Food fad can put babies at risk

No wonder people find it hard to decide what to eat. Should they be going low-carb, sugar-free, high protein or no-dairy?

We are swamped by a glut of instant experts espousing science “fiction” — not tales of aliens in space but pseudo-scientific health advice, often linked to a fad diet or program and all the associated marketing opportunities.

Sometimes the advice is largely innocuous, perhaps promoting the latest super food diet that at worst might be a waste of money, but sometimes it is potentially dangerous.

Worryingly, we are seeing more of the latter, none more so than Bubba Yum Yum, a paleo diet book of recipes for babies and toddlers which has received widespread criticism before it is even released, mostly from public health experts who (claim it could have deadly consequences.

Last week, Australia’s Dietitians Association weighed into this latest paleo diet debate — not the first time the group has clashed with one of the book’s authors, celebrity chef and paleo advocate Pete Evans.

But this time it was not a philosophical difference of opinion but more serious concerns about the advice being given to vulnerable young parents trying to do the best for their baby’s nutrition.

The dietitians warned that many of the ingredients espoused by the book were not recommended for infants in the first 12 months because of the microbiological risks from foods such as honey (botulism), runny eggs (salmonella) and raw liver.

The group, made up of professionals with university degrees in health science, organised independent testing of a key recipe — the DIY infant formula based on liver, cod liver oil and a bone broth.

Despite the authors’ claim the formula was comparable with breast milk, the analysis found it was vastly different.

The formula’s vitamin A levels were 749 per cent higher than in breast milk, the vitamin B12 was 2326 per cent higher, iron levels were 1067 per cent higher and sodium was more than 800 per cent higher.

The dietitians warned the formula could be extremely harmful to babies because their immature immune and digestive systems could not cope with such high levels of the nutrients.

In other words, more was definitely not better.

“In a newborn, the formulation could cause permanent damage and possibly result in death,” they concluded.

It seems intended publisher Pan Macmillan did not need any more convincing of the potential risks, dumping the book like a hot potato this week.

But Evans appeared to be forging ahead with the digital publication of the book yesterday, taking to his Facebook page to suggest the adverse media coverage was good publicity.

“We didn’t want to wait,” he said. “Too many people are wanting this beautiful treasure trove of nutritional recipes and we are extremely thankful to all our followers and colleagues for their support.

“A huge thankyou also goes out to all the media for them helping to raise awareness about this over the last week. We hope you continue to do more of the same. Keep up the great work promoting paleo.”

In turn, the dietitians called on Evans and the book’s two co-authors, none of whom has formally recognised medical or health qualifications, to reconsider their decision to independently release the book.

They said the issue also raised wider concerns about the growing number of self-appointed “experts” providing nutrition and health advice to the Australian public.

Certainly the paleo baby food book is no orphan when it comes to less-than-scientific health messages, with the book market awash with material that is untested and in some cases bizarre.

And few doctors would have taken any satisfaction from learning about the sad death of young Australian woman Jess Ainscough from a rare cancer last month. The 29-year-old shunned conventional cancer treatment in lieu of a therapy known as Gerson — using specific foods, supplements and detoxification rituals to “cure” the disease.

She became a holistic health coach dubbed the Wellness Warrior, selling her advice at talks around the country and at one stage claiming that mammograms were useless and dangerous.

Her family maintained she tried standard cancer care at first but when doctors said there were no real guarantees, she elected to devote herself to unconventional treatments.

Whether receiving ongoing cancer treatment would have made a difference to her outcome, no one knows, and even her strongest critics were not lining up to gloat when she died, only reflecting on what they believed was the waste of a young life.

The value of good nutrition is a given — for anyone, let alone someone battling cancer — but as soon as you put the words “diet” and “cure” together it is an altogether different story.

The problem for scientists is that they always look like the fun police who offer the same boring, unsexy advice and dampen down enthusiasm about new ideas.

The instant experts — the wellness gurus and the people who claim they can beat disease through purified juices, coffee enemas or homeopathic vaccines — always look happier and healthier.

Now the job of “real” science is to stop people tuning out from its message and to convince those who feel disillusioned by mainstream medicine and the powerful pharmaceutical industry that they need to have the same healthy scepticism about alternative advice.