Openly back on the menu—the inimitable taste of butter!
The wonderful James Delingpole ropes two tenaciously resistant problems to the one horse.
Following current revelations that the saturated-fat health scare was based on now-discredited studies and was such very wrong advice that it actually caused the current epidemic of obesity, James discovered the role of compliant scientists, industry, Nanny State politicians and professional societies in the campaign to push the scare of animal fats.
He saw similarities to this in the global warming scare; perhaps you do also.
I like his summary:
- Scientist hypothesises novel scare-theory which, if true, will require radical action to prevent the Bad Thing happening.
- Government seizes on this theory because it is a fashionable area of public concern and new regulation will show how we care.
- Puritans – like the American Heart Foundation – get to moralise, regulate and prevent people doing what they enjoy. The rent-seekers make money out of the new artificial “low-fat” market.
- Dissenting scientists are mocked and marginalised.
- The consequences are that health problems seem to increase, people stop doing what they would have preferred and crony-capitalists (the wrong sort of capitalists) thrive at the expense of the right sort.
- Many years later, the ugly truth emerges. The low-fat religion embedded in society occasions bitter resistance from the Health Establishment but no heads roll for the decades of wasted expense.
Go now. Read the master’s words directly.
– h/t Rodney Hide
Postscript
Coincidentally (or is it?), just a year ago Unilever started to use butter in some margarine.
But the appetite for margarine seems to be melting around the world, forcing Unilever to admit defeat in the war against butter.
It’s still up to us how much we have, but to practice self-restraint is freedom; to be forcibly restrained is bondage.
Views: 64
JunkScience has been all over this:
‘The Greatest Medical Fraud of the 20th Century’
http://junkscience.com/2015/02/11/the-greatest-medical-fraud-of-the-20th-century/
‘Bad Day for Food Nannies: Gov’t withdraws warning against eating cholesterol — 40 yrs of ‘consensus’ science flushed’
http://junkscience.com/2015/02/11/bad-day-for-food-nannies-govt-withdraws-warning-against-eating-cholesterol-40-yrs-of-consensus-science-flushed/
‘Food fetishists suffer another knockdown–eggs up, nannies down’
http://junkscience.com/2015/02/13/food-fetishists-suffer-another-knockdown-eggs-up-nannies-down/
As someone of the already lean kind, ex athlete, continues regular exercise, has difficulty maintaining weight at the best of times, loses weight at the drop of a hat when under stress, has developed inflammatory digestive tract disease either brought about by night-shifting or exacerbated by it (nurse problem on rotating shifts too), has had to do a mountain of nutritional research in order to turn the situation around (now putting weight on), ……………..the junk science above has not been helpful.
Sorry to hear that, RC, that must be hard.
Many years ago when Maggie Barrie was working for National Radio I heard her conduct an interview with two researchers from Dunedin University. Their research had shown that their was a definite statistical relationship between the consumption of poly unsaturated fats and recovery from skin cancer, i.e. a high consumption of polyunsaturated fats decreased the chance of a full recovery from melanoma. Their research also indicated the likelihood of contracting melanoma increased with the consumption of polyunsaturated fats. Sadly this “unfashionable” research dropping off the radar may have contributed to the current “epidemic” of skin cancer in Australia and New Zealand and ozone depletion was not the only culprit
>”that must be hard.”
No not hard, just a bit tricky at times. My normal weight was around 71 – 73 but I went down to 65 over 2011 – 14. Since ending night-shifts Sept last year and changing my nutrition regime (radically) I’ve put on over 4kg and I think I’m on the way back over 70. Except I’ll be going back to night-shift April unless I can get out of it.
My condition is nothing really. I was involved with disabled athletes for a while, stuff like that sets your perspective. I did miss a nights work one night because I had to leave early the previous night and had abdominal muscle cramps during the day for 12 hours straight when I should have been asleep for at least 6. Wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
I think I’m top of it now, mostly by cutting out all sugar except what is normally in fruits, honey, dates, etc, and in processed food (as much as possible), consuming fats, meats, eggs, butter, etc sensibly, but critically by fixating on anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant foods e.g. persimmons are fantastic (can’t wait for the new season – I think they make all the difference), blueberries, cranberries, omega 3 (fish oils) to compensate for excessive omega 6, folic, dark low sugar chocolate etc, and buckets of green tea and lots of water (no red wine although that’s an anti-oxidant too).
Inflammation is at the root of much disease so if you can suppress inflammation you suppress disease in the long-term. The berries, including strawberries and blackberries, are now being touted as “super” foods or “super” berries. There’s studies of the benefits of cranberries to combat pancreatic cancer for example. A lot of it all has only just come to the surface over the last 10 years or so and I’d be lost without the internet (my doctor only gave me the prognosis – not the cure).
The other thing that I find helps a lot is a 2 day micro fast every month (rather than say 3 – 4 days every six months). I continue with a few berries (mainly blueberries) and a bit of citrus, and lots of green tea and water. That really helps the system settle down and adjust, knocks stomach inflammation symptoms completely. I get weak at the end though, I don’t know how people go 3 – 4 days.
I was actually sent to the doctor by a fellow who had to be medically tested due to the kiwifruit Psa virus and his work on the industry. All I had was inflammation. He discovered he had prostate cancer that he didn’t know about until the test. He was in hospital the next week so I took his advice to get a thorough check-up given his experience.
Peter Fraser, You say:
‘Sadly this “unfashionable” research dropping off the radar may have contributed to the current “epidemic” of skin cancer in Australia and New Zealand and ozone depletion was not the only culprit.’
What you say is thought-provoking. Not that correlation is ever causation, but of course with cancer we don’t want to think mistakes have been made. I guess we can only hope that the cause of this research ‘dropping off the radar’ (if that’s what happened) was unconnected with fashion of any kind, and that, if a correlation did exist between consumption of polyunsaturated fats and reduced recovery from melanoma, it has remained and will be observed again.
RC – cherries are super-uber-good antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. Most notably known to relieve inflammatory conditions such as gout and arthritis.
But back on-topic, I’ve never bought into the margarine fad. Might go and fry some eggs in butter and put them on baked beans on Vogels for lunch. Mmmm!
Mike >”cherries are super-uber-good antioxidants and anti-inflammatories”
I did not know that. Now I do. Thank you Mike.