Make you Fink on Friday

This is about a subject that I have often espoused as ‘bullshit’.

Literally, the crap that we have been led to believe comes from manufacturers that want to sell you another product.

It’s the old butter vs margarine debate again; which is healthier for you?

Basically, you have been fed manufacturers crap for so long it’s taken as gospel.

Now it appears as though the truth is coming out.

Why almost everything you’ve been told about unhealthy foods is wrong

Eggs and red meat have both been on the nutritional hit list – but after a major study last week dismissed a link between fats and heart disease, is it time for a complete rethink?

The evidence that appears to implicate red meat does not separate well-reared, unprocessed meat from its factory farmed, heavily processed equivalent.’ Photograph: Mike Kemp/Getty Images/Rubberball

Could eating too much margarine be bad for your critical faculties? The “experts” who so confidently advised us to replace saturated fats, such as butter, with polyunsaturated spreads, people who presumably practise what they preach, have suddenly come over all uncertain and seem to be struggling through a mental fog to reformulate their script.

Last week it fell to a floundering professor, Jeremy Pearson, from the British Heart Foundation to explain why it still adheres to the nutrition establishment’s anti-saturated fat doctrine when evidence is stacking up to refute it. After examining 72 academic studies involving more than 600,000 participants, the study, funded by the foundation, found that saturated fat consumption was not associated with coronary disease risk. This assessment echoed a review in 2010 that concluded “there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease”.

Neither could the foundation’s research team find any evidence for the familiar assertion that trips off the tongue of margarine manufacturers and apostles of government health advice, that eating polyunsaturated fat offers heart protection. In fact, lead researcher Dr Rajiv Chowdhury spoke of the need for an urgent health check on the standard healthy eating script. “These are interesting results that potentially stimulate new lines of scientific inquiry and encourage careful reappraisal of our current nutritional guidelines,” he said.

Chowdhury went on to warn that replacing saturated fats with excess carbohydrates – such as white bread, white rice and potatoes – or with refined sugar and salts in processed foods, should be discouraged. Current healthy eating advice is to “base your meals on starchy foods”, so if you have been diligently following that dietetic gospel, then the professor’s advice is troubling.

Confused? Even borderline frustrated and beginning to run out of patience? So was the BBC presenter tasked with getting clarity from the British Heart Foundation. Yes, Pearson conceded, “there is not enough evidence to be firm about [healthy eating] guidelines”, but no, the findings “did not change the advice that eating too much fat is harmful for the heart”. Saturated fat reduction, he said, was just one factor we should consider as part of a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. Can you hear a drip, drip in the background as officially endorsed diet advice goes into meltdown?

Of course, we have already had a bitter taste of how hopelessly misleading nutritional orthodoxy can be. It wasn’t so long ago that we were spoon-fed the unimpeachable “fact” that we should eat no more than two eggs a week because they contained heart-stopping cholesterol, but that gem of nutritional wisdom had to be quietly erased from history when research showing that cholesterol in eggs had almost no effect on blood cholesterol became too glaringly obvious to ignore.

The consequences of this egg restriction nostrum were wholly negative: egg producers went out of business and the population missed out on an affordable, natural, nutrient-packed food as it mounded up its breakfast bowl with industrially processed cereals sold in cardboard boxes. But this damage was certainly less grave than that caused by the guidance to abandon saturated fats such as butter, dripping and lard, and choose instead spreads and highly refined liquid oils.

Despite repeated challenges from health advocacy groups, it wasn’t until 2010, when US dietary guidelines were amended, that public health advisers on both sides of the Atlantic acknowledged that the chemical process for hardening polyunsaturated oils in margarines and spreads created artery-clogging trans-fats.

Manufacturers have now reformulated their spreads, hardening them by chemical methods which they assure us are more benign. But throughout the 20th century, as we were breezily encouraged to embrace supposedly heart-healthy spreads, the prescription was killing us. Those who dutifully swallowed the bitter pill, reluctantly replacing delicious butter with dreary marge, have yet to hear the nutrition establishment recanting. Government evangelists of duff diet advice aren’t keen on eating humble pie.

