The problem I have with the Rosedale Diet is the same problem with most
diets, or diets in general. It is an oversimplification of reality. If
it works, it works for some people, some of the time. Rosedale is a lot
like Sears (the Zone Diet) he is mostly concerned with hormones and the
hormonal effect of foods. If you want to understand diet, you can't
ignore hormones. However, energy balance is important too. So important,
in fact, that many traditional diets consider it to be the most
important factor. I have heard many established dieticians or doctors
make claims similar to: "If the calories you eat are equal to the
calories you burn, then you will stay the same weight. If the calories
you eat are more, you will gain; if the calories you burn are more, you
will lose." This is NOT false. It is a GROSS oversimplification of the
problem. In fact, it is such an oversimplification that anyone calling
themselves a scientist who gives this as dietary advice should be sent
back to kindergarten (Where their advice will be useful and
appreciated... at the level of their peers ;-)

The list goes on: macronutrient balance is the most important thing ==
oversimplification. Carbs are good, fat is bad == oversimplification
(Some carbs are good sometimes, some carbs are bad most of the time.
Depends on the type of carb, when you eat it, how much of it you eat,
what else you eat it with, your activity level, etc.) Fat is good, carbs
are bad == oversimplification (Some fats are good most of the time, some
fats are bad some of the time. Depends on the type of fat, how much of
it you eat, the overall balance of fats in your diet, etc.)

I could go on for a whole book on this (Maybe some day I will.) The
problem is that you have all of these people making all of these diet
claims, and writing books about them. Each of them is selling their own
patented oversimplification, so that the choice becomes "choose your
assumptions and your oversimplification." (Sort of like, "choose your
poison," pun intended.) Then you have the smarter than average folks who
say, "But they can't all be right. How can one say low carb and the
other says high carb? Somebody is either wrong or worse yet lying." The
problem is that they are all right, and wrong, and scumsucking
bottomfeeders who need to be shot for preying on people's insecurities.

Human physiology is very complex, and diet - the ability to take in
chemicals from the environment, extract the useful parts, and eliminate
the dangerous parts  - is one of the most complex things about it. When
we study diet, we try to simplify it so that we can only look at a few
variables. The whole thing is just too complex to study. From a
scientific standpoint, the only way to have a well designed, controlled
study, that can be peer reviewed, is to eliminate as many variables as
possible and control for the remaining few. In order to do that you have
to make assumptions. Namely, which variables are important? For example,
if I accept the premise that saturated fat raises cholesterol, and that
higher cholesterol corrolates to higher incidence of heart disease, then
I can design all kinds of studies to prove that I am right. This is
called a hypothesis. Once I've tested it, and others have reviewed my
experiments and received similar results, then it is a theory.

Theories are golden in science, but reaching this point doesn't mean
that my assumptions were right in the first place. The only way to make
it bullet proof is to design studies with different assumptions and test
them in the same way. In this way we create competing theories.
Eventually, someone's assumptions prove to be more or less correct and
one theory falls into disfavor (Usually to be replaced by other
competing theories, until a truly bullet proof one shows up.) The
problem is that someone comes up with a theory and it is reported in the
news, and ten books are written about it, all long before science has
had an opportunity to do its job. Then people are redesigning their
lifestyles to fit what somebody put in a book. They may be literally
taking their lives into their own hands on the basis of advice that
hasn't even met the burden of proof within the scientific community. Not
only that, but it was based on at most a handful of studies that were
studying one particular hypothesis about one particular dimension of a
complex, multidimensional issue. It was never meant to be the basis of
someone's life decisions, but it gets sold that way and that is what it
becomes.

The fault here really lays with the scientists. To paraphrase Socrates,
"a wise man know that he doesn't know much." If I have a theory, which I
believe is correct, and then I write a book and sell it to the public.
Now, not only my ego (Very important to scientists) but also my
livelihood is wrapped up in those assumptions we were talking about. So
I will defend them zealously, and often very unscientifically. We cross
the border from science into politics. It becomes Dr. Atkins vs. Dr.
Sears and who is going to sell more candy bars. We lose sight of the
fact that for everything we know about diet there are 10... 100... maybe
1000 things we don't know. Oversimplification, now defended by
zealots... sounds like religion (No offense to anyone... okay, maybe a
little :-p

</rant>