I just finished listening to Talk of the Nation, Science Friday on National Public Radio. The topic was supposed to be dietary choices, so they had on Dean Ornish, Dr. Trager from Atkins shop & some guy who spoke so little I don't even know who he was or where he was from.

Of course, the show quickly fell into the old battle of Ornish vs. Atkins, with Ornish totally dominating the conversation. He was allowed to steer the conversation anywhere he wanted to go. The host did, on a couple of occasions, try to reel Ornish in, but Ornish kept going off on whatever tangent suited him. He especially likes the reversal of heart disease topic. It seems that he feels most comfortable with a few statements like, High Fat diets like Atkins mortgage your health, that he likes to back up with long tangents about studies or research . That one really bugged me. I don't think that Dr. Atkins, or any low-carb plans, espouse a high fat diet, but rather a reduced carb intake in conjunction with a sensible amount of veggies & other healthful foods. He couldn't focus on low-carb but kept saying things like you can't live on pork rinds and cheese burgers and not expect to get heart disease .

When Ornish was presented with any questions about the fact that many people don't feel they can (because of experience) follow his basically vegetarian diet, he rambled on and on about heart disease or prattled on about his jargon-laden studies. If I didn't know anything at all on this topic, I wouldn't have gained any knowledge by listening to him or this show.

You have to give Ornish points for being passionate about his cause, but he is very inflamatory and seems to try to instill paranoia, rather than clear cut, definitive evidence that eating 10 - 20% fat, or basically a vegetarian diet, is going to be a healthful maintenace diet that most people can live with.

Whooo! Well, Thanks for reading MY ramblings!