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Skinny Bastard: A Kick-in-the-Ass for Real Men Who Want to Stop Being Fat and Start Getting Buff (Repost)

Posted By: Balisik
Skinny Bastard: A Kick-in-the-Ass for Real Men Who Want to Stop Being Fat and Start Getting Buff (Repost)

Rory Freedman, Kim Barnouin "Skinny Bastard: A Kick-in-the-Ass for Real Men Who Want to Stop Being Fat and Start Getting Buff"
Running Press | English | April 28, 2009 | ISBN: 0762435402 | 288 pages | azw, epub, lrf, mobi | 3,2 mb

This book is a very mixed bag with a lot of good information about the advantages of the vegan lifestyle and the evils of modern animal farms, but unfortunately it's marred by a lack of scientific rigor and some obvious misstatements of fact that just common sense will tell you have to be false. For example, the authors state that in the 50's the average dairy cow gave 2000 pounds of milk a year. Then they claim that today a typical dairy cow gives 50,000 pounds, for a 25-fold increase in the amount of milk, due to hormone treatments.

Just a simple calculation will show you that this is almost 1000 pounds of milk a week, from a cow that weighs at most about 1400 pounds. I quickly found a short web article on dairy cattle with stats on the five main breeds, and most of the breeds have cows that weigh considerably less than that, such as the Holsteins and the Jerseys which are only about 1100 pounds, which means a cow would have to produce almost its own weight in milk a week. This is obviously absurd and another quick search of the web showed what a more accurate figure would be, which is about 350 pounds, so this claim is off by 300%.

Unfortunately, when you encounter statements that are this far off you begin to wonder how accurate the whole book is. And when you're calling those you don't like various epithets (for example, they call the FDA a bunch of you know what morons) you'd better have your basic arithmetic and facts straight lest someone call you the same yourself. This book needed to be rewritten and then edited by a more objective third party or parties. As it is, it will be mainly well received by those already converted to their views. It's unlikely to convince anyone with the ability to read even a bit critically, which is too bad, because I sympathize overall with the book's basic message.

And despite the title, the book doesn't have very detailed information on how actually to lose weight (except to just go on a vegan diet, which, if you're already obese and eat beef every day, will probably work); but if you need more than such basic advice this book won't provide that. I note the author's degree is in holistic health, which is fine, but then nutrition is unlikely to be their strong suit since nutrition is a specialized area that you would be better served by looking at the many other excellent nutrition books and not here.