I have created this section for health professionals.
This may seem a little odd as I have no medical qualifications apart from being married to a medical doctor, who became diabetic, her foot turned black and our medical advisers were talking about amputation, but we changed her diet and she still has both feet.
But I am not a drongo, I am an engineer I was selected by the Institute of Engineers as one of Australia’s leading innovators for my pioneering work in Computer Aided Engineering.
I, like many of my fellow engineers, may lack the sophistication in articulation of many professions but I don’t rank too badly in understanding how things work.
I was what is often called a code cutter, I wrote software and that included intelligent or self-learning software for intelligent control – which works by monitoring what needs to be controlled, making changes, observing the effect of these changes to develop an understanding of how that system works which eventually leads to very effective control of that system.
Even though I am an engineer I can read, which I do with great intensity, trying to understand how food affects the health of our bodies and recognise the sophistication of professionals in that area.
I see an almost universal belief among health professionals that modern ultra-processed foods are harmful to health while diets centred on plants are beneficial.
Yet, despite this overwhelming evidence the consumption of ultra-processed food increases but plants-based food does not, or at best marginally.
As an engineer with expertise in control theory, I ask myself why?
It is not that people are not informed, they know full well that this ultra-processed food is harmful to their health and plant-based foods are beneficial but the majority of people continue to eat an ever-increasing amount of ultra-processed foods.
Why do people do things that are bad for them knowing full well that they will cause harm? And being an engineer what can we do about it?
Humans are notorious for doing things that are harmful to other humans and themselves so I thought I would ask Mr. Google if he had any ideas.
As usual, I was surprised.
I anticipated to be told that humans were the most destructive creatures to their own species, after all just watch the news and it is dominated by humans using their great skills in technology for the sophisticated killing of other humans.
We humans can be a violent species, with stories of war, murder and terrorism frequently hitting the headlines. Yet the record went to those cute and cuddly Meerkats who put our bloodthirsty tendencies to shame with 20 per cent of the cute critters being slaughtered by their own species.
Animals unquestionably kill members of their species, all the time. Male lions slaughter all the cubs when they join a new pride; rival ant colonies of the same species fight bloody wars; chimpanzees have been shown to kill each other at similar per capita rates to humans.
Hippopotamuses, Hamsters, Crab spiders, Cane toads, Praying mantis, Black widow spiders, Polar bears and many snakes are going to have to improve their game to win a Nobel Peace prize.
This may all be interesting but it does not answer the question why the bulk of people eat food that is bad for them, while knowing it is bad for them. That is why understanding how our intelligent control system works is so important and what this website is about.
