- Via CNN: Nancy Mace, now targeting transgender lawmaker, called herself ‘pro-transgender rights’ in 2023.
- Via the AP: Texas education board approves optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools.
- Via CBS News: Trump nominates Marty Makary, who opposed COVID vaccine mandates, to head FDA.
- Via ProPublica: A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.
- Via The New Yorker: The Texas Ob-Gyn Exodus.
- Via The Atlantic: America Stopped Cooking With Tallow for a Reason. [link fixed]
- Via Slate: I Just Listened to Steve Bannon’s Show for a Week. What’s Coming Is Clear.
Tabby Tueday
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28 responses to “Tabby Tueday”
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@Neil Hudelson:..tallow
I went to the Atlantic site and was able to copy and paste this before the page ran out of words.Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest spin on MAGA, “Make frying oil tallow again,” is surprisingly straightforward for a man who has spent decades downplaying his most controversial opinions. Last month, Kennedy argued in an Instagram post that Americans were healthier when restaurants such as McDonald’s cooked fries in beef tallow—that is, cow fat—instead of seed oils, a catchall term for common vegetable-derived oils including corn, canola, and sunflower. Americans, he wrote, are “being unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils; in his view, we’d all be better off cooking with solid fats such as tallow, butter, and lard. In a video that Kennedy posted on Thanksgiving, he deep-fries a whole turkey in beef tallow and says, “This is how we cook the MAHA way.”
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@Neil Hudelson: @Mister Bluster: Link fixed
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When I was in Jr. High School in 1961 my dad bought a donut franchise.
Bakers Dozen Donuts: “We give you 13 donuts when you pay for 12!”
When the guy who sold the franchise was training us how to make donuts he said that if anyone asked what we used to fry the donuts tell them “vegetable oil”.
“What do we fry the donuts in?” I asked.
“Vegetable oil.” he said as he emptied a can clearly labeled LARD into the donut fryer. -
That give me paleo vibes. Advocates of paleo diets argue against consuming grains and other carbohydrate-rich foods, with many exceptions. They go for solid fats, like tallow, lard, and coconut oil, and advocate high protein content (ie lots of meat).
The central argument is that this was what our early human and our pre-human hominid ancestors ate like. And further that the human digestive system has not adapted to the consumption of grains, despite agriculture being very old. They will often cite celiac disease, which is real, as a kind of “gluten sensitivity,” which proves humans should not consume grains. More sophisticated arguments talk of what chemicals plants use to keep their seeds from being eaten (most seeds require to be eaten and excreted in order to germinate best; that’s how fruits evolved).
I’ve never bought into it. IMO, a lot of people who get into it, tend to use fresh ingredients when cooking, and tend to cut out sugars and processed foods. This might make for a healthier diet.
Early stone age human diets were probably rich in fruit and vegetables, and also seeds, grains, and nuts. Meat was relatively rare, though this varied by region and geography. Some local fauna is far easier to hunt regularly than others.
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@Kathy:
Somehow I don’t see our ancient ancestors regularly out competing larger, fiercer carnivores for the odd rabbit they were able to snare.
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Gosh, Nancy “there’s no way she’s my equal” Mace appears to have lied about accepting trans people during election season. Or she’s performing now, maybe. Or maybe both.
Where is this going? What does it mean when someone feels they have to lie or misrepresent their position, of change the message depending on an election? What does that say about the policy?
It is clear to me that “gender-affirming care” was a phrase deployed much like “weapons of mass destruction”. When challenged it means giving hormone blockers to 9 year olds. But loose in the culture, it means “cutting off the dicks of 9-year-olds”.
It’s both brilliant and thoroughly evil. You know, it’s the whole “bearing false witness” thing? I only bring the religious angle because it’s the religious right that is driving the whole thing.
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The potential harm from increasing the use of lard and animal fat in cooking does not stack up, in my book, with the potential harm that might come from putting Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard in charge of the defense/intelligence apparatus.
Ok, if we stopped polio vaccinations and had another polio epidemic, that would be very, very bad. I’m not sure Kennedy can do that much in only 4 years.
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Somehow I don’t see our ancient ancestors regularly out competing larger, fiercer carnivores for the odd rabbit they were able to snare.
It’s odd that saber tooth cats, dire wolves, various other apex predators keep going extinct at the same time hominids show up in the fossil record.
ETA: Consider the value of weapons as an equalizer. Unlike the other great apes, human shoulders are well adapted to throwing things.
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Google “persistance hunting.”
Humans are uniquely adapted to this compared to any other mammal.
Very efficient locomotion in terms of calorie expenditure, vastly greater ability to reject body heat by sweating compared to any other species.
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Those surviving hominids were smart enough not to compete with the big cats. Yes, apex predators have gone extinct, but others have managed to evolve.
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@Sleeping Dog:
@Neil Hudelson:
@charontwo:Studies among modern-day hunter gatherers in Asia, show they are not very successful hunters. Assuming much the same for our early stone age ancestors, then there’s no way H. sapiens could have hunted several species of megafauna extinct in the Americas.
On the other hand, disruptions to the food chain and environment can cause such extinctions.
Early humans, BTW, seem to have done better at trapping than hunting. There are sites suggestive of small groups of humans driving herds of ruminants off cliffs. There’s little clue how common this was.
TL;DR, we don’t know what killed the megafauna.
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human shoulders are well adapted to throwing things.
Well, adapted, not well adapted. You don’t have my rotator cuffs. When I mentioned to the orthopedist that tennis players get rotator cuff tears he replied, ‘and pitchers and volleyball players’.
