Robert Park wrote:
> 1. DIETARY GUIDELINES: ADVISORY PANEL EMBRACES "THE PHYSICS PLAN" > This week, the 13-member federal advisory panel revising Dietary > Guidelines for Americans held its final meeting in Washington. > Responding to the currently fashionable low-carbohydrate diets, > the panel flatly stated there is no value in using the glycemic > index and recommended that to maintain weight calories consumed > should not exceed calories expended. This of course is just the > What's New "physics plan" http://www.aps.org/WN/WN00/wn022500.cfm > the only diet plan endorsed by the First Law of Thermodynamics.
This is an absurd oversimplification. If the caloric value of the food were the only issue, people could survive eating grass, or raw celery. (Celery takes more energy to digest than it yields.) If you eat nothing but extremely lean meat from animals, during a severe drought, you will starve to death. See: M. Harris, "Good To Eat."
Park's audience surely understands the complexity of diets and thermodynamics. He seems to making a fool of himself deliberately.
- Jed