But what lesson can we draw from the cautionary tales of eggs and trans fats? We would surely be slow learners if we didn’t approach other well-established, oft-repeated, endlessly recycled nuggets of nutritional correctness with a rather jaundiced eye. Let’s start with calories. After all, we’ve been told that counting them is the foundation for dietetic rectitude, but it’s beginning to look like a monumental waste of time. Slowly but surely, nutrition researchers are shifting their focus to the concept of “satiety”, that is, how well certain foods satisfy our appetites. In this regard, protein and fat are emerging as the two most useful macronutrients. The penny has dropped that starving yourself on a calorie-restricted diet of crackers and crudités isn’t any answer to the obesity epidemic.

Read more

Opinion:

Take the egg problem, speaking from personal experience. I eat between six and a dozen eggs per week… my cholesterol is just great, perhaps a little on the low side. I also eat the fat on meat, I use lard for cooking and I don’t have margarine in the house and I don’t buy products made with it. I don’t drink soda, but sparkling mineral water, often with fresh juices added.

So, more than two years ago, I bucked the system and stopped believing manufacturers’ claims.

My advice, stop being a sheep and following the herd, think for yourself.

Monday Moaning

I’m a day late again, blame it on BBQ dishes from Sunday’s family BBQ.

But there’s always something to moan about, so today it’s a Tuesday Moaning.

Today the subject is bullshit.

Bullshit that we have been fed for years.

Fat Is Bad For You

As Men’s Health magazine  states, no one has ever proven so called bad fats are really bad for you!

Fat is a necessary nutrient for the body and especially for the brain. In fact, without fat you and I would probably not be here at all as the human brain evolved and developed into the biggest and most highly evolved brain on earth due to humans eating fat. No fat = No human beings.

Even saturated fats are not all bad for you. Saturated fats are probably the most demonized food on earth! Many cultures thrive on high saturated fat diets including Eskimos (blubber – what do you think blubber is?), and the Kenyan Maasai tribe in Africa.

The reason we think saturated fats are so bad is Ancel Keyes and his cherry [lying] picking data. I dealt with Mr. Keyes in some depth a few years back, Ancel Keyes.

Mother Nature Network (MNN) lists several studies that show that prove saturated fats do not lead to heart disease, including LDLs, as well as listing the benefits of saturated fats.

As MNN states, this does not mean that we should go on a an all bacon-cheeseburger diet. Remember the key is to eat all things in moderation. Two other good reads on saturated fats can be found at body building dot com and at Men’s Health, which is always a good source for health related articles. On the fat issue read, What if Bad Fat is Actually Good for You?

This is reblogged from: More Thyme than Dough, Obesity Myths

Opinion:

I have been aware for some time that we are fed this bullshit that fat is bad for you, so I was interested in following up on this post about obesity. I am obese.

Picanha is a Brazilian cut from the sirloin

I recently had to have some medical tests, one of them was cholesterol. My cholesterol is perfect, perhaps a little low.

I eat fat!

See that picanha to the left?

I eat it, the fat is delicious, that’s where the flavour is.

Some waiters try to avoid serving the fat, I create a scandal.

We have been fed bullshit for so long that people believe natural fats are bad for you.

Why is this?

So the makers of fats like margarine, cooking oil, vegetable cooking fat can sell their ‘healthy’ products to you.

There is no independent scientific data that proves natural fat is bad for you, quite the obverse. In relation to cholesterol, every cell in your body needs it to reproduce, it you don’t have enough cholesterol your health suffers. So why do doctors always say your cholesterol is too high? Simply to sell more drugs that lower cholesterol, that is BigPharma at play. Cholesterol lowering drugs are one of the best money spinners on the planet.

Unless your cholesterol is over 250, you don’t need them. Doctors suggest 230, that way they can prescribe drugs; you don’t need them.

My cholesterol was 235, the ‘specialist’ tried to get me to lower it, when I challenged him, he admitted I was right. So I got no drugs for cholesterol.

