Rodale News editors expected to live to 120 and be capable of human flight?

Emily Main and Leah Zerbe have done it again. You know them, the activists writing for Rodale News who have a long history of botching facts, skewing reports, and throwing the rules of journalism out the window the second they start writing about seafood. Balance, research, expertsblaaaaa, who needs it?

Just when we thought they couldnt distance themselves any further from the mainstream, science-based community they come out with, 14 Foods You Should Never Eat. Its an article that illustrates what weve been saying all along: Rodale has no perspective on real world nutrition or food consumption whatsoever.

After first suggesting readers take notes, so you, too, can avoid the worst of what grocery stores have to offer, they tell readers to avoid swordfish, followed by alarming recommendations to avoid nonorganic strawberries, diet soda, anything from McDonalds, canned tomatoes, white chocolate, and popcorn. Oh, and then theres the moment they follow their avoid popcorn slide, with a slide saying to actually avoid any corn at all. Realistic, if nothing else.

But, as expected the Rodale Dream Team finds a way to further marginalize their reporting when they suggest readers avoid bread. Thats right, bread. While the United States 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) suggests a focus on nutrient-dense foods like whole grains, where they specifically give the example of whole wheat bread, Emily and Leah tell readers otherwise. And it’s not left open to interpretation, either: “And I don’t mean white bread; I mean all bread: white, whole wheat, whole grain, sprouted, organic, French, Italian, fresh, day-oldall of it.”

I dont know about you, but I prefer to take nutrition notes when Im hearing from the PhDs, MDs, and RDs that were appointed to the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, not from the Rodale news team with no nutrition expertise and a whole lot of agenda-driven rhetoric.

The DGAs also recommend that Americans increase the amount and variety of seafood consumed by choosing seafood in place of some meat and poultry.

Real seafood reports, like this one seen in The Atlantic this week, rely on sources like Dr. Cyrus Raji from UCLA, Drs. Deborah Barnes and Kristine Yaffe of UCSF and references to peer-reviewed journals like Neurology and Lancet Neurology. Meanwhile, Rodale continues to rely on the likes of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Womens Voices for the Earth, and its own CEO.

Its great that Emily Main and Leah Zerbe are the only ones with a perfectly balanced, nutrient-rich diet, should we expect both to live to 120 and be capable of human flight? Or should we expect at sometime theyll stop publishing holier-than-thou drivel that flies in the face of actual nutrition recommendations? Probably neither. I guess well just expect more of the same.