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The mystery of human development is how the hell we survived after we swung out of the trees. Logically, the apex predators of the plains should’ve made short work of us. Some suspect fire made the difference, some suspect tools. Spears, rocks, clubs. Another theory is a lot was accomplished by our smell.
There seems to be something about humans which discourages other critters from eating us. Very typically bears kill us defensively and leave the meat. Tigers in India that become hunters of humans appear to be ones that were especially hungry due to wounds, poor hunting in general and such. However, once one does eat a human they tend to come back for more. Individual lions in Africa which have become human hunters follow the same model. It’s as if they had discovered that if you ignore the smell we taste pretty good.
Is there any mammal besides humans which develop the kind of reek we do? We seem to have armpits which deliberately generate a strong odor. Why do humans have about the weakest sense of smell of any mammal? So we can tolerate ourselves?
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@Kathy:
Studies among modern-day hunter gatherers in Asia, show they are not very successful hunters.
East Africa? Southwest Africa? The Australian Outback?
What smells good, what smells bad depends on the specie’s lifestyle. Shit smells good to obligatory coprophages such as gorillas. Buzzards like the smell of carrion.
Why do humans have about the weakest sense of smell of any mammal? So we can tolerate ourselves?
Pretty much every dog I encounter wants to check me out.
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Almost as good as tofu…
Breatharianism is the
insaneNew Age idea that one can live without food and drink, subsisting only off “pranic light.” According to practitioners, pranic light is accurate, channelled information from a huge invisible spaceship hovering over North America.
RationalWikiUpon closer scrutiny many Breatherians confess to eating and drinking a tiny amount of something now and then.*
They remind me of people who claim a “near death” experience and live to tell about it. Since it is impossible to know how close to death anyone is at any given time (how do you measure that?) I would suggest that it is a “still alive experience”.*Wiley Brooks (1936–2016) was the founder of the Breatharian Institute of America.
He told Colors magazine in 2003 that he periodically breaks his fasting with a cheeseburger and a cola, explaining that when he’s surrounded by junk culture and junk food, consuming them adds balance.
Brooks later claimed that “All McDonalds are constructed on properties that are protected by 5th Dimensional high energy/spiritual portals”, encouraging the consumption of Diet Coke and McDonald’s Double-Quarter-Pounder/with cheese meal (“It is also acceptable to combine 2 quarter-pounder with cheese burgers to make one double-quarter pounder if you can’t get the double-quarter-pounder with cheese where you live”), and discouraging the consumption of “water of any kind”. The idea of separate but interconnected 5D and 3D worlds was a major part of Brooks’ ideology, and Brooks encouraged his followers to only eat these special 5D foods, as well as to meditate on a set of magical 5D words.
WikiP -
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Is there any mammal besides humans which develop the kind of reek we do?
We are as fragrant daffodils beside the mustelids.
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@Joe: You win the thread today. ROFLMAO emoji! 😉
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@Joe: Sometimes the upvote button doesn’t work on iOS safari. This is one of those times.
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However, once one does eat a human they tend to come back for more. Individual lions in Africa which have become human hunters follow the same model. It’s as if they had discovered that if you ignore the smell we taste pretty good.
Humans are the durians of the animal kingdom?
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@charontwo: Indeed humans throw rocks really well 😛
Based on my very limited experience with wildlife our ability to throw about anything really freaks them out. Carnivores generally don’t want to get injured while getting something to eat. So you can force a mountain lion to disengage quickly if you hit it with a random stick or rock. Even landing anything near them will cause them to re-evaluate the effort required to eat you. Throw a rock well enough and you can kill even a human. Skirmishers throwing rocks was a thing which improved greatly in effectiveness with the advent of the sling.
But yeah we probably mostly hunted via persistence hunting. Early humans could literally walk animals to death like an animal’s version of Jason. While eating whatever they found on the way.
There is a trope in Humanity Fuck Yeah stories where we’re basically Jason Vorhees to aliens.
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It may be that we just allocate greater brain processing to vision, as well as more resources to light receptors. We have the second sharpest vision on Earth. Ahead of us are birds, especially those that fly. How good is their sense of smell?
We even regained a pigment sensor, so we can perceive three pigments, rather than the two most mammals can. Birds can perceive four.
One thing I’ve noticed from owning dogs, is they rarely display an emotional reaction to any smell, no matter how repulsed we may be by it. The one thing that caused any of my dogs to wrinkle their nose and draw away, were acidic smells. Especially vinegar and lime.
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@charontwo:
Dogs and wolves quite typically roll in and cover themselves in odors that stink to us. It is assumed they do so to disguise their own scent. We don’t know for sure but it’s logical.Humans are all but nose-blind compared to most predators. Assuming we can easily understand this mechanism, if it exists, would be on a par with blind people assuming they can easily understand the nuances of camouflage. An odor that conveys the message of “don’t eat this” might be just one note in a symphony of odors emanating from humans that dogs can perceive.
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@Gustopher: Precisely.
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@Mister Bluster
What is the evidence that vegetable cooking oils are bad? Heart attack rates have been falling https://www.clearvuehealth.com/b/heart-attack-mortality-data/
Of course, asking RFK, Jr for evidence is a fool’s errand. -
@Slugger:..vegetable oil…
I have not made any claims about cooking oils.
Many years ago when I cooked many meals and baked a lot of bread I used cooking oils and sprays, peanut oil, olive oil, Kroger brand vegetable oil and some bulk oils available at an
International Grocery here in town.
Most of the bread recipes came from a volume of Joy of Cooking that was handed down from my mom so I used what the book called for.
Today my kitchen tools consist of a microwave and a hand operated can opener.
I spend a fair amount of my pension at the local Panera. When they started the “Clean Food” promotion I asked them if they ran the bagels through the dishwasher.
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