'Paleo' Nutrition Blogger Will Go to Jail if He Does Not Recant

By GaryNorth

Freedom of speech? Surely, you jest.

This man got diabetes. He started a blog on treating diabetes. He broke the law by doing this. He is not licensed to promote such opinions.

He promotes the so-called “paleo” diet: low carbohydrates. (The diet is not “paleo.” It’s capitalist. I have explained this here.)

He criticizes the establishment’s “carbs are OK” Party Line. That called down the wrath of the government on him.

Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes makes it a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without a license. According to the law, “practicing” nutrition includes “assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups” and “providing nutrition counseling.”

If he does not rewrite 3 years of posts, he must take down his site. If he refuses, and if he is convicted (after an expensive legal fight), he will go to jail.

When he was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the “caveman” or “hunter-gatherer” diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success.

But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided Cooksey’s blog – Diabetes-Warrior.net – violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to “practicing nutrition,” the board’s director says, and in North Carolina that’s something you need a license to do.

Unless Cooksey completely rewrites his 3-year-old blog, he could be sued by the licensing board. If he loses the lawsuit and refuses to take down the blog, he could face up to 120 days in jail.

The board’s director says Cooksey has a First Amendment right to blog about his diet, but he can’t encourage others to adopt it unless the state has certified him as a dietitian or nutritionist.
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Read the rest of the article here. At Lew Rockwell. One of the best and most interesting sites on the Web.

Well, folks, looks like every blogger who has written about actual, real-live nutrition will have to rewrite their blogs or recant or face jail in this land of the sniveling slaves.

When my brother moved here a few years ago he was insulin-dependent Type 2 diabetic. We live a basically low-carb lifestyle (except for my love for potatoes), and within a few months he was insulin-free. Bingo. Easy. Probably would work for MOST Type 2 diabetics.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Can't talk about it. Can't recommend it. Why? Because we don't  have the permission of the State to discuss something as elemental and common sense as diet and nutrition. Without a permission slip from the State. What utter crap.

I don't know if Indiana has this same law as North Carolina, but I expect I'll find out one of these days. In the meantime, forage for summer's feast of wild greens and eat REAL food. :)

Onwards,
HM