Who's Minding the Store?

A few days ago, this post appeared on the official McDougall message boards:

Post by JeffN » Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:38 pm
This was written in response to a few questions on the Mary’s Mini program and some comments that were made in a Mary’s Mini social media group.

“Allow me to clarify a few things.

The Mary Mini Facebook Group is an independent group and has nothing to do with Dr. McDougall Health & Medical Center. No staff oversee this group and we do not approve of everything they say and do not endorse it.

Mary’s Mini is not about weight loss. Mary’s Mini is a simplified way of eating to reset your taste buds and get back to eating the McDougall diet. This is great for people who have “fallen off the wagon” and want to come back to the McDougall diet. Mary’s Mini helps with weight loss because it is a simple diet that promotes eating monotonously.

If weight loss is something someone is seeking, they should follow the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss program. We have a forum on our website to help people achieve their goals and is moderated by McDougall staff and people who have been approved by us to lead as moderators.

In regards to fruit, Dr. McDougall stated long ago that if you want to lose weight you may want to limit your fruit consumption to two servings per day because some people have an tendency to overindulge in fruit. That being said, fruit is very low in calorie density, and we believe that eating fruit is a great way to still achieve your weight loss goals; however, if you find yourself eating copious amounts of fruit every day and are not seeing the results you want, that is an indicator that you may want to slow down on your fruit consumption.

This is an excerpt from one of our newsletters written by Dr. McDougall:

"While root vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes provide well-rounded nutrition—grains and beans lack sufficient vitamins A and C to be eaten alone; therefore add some fruit and/or green and yellow vegetables to make your grain and bean meals complete."

The goal of the McDougall Program is simple: to achieve optimal health through eating a starch-based diet with fruits and vegetables with no added oils or animal products. Weight loss is a side-effect of eating this way.

I hope this answers your question.

Best of Health,
Tiffany Hobson
Operations Manager

Hmm, the writing in this message that supposedly comes from Tiffany reads exactly in the type of language Jeff Novick uses in his program proclamations. And lately Jeff has really been pushing the fruit and said a few times fruit is encouraged because of its low caloric density. I had written out along reply to this, saved it as a draft, but when I went back to finish and post it, it was gone. Many people have complained over the years of things mysteriously vanishing from the draft folder, but stupid me didn't think to save it elsewhere. Now I have to start all over again but I'll post it here, instead, because for sure anything I post will be removed by a certain moderator, and I don't mean Jim.

Mary’s Mini is not about weight loss.

Um, yes it is. Doctor McDougall said so in the Mary's Mini webinar:


Listen at the 7:26 point: "...if you want to lose weight quickly..."

In regards to fruit, Dr. McDougall stated long ago that if you want to lose weight you may want to limit your fruit consumption to two servings per day because some people have an tendency to overindulge in fruit. That being said, fruit is very low in calorie density, and we believe that eating fruit is a great way to still achieve your weight loss goals. . .

Well, while fruit is allowed on the Maximum Weight Loss version of the McDougall Starch Solution program, he explicitly states that NO fruit is allowed on the Mary's Mini:



And in a more recent interview, Dr. McDougall again stressed to limit fruit because it's so tasty people tend to overeat it. Unfortunately, he's done so many interviews in recent weeks I can't find the exact one he said this right now. If I do wind up rewatching the one he said it I'll add the clip here.

So who is changing the guidelines? Is it Tiffany? Jeff? Certainly not Dr. McDougall!


Another instance - just yesterday an email and Facebook post appeared of a newsletter article from 2004: How to Prevent and Treat Degenerative (Osteo) Arthritis that recommended things like glucosamine. I commented that this was an old article, that he had written another one in 2010 saying glucosamine was useless, that he changed his mind about it. Less than 5 minutes after I wrote that another post/email appeared: Important Update on Glucosamine and Arthritis, linking to the 2010 newsletter article I referred to.

So, again I ask: Who's minding the store? Who is sending out all these emails and guidelines?