The Zilla Awards

At the end of each year, along with New Years Resolutions, there are a bunch of awards shows, "best of" lists, and retrospectives. Who am I to fight such a popular trend? So, it is with great pride that I announce the First Annual 'Zilla Awards! The categories are not what you might typically see and will change from year to year, but what did you expect from a giant award-granting mutant lizard anyway? So here are the awards for 2007.

Category: BEST BOOK BY A COMPLETE GEEK
Winner: Gary Taubes - Good Calories Bad Calories
Anyone who can take that much science and make it readable to my ADD riddled brain is aces in my book! Hell, I read the WHOLE THING...TWICE! He takes about 1000 years of dietary research and literature and makes it logical, understandable, and :gasp: Interesting! He even manages to sound like a human in person during interviews and lectures promoting his book. Gary Taubes is one chic geek!

Category: BEST VIRTUAL VIGILANTE JUSTICE
Winners: The Duck Squad (and many others!) from Low Carb Friends
When an online diet guru's story of losing 198 pounds in less than a year started to smell a little fishy, this group of people started digging. What they discovered is that "Kimmer" (Heidi Diaz), founder of the Kimkins diet was, in fact, an obese con artist. She was charging $59.95 to join her website so you could lose weight just like her, but the "after" photos she used were lifted from a Russian mail-order bride website. So were the photos of several other of her "success" stories. They became the DUCK SQUAD after a blogger named Ducky began posting information about the Kimkins con and Kimmer mentioned on her website that she was suspicious of anyone with a duck avatar. Soon duck images were popping up all over the place. As a result, Heidi "Kimmer" Diaz has had her assets frozen (which included a house purchased with CASH) and is the target of a lawsuit for her fraud as well as for health problems caused by following her plan (basically a twisted, starvation version of Atkins and Stillmans). Despite nay-sayers on diet message boards, the duck squad continues to watch the principle players in the Kimkins scam lest they individually or together try to launch another site and defraud more innocent people.

Category: BEST LIVING EXAMPLE OF THE WORD IRONY
Winner: Jane Brody
Jane Brody is a columnist for the New York Times. She isn't exactly a big fan of the low carb lifestyle and writes often about the dangers of not eating carbs. Here is what she says about her way of eating... "What do I and my slender friends eat? Mostly -- but not exclusively -- whole grain breads and cereals; lots of vegetables, salads and fresh and dried fruits; poultry, fish, meat and dried beans and peas and skim milk. But we also eat mostly white rice and pasta, potatoes, winter squash, avocados, regular cheese, eggs, cookies and ice cream and an occasional piece of cake or pie." {more}

It is no big surprise to those of us in the low carb world that she ended up with slightly elevated cholesterol numbers (I mean seriously, white rice, pasta and potatoes are basically sugar as far as your body is concerned..and sugar triggers artery damage..and cholesterol is what REPAIRS the damage caused by the SUGAR). Even though her doctor tells her not to worry, she cuts out cheese, further limits her red meat intake, eats more low-fat products, etc... and instead of having a lower cholesterol number for all her efforts, it jumps up even higher. She then goes on statins. Is that going to help? (more)

Cardiologist Mike Eades provides the answer...
"She is obviously relieved that she’s fallen into the bosom of the ever-effective statins despite the fact that the preponderance of properly done studies have shown that statins confer no health benefits to women of any age and that women over the age of 65 (she is 65) who have high cholesterol live longer than those who have normal to low cholesterol. And she missed the studies that show that both men and women over the age of 65 who take statins have an increased incidence of cancer. So, she’s volitionally taking a drug that a) has been shown to be worthless for her, b) has been shown to cause cancer, and c) has its own list of side effects, some of them fatal. An interesting choice for a supposedly smart woman to make." (more)

So keep on trashing low carb Jane and keep taking your statins. Then we can update dictionaries to include your picture next to the word IRONY, right along side a picture of Jim Fixx, the jogging guru, who dropped dead of a heart attack...while jogging.

Category: BEST BACK PEDDLING
Winner: The American Diabetes Association
After decades of warning people about the dangers of a low carb diet, the American Diabetes Association, who until now recommended ingesting NO LESS than 130g of carbohydrate EACH DAY (the equivalent of almost 1 1/2 cups of sugar), has finally decided low carb might not kill you. No, they haven't gone as far as recommending a low carb diet, which seriously restricts sugar intake for those with a blood sugar issue, but have released the following...

"The evidence is clear that both low-carbohydrate and low-fat calorie restricted diets result in similar weight loss at one year. We're not endorsing either of these weight-loss plans over any other method of losing weight. What we want health care providers to know is that it's important for patients to choose a plan that works for them, and that the health care team support their patients' weight loss efforts and provide appropriate monitoring of patients' health." (more)

I think the evidence is clear that they are having trouble ignoring the growing evidence that low carb leads to better blood sugar management, but still have no intention of admitting they were wrong all the years they told people to be sure to eat plenty of sugar. For a bunch of individuals who have dedicated themselves to eliminating diabetes, they still have no idea what they are talking about. The scariest part is this policy revision puts them MILES ahead of the American Heart Association (which around here is now called The American Heart Attack Association).

Category: BEST PISSING OFF OF AN ENTIRE COUNTRY
Winner: China
Earlier this year, pets by the score were being brought in to animal hospitals with kidney problems. The FDA investigated then announced that it identified melamine in wheat and rice gluten imported from China that had been used in pet foods. A derivative of melamine, an industrial chemical utilized in plastics manufacturing, is used in fertilizers in Asia. There was an extensive pet food recall effecting several manufacturers. Factory owners in China have admitted to routinely adding melamine to pet foods to boost their nitrogen content, which makes it appear that they contain more protein that they actually do (more). While it is impossible to judge the actual number of pets killed or injured due to the contaminated pet food, one food manufacturer is now the target of 90 class action suits. (more)

One sure way to make a bunch of Americans angry is to poison their pets, but China isn't the kind of country to do anything half way. They must have decided American's weren't mad enough about their puppies and kitties being killed, so they decided to take it one step further and taint children's toys with lead and date rape drugs (more).

Lets have a big round of applause for all of our winners. Winners, if you would like to have your plaque mailed to you, just drop me a line. China, you all have to share one.