Interesting Links for 21-10-2013

[andrewducker]

• @NoIn2014 is a work of genius
  (tags: scotland independence )
• What is the Doctor running from? (Nice theory about the 50th anniversary)
  (tags: drwho )
• Life is all about killing the magic
  (tags: knowledge life )
• 13 Nutrition Lies That Made The World Sick And Fat
  (tags: food health viafanf )
• Sweden Becomes First Western Nation to Reject Low-fat Diet

Comments

[spacelem]

Okay, so fructose is bad, despite being low GI. Fake sweeteners are bad because they can cause diabetes or cancer or whatever.

So what should I be putting in my coffee to make it sweet without sending me to an early grave?

[naath]

If you want to have sweet coffee then you are going to take some risk, because sweet things all have some risk. Or you could take your coffee unsweetened.

Basically everything in life has both risks and benefits, it's good to know what they are, but you can't avoid every risk - just take them knowingly.

[steer]

I'm really not a believer in any of the fake sweetener scare stories. These things have markets in the hundreds of millions. The experiment has been done. If there's an effect it is so low down in the noise as to be nearly undetectable. As far as the science goes, anti-sweetner (for those currently on the market) is pretty much as supported as anti-vax.

Considering the vast industries which actually want to prove those things are bad for you, my guess is that if there was anything provable we'd know it now and that anything found out subsequently will be on the level of "Causes increase in incredibly rare thing that remains incredibly rare".

[momentsmusicaux]

But I like carbs!

If I eat a meal that doesn't have a starchy component -- pasta / rice / potatoes etc -- I don't feel properly full.

[andrewducker]

Nobody is stopping you eating carbs.

They're just saying that a high-carb diet is not a good way to lose weight.

[momentsmusicaux]

Yeah but I don't want non-carb meals to become a thing. I won't be able to eat out any more!

[andrewducker]

Hah! It's not like eating out is healthy in any sense of the word. Otherwise restaurants wouldn't sell desserts.

[a_pawson]

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as an impartial costing for and against Scottish independence, since many of the assumptions are speculative at best, and pretty much every article on the subject is denounced as gobbledygook by one side or the other. The simplest article I've read on the subject is this one by Stephanie Flanders, which while it may be simplistic, at least puts into context the figures the two sides prefer to use and makes clear the importance of oil revenues to the answer.

What it doesn't address is that the amount of revenue raised will depend on the worldwide oil price. The Office for Budget Responsibility recently published a report predicting oil tax revenues will fall to £4.1bn by 2017-18. The SNP recently published a report predicting it will rise to 11.8bn by 2017-18. I have no idea who is right.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, part of the problem is that projections don't tend to take into account things like "Spending a lot less on military expeditions"

[octopoid_horror]

I would be so happy if, following independence, the Scottish border authorities gave up on ridiculous security theatre and admitted it was really just theatre. Unfortunately I suspect that won't happen.