Carbspiracy

When I started this strange little blog back in 2016, I could not have imagined how much it would change my life, and how many people it would touch. But although it’s been an extraordinary ride and lots of fun, in a few months time, the Angry Chef will be no more, and I’ll probably go on to writing about other things, probably less controversial and divisive than food (religion or politics maybe). Or perhaps I’ll even start doing something that helps pay the mortgage.

Ah, Mrs AC will be happy about that. But don’t we get paid millions from Big Food for writing this? 

Apparently so, although we’re still waiting for the cheque.

There have been more than a few victories along the way. Clean eating, the vile and pernicious diet trend that inspired me to start writing in the first place, is now a distant memory, thoroughly eradicated from the mainstream. I obviously can't take full credit for this, but the popularity and influence of my rants in magazines, newspaper articles, on this blog and throughout my first book, certainly didn't help the clean eating business model. I know for a fact that my writing helped convince many of the leading advocates to reconsider their messaging, and persuaded some editors to be a good deal more cautious about who they gave voice to.

Personally, I think we should take full credit. We may not have been the first person to write critically about clean eating, but we were the first man, which meant people finally realised it was serious.

True. We basically made a career copying the work of talented female writers and adding the occasional ‘shit’, ‘bollocks’ and 'fuck'. That makes us part of a rich journalistic tradition. 

But whatever the reasons for clean eating’s demise, the Hemsleys are now largely irrelevant, Deliciously Ella has her own ultra-processed food brand (not sure if that’s a victory or not), and alkaline-quack Natasha Corrett has a link to me on her Wikipedia page.

Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

Pleasingly, beyond the world of clean food, many of the Angry Chef’s other regular foes have been vanquished into irrelevance, usually by their own stupidity. During Covid-19, I have been pleased to see this trend dramatically accelerating. Judgemental anti-cake harpy Zoe Harcombe has been reduced to little more that a coronavirus conspiracy theory side show, soon to be seen touring the world on alt-truth cruise ships, a diet shaming warm up act for Andrew Wakefield and Piers Corbyn.

Considering the competition, it's funny how Piers Corbyn manages to be both the worst Piers, and the worst Corbyn.

Self important pleasure vacuum Joanna Blythman has been busy writing shock anti-lockdown pieces in minor publications these past few months, blaming Covid on vegans, sugar, the food industry, Government dietary guidelines, or whatever vacuous  nonsense enters into her wizened, spiteful little brain. Why can’t poor people all go back to making their own bacon, or mending their shoes with the pelts of wild boar, says the privileged restaurant critic who once left the Soil Association in protest when they stopped supporting homeopathy for cows.

When you’re too much of a quack for the Soil Association, it’s probably time to examine your life choices.

Then there is Ivor Cummins, the low carb fantasist and regular Angry Chef troll, who has spent lockdown stuffing his gormless face ever further down twisted coronavirus conspiracy rabbit holes, demonstrating that he can be as ignorant , dangerous and unaware of his own limitations when taking about viral pandemics, as he is about nutrition. 

I always thought Ivor Cummins was a joke name. Like Phil McCrackin or Drew Peacock.

But the most glorious fall of all has been that of Tim Noakes, whose descent from serous academic into anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-lockdown, climate change denying, ‘I’m just asking questions’, ‘it’s just a bit of flu’, lunacy has been terrifying, but also a joyous affirmation for those of us who have been pointing out what a dangerous crank he is for the past few years. Surely none but his most ardent followers can take him seriously now, such is the level of quackery emanating from his social media. He is a danger to the safety of the public and should be vilified accordingly.

I was recently tagged into a low carb thread on Twitter and in a moment of weakness decided to engage with the deluded fuckwits for a bit. Fairly soon I had upset a lot of people and Noakes had Tweeted this…

…which one of his low carb fan boys amusingly called a ‘sick burn’, indicating that over in low carb land, blithely dismissing the risk you pose to someone more vulnerable than yourself is considered a virtue.

I have recently been doing a lot of thinking about this Tweet, because it is extraordinarily telling about the low carb community, and of wellness zealotry in general. In their world, personal responsibility is all. If you are sick, vulnerable or damaged in some way, it is entirely your fault. You should have optimised your metabolic health, should have exercised, should have avoided all the crap, laid off the drugs, stopped smoking, given up alcohol. Health is defined by your behaviour, behaviour is defined by your strength of character, and only the weak get sick. The gurus show you the way to enlightenment and those who do not follow them are damned. 

