Wednesday, May 14

Post 1166, Day 134 of 2014
- 1,230 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I've been reading about a recently-published book, Big Fat Surprise, by Nina Teicholz, that recounts the history and science behind the idea, introduced in the mid-20th Century, that fat, particularly saturated fat, was unhealthy and a contributor to heart disease.

Apparently, the whole thing was started by a single man, a professor at the University of Minnesota, who formulated a hypothesis about the effect of diet on heart disease and health, and then set out to prove his hypothesis (note: the Scientific Method would have forced him to try and disprove the hypothesis - an exercise that was never done). This was the same researcher who developed K-rations in WWII. After the war, he built a career and a personal fortune defending and promoting his hypothesis that fat in the diet, in particular saturated fat, was unhealthy, and caused heart disease.

His personal reputation (he taught at Cambridge, Harvard, and the University of Minnesota, and worked with many large food and chemical corporations) gave him a credibility that overwhelmed criticism of his shoddy and misleading research.

Turns out, he was a shitty scientist, but a great promoter. He punked the planet. His hypothesis is and was easily disproven, but it was accepted by the government, and vigorously promoted by large agricultural and food business corporations, as the low-saturated-fat diet played directly to their profit interests.

When evidence became overwhelming, he switched his recommendations (very, very, slightly), employed the same junk science and and shoddy research methodology, to create the Mediterranean Diet (which actually didn't exist until he named it, and which has no foundation at all when the diets of all the Mediterranean countries are reviewed - even the ones he chose to include in his research).

Saturated fat is healthy. Vegetable oils are not, especially when used for cooking (they turn into trans-fats, which are, in fact, very unhealthy, and were banned as soon as their use in the diet couldn't be ignored any longer).

But I digress. Besides making you aware of this information, and given the way my Daily Comments have been running the past few days, I had another thought, and that is what set me writing today's comment.

Ancel Keys is to fat what Henry Anslinger was to marijuana. It is interesting that they were contemporaries. It is interesting that they were both motivated by personal ambition. It is interesting that both affected medical thinking based on bad or no science.

Anslinger had a head start, doing his dirty work in the late 30s, while Keys didn't really start his campaign until after WWII. It has taken almost eighty years to begin to undo Anslinger's bad work.

The good news is that it will be easier - slightly - to undo Keys' disinformation - saturated fat, unlike marijuana, has not been made illegal. 

That is the only advantage. There are huge business interests who will fight to maintain the status quo, as it entirely supports their bottom line.

Me? I've been eating lots of saturated fat - lots of fat, in general - for the past three years. 

Still here.

 Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         205.6 lbs

Previous Weight:        205.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      + 0.4 lbs

Diet Comment

Bah!

Food Log 

Breakfast
Skipped.

Lunch
A Quest bar.

Dinner
Cheeseburger with guacamole on Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain bread, cole slaw, almonds, and a couple of Quest bars for dessert. 

Snack
Almonds and Quest bars. 

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 90+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!