who was key... just like Ancel Keys was in nutrition.

Taubes calls it a "misinformation cascade" leading to a false consensus:
Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus

Re-reading it I'm not sure why I bit so hard on your line and took the whole thing as far as it went.

Ah well.

Allow me to refine my earlier hypothesis:

Profit motive.

TSE and FM are profit motivated too, but they don't lie and cheat.
Police departments aren't "profit motivated" but they sure do lie and cheat.

Or do they?

A) I'm not sure that's accurate.

B) Not everyone motivated by profit is corrupt. That doesn't mean the profit motive doesn't corrupt some.

Calling bullshit on this one. Why do you think they are all against legalizing drugs? They would lose a shit ton of money and wouldn't be able to seize everyones car anymore.