To be clear, Tim Noakes and his followers have no insight into the state of my health, no information about the quality of my diet and no knowledge of my exercise patterns. But in their mind, because I often call out the ludicrous nature of their dietary beliefs, my health is bound to be inferior. Later in the thread, several of them demanded that I share a picture of myself with no shirt on to prove how healthy I am. Others asked to see results of my latest blood tests, because nothing says healthy and balanced like someone who needs regular blood tests and keeps the results at their fingertips. In low carb minds, because I do not have an obsession with avoiding entire food groups, don’t care much about what I look like in the mirror, have never had the need to monitor my blood sugar and try to shy away from disordered patterns of eating, I must be less healthy than they are. 

For what it is worth, although these days I do look a bit like an uncooked lasagne with my shirt off, I have regular medical check ups for insurance purposes and have no long-term health issues. I have lived for nearly 50 years without seriously troubling the medical profession, other than a few burns from my kitchen days and a couple of broken ribs from a time when I fell out of bed whilst drunk. But unlike Noakes and his followers, I fully understand that the main reasons for my positive health story are luck, privilege and genetics. I come from a long line of reasonably healthy, long lived people. I have few genetic risk factors for serious long-term disease. I live a comfortable life in an affluent country and can afford to look after myself. The real difference between myself and Noakes is that I understand that these things are entirely down to fortune.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, if you want to live a long life, the best advice is don’t be poor. Don’t have a disability. Don’t have a disabled child. Live in a nice house in the most expensive part of town. Drive a nice car. Shop at the most expensive supermarkets. Don’t belong to an ethnic minority. Don’t suffer from mental health problems. Don’t develop an eating disorder. Only breathe clean air. Don’t inherit genetic risk factors for serious long term health conditions. Health inequalities are caused by systemic inequalities and the only way to address them is systemic change. Putting all the blame onto the lifestyle of individuals is as wrongheaded as blaming the weather forecast for the rain.

All this is ground that I have covered before, but Noakes’ Tweet and the many responses to it also got me thinking about risk. Coronavirus conspiracy runs deep in the low carb community, and a number of times during the little spat, I was told that if I had optimised my metabolic health I wouldn’t have to live in fear of Covid-19. It seems that in the low carb world, suggesting measures that might lessen the risk of spreading Coronavirus to vulnerable people is tantamount to admitting personal weakness.

But even in the worst possible case scenarios, exactly how does this assessment stack up? It has been well established that Type 2 Diabetes is a risk factor for Covid-19, but does that mean exactly what Noakes and his crew think it does? Can our brave keto-warriors happily enter the world risk free, whilst the carb eating sheeple continue to wear their masks and wash their hands? Is Noakes, a man in his 70s, right to place his faith in optimising metabolic health, then go about his business like it was 2019?

To answer this question, it’s time to awaken Captain Science from her lockdown slumber.

What? Oh fuck off, I’m tired. What time is it? What do you fucking want?

Hello Captain. Enjoying lockdown?

Meh. Less people bothering me I suppose. 

You must be missing your family?

…..

Friends?

….

Human contact?

….

Well, whatever. What are your thoughts on risk?

Noakes is an annoying, useless fucker. Used to be a serious scientist. Not sure what happened. Seems very uptight these days. Probably needs a fucking Twix.

Maybe. But how do his claims stack up?

We’ll, unsurprisingly for someone whose brain is so carb deprived, not too well. Noakes is in his 70s, so for him, age is the biggest risk factor by far. The IFR (infection fatality rate) for that age seems to be somewhere between 2 and 7. Being in that age group is a much bigger factor than any other potential co-morbidity, even cancer or lung disease. And risk virtually doubles with every six additional years. 

It’s true that if Noakes did have type 2 diabetes that would add some risk, but compared to age, it’s not really huge. Just the fact that he’s a man increases his risk far more than diabetes would. And even though the increased risk for people with diabetes is real, they certainly don’t need the likes of Noakes being so fucking judgemental about it. For him to claim that his risk is low because he’s optimised his metabolic health is not just wrongheaded, it’s fucking irresponsible. People follow and believe this stupid, fucker.

What does that actually mean though?

It means exactly what I fucking said.

But just imagine for a moment that I was the sort of person who doesn’t really understand the way risk is communicated in some of these papers. I mean, obviously I do understand it. I’ve written for New Scientist and my book’s been reviewed in Nature. But let’s just pretend for a moment that I don’t quite get what an IFR is.

