[Sca-cooks] Butter

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Tue Jun 24 07:17:39 PDT 2008


On Jun 24, 2008, at 9:43 AM, Doc wrote:

> So what we have here is a tertiary source (Wilson)
> quoting another tertiary source (Drummond).  What's
> more, "The Englishman's Food" is one of the root
> sources for the Moldy-Meat-Myth.  Again, since vitamin
> D was unknown before the 20th century (along with any
> connection to rickets), and since butter can only
> *lose* vitamin D over time, Drummond's statement is
> certainly completely fabricated.

Perhaps he's simply repeating someone else's assertion. While it's  
hard to argue with a known fact (and I'm trusting you on this one)  
that vitamin D can only be lost through exposure to the sun, and not  
increased, it's also not impossible, in theory, for an observation to  
be made of a phenomenon, and failure to understand the phenomenon  
doesn't mean the phenomenon never occurred. So, for example, the fact  
that certain foods, such as limes and certain green plants, could  
prevent, alleviate and in fact cure scurvy was known for centuries  
before anyone isolated Vitamin C. It is therefore conceivable that  
someone is pulling a bogus and untested modern theory to explain a  
legitimate phenomenon, out of their butt in one piece.

Stranger things have happened...

> When I get home I'll check through my copy of Drummond
> and see if he has any sources at all to back it up.
> I'll be really surprised if he does.  I'm used to
> expecting fluff in Drummond's book.  Unfortunately
> this makes me have to double check "facts" in Wilson's
> book as well.


Most people don't deal in facts, and good documentation isn't always  
especially fact-oriented, either. Primary sources can be fictional or  
erroneous. Wilson attributed a quote to a guy that said something in  
print -- this is a fact. He's apparently quoting someone else. At some  
point someone is responsible for whether or not the original statement  
is true, but I don't think Wilson expects anyone to take her word as a  
fact without having actually put that butter out there in the sun  
herself, and had a chemical analysis done on it...

Adamantius




"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter




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