Why? What’s the point in me explaining if you already understand it?

It might help some of the readers.

Why don’t you explain it to them? You’re the fucking writer. Don’t wake me up and expect me to do your fucking job for you. Typical fucking man.

Perhaps just humour me.

No. Fuck off.

Alright, I don’t really understand it.

You do fucking surprise me. Look, it’s not really that complicated. Let’s imagine there are 100 Tim Noakeses.

Wow. Unpleasant. Twitter would be a right fucking shit show. Although they’d probably argue with themselves a lot.

Then let’s say that they all decide the risk of a deadly pandemic is small and go out to do Cross Fit. All 100 of them get infected with Coronavirus and develop Covid-19. 

Okay. So now we have 100 Tim Noakeses with Covid-19. It think that it is probably worth pointing out at this stage that we both thing this would be a bad thing, right?

Yes, it would be fucking awful. One hundred men in their 70s getting Covid-19 would be a disaster, however shitty their views on nutrition. For a start, someone’s going to have to treat them. And at their age, there is a very real risk of dying.

But not if they are metabolically optimised, right?

No. That’s completely fucking wrong. The biggest risk for them by far is age, not diabetes. From the Infection Fatality Rate for men in that age group, it’s likely that around 5 of them will die, which isn’t great odds. Having Type 2 Diabetes might increase that risk a bit, but it is a fairly minor factor compared to age. That’s why saying the risk is low if you have optimised metabolic health it is such a shocking, irresponsible message to be putting out there. People end up thinking they are fine, when they really aren’t. 

Can we say how much diabetes increases that risk? What would the IFR be if all 100 of the Tim Noakeses had Type 2 Diabetes?

Ummm. That’s is actually a pretty good question, which is surprising from you. But it’s also very hard to answer. I wish I could magic some numbers up to make it clearer, but I actually don’t think we have enough information to answer that right now. I’ll leave the cherry picking and misinformation to the keto-fuckwits. We know that Type 1 Diabetes increases risk more than Type 2, which I suspect is due to glycemic control, kidney function and the severity of the disease state. But we also know that age is a far more significant factor than either of them. Look, this is a properly nasty fucking disease, and although diabetic groups are at a greater risk, it still kills plenty of people without. Noakes should know this, but he is so far down the low carb rabbit hole, he can’t see it. If you don’t want loads of deaths from Covid, it’s about everyone social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands, being careful and looking after the vulnerable or elderly. Low carb diet advice is about a useful as a fart in a lift. We get through this with collective action, not just personal responsibility. These low carb fucks are a bunch of selfish twats, and these days, they are a danger to more than just themselves.

Thank you Captain, I think that’s clear now.

For a while, I found it curious why so many dietary gurus, especially the low carb and keto crowd, were being drawn into the world of coronavirus conspiracies, embracing anti-mask and anti-vax rhetoric so willingly. But on reflection, this intersection of delusion is hardly surprising. Although the gurus of low carb profess to be concerned about the health of others, when we look below the surface, all they are really worried about is enforcing their belief that health and wellbeing is a personal choice. This should not be surprising. Without that, they have nothing to sell.

When your whole ethos and business model relies on personal health being entirely due to conscious decision making, a deadly pandemic is a violent slap in the face. The realisation that a killer virus doesn’t care about your diet and couldn’t give two fucks how you look topless, challenges the heart of your constructed identity. It makes you suddenly and painfully aware that the majority of health outcomes, both good and bad, are largely just a matter of fortune.

It should not be surprising that a group of people whose belief system has been predicated around defining health through lifestyle, should fall into the comforting arms of conspiracy theories. When we are suddenly jolted into understanding that the world is random, terrifying and beyond our control, conspiracies are an enticing comfort blanket. The alternative is to admit that the identity you have built up around your disordered eating patterns is one that is based on lies. You have to start accepting that sometimes good people get ill and it is possible to do all the right things and die anyway.

I have sympathy, but it doesn’t stop these people being dangerous. In all the arguments I have had with dietary cults during this pandemic, I have never managed get one person to understand or accept that the real danger to be wary of is one of putting others at risk. In low carb land, as in so many dietary and wellness communities, it is all about you. Take control of your health, look after your body. Wellness, in all its guises, is a remarkably selfish, insular movement. Throughout large parts of it, the desire to care for someone other than yourself has been completely lost. Sadly, that is exactly the sort of care that we need in the world right now.