If you throw ALL unnatural, man made fats out of the home, and return to good old butter, lard for cooking and stop cutting the fat off the meat, and if you can return to milk from the farm, you’ll be a healthier person. Also, a return to the ‘yucky’ foods like black pudding, liver, kidneys; food that we have discarded from our diets these are all valuable sources of iron and such.

I am not a doctor, I am talking commonsense from life. My admitted obesity is from my sedentary lifestyle due to mobility problems. I truly wish I could get out and about more.

Stop believing the bullshit!

Change the world Wednesday – 24th

April is nearly done, less than a week to go. My commitment to eat no beef for two weeks every month (1st & 3rd) has been successful.

I will continue with this as it has certainly not harmed my diet, although I do love my beef. I have instead turned more consciously to pork, chicken and fish, which all featured in my diet as much as beef.

Quite frankly, I haven’t missed it.

One thing, it has made me more conscious when organising my shopping. Actually, I don’t organise it, I hate lists. I just go along to the supermarket with the idea of essentials and things I know that I am running out of, and make up my menu as I go along the aisles.

It has made me aware of things like “Smart Bacon”.

If a bacon was smart, it wouldn’t end up as bacon in the first place.

Have you ever heard of this? It’s stupid. It looks terrible, it certainly looks unappetising.

Why is it smart, because there’s no fat. Actually it isn’t even bacon, it’s vege protein. People have this aversion to fat; fat makes you fat. Generally that’s bullshit!

Looks absolutely hideous

Animal fat is natural in modest quantities. It’s where the flavour of meat is.

The people who have created the myth that animal fat makes you fat are the companies that sell cooking oil, vege cooking lard, margarine, etc. It has nothing to do with reality, but everything to do with making money.

It’s the same as the myth about cholesterol. Every cell in your body needs cholesterol to reproduce. The doctors who tell you that you must reduce your cholesterol are doing the dictates of the BigPharma companies who make and sell drugs to reduce cholesterol. Sure you can accumulate too much, but the levels that the doctors use are well below what you need. So many people are scared into taking these drugs needlessly.

I did meet last week’s CTWW, not a paper towel, nor serviette used.

Click on the banner for the full post

On with this week’s CTWW.

We’re visiting the toilet again.

I call it a toilet, some countries euphemistically refer to it as the ‘bathroom’ or a ‘restroom’. To call it by its real name offends their warped sensibilities; they are to afraid to refer to anything that promotes/suggests certain body parts or bodily functions. I wonder who these paranoid people are?

A restroom, for pities sake! I have never rested in one yet.

This week, use less toilet paper. Rather than just pull it off the roll, count out no more than 6 sheets per use. If you accepted this challenge the last time we ran it, and did well, see how low you can go.

 

OR …

If you are already a toilet paper conservationist or have switched to cloth (oh yeah, some use cloth toilet paper), please share other ways that we can conserve paper.

A bidet

Well, the first part is easy.

I have long adopted the European/South American bidet-style of washing my bum after an initial wipe with two pieces of toilet paper. to get rid of the ‘dags’*.

Sprays the nether regions with warm water

I don’t actually have a bidet, but my shower has a hose with a rosette nozzle that does the job fine.

You can get kits to attach to your cistern, but that is a cold water job.

The cost of such a kit, would soon be offset by the saving in toilet paper.

Washing your bum is certainly a lot more hygienic than smearing faeces across you skin then wiping hard using a lot of paper to make them disappear.

A bad case of dags

*dags – the crap encrusted wool that dangles behind a sheep.

Hence the phrase, “Rattle your dags” when you want someone to hurry up. Because when a sheep so endowed runs, sometimes the hardened dags actually rattle.

Monday Moaning

Myth: Cooking oil is good for you.

The argument about natural fat from animals and cooking oil has been around for a long time now. People have been convinced that animal fat is bad and cooking oils are good for the health. Who did the convincing? Why the producers of cooking oils, of course.

But the issue goes much deeper.

Cholesterol, is bad for you; it causes heart problems. (Generally held belief)

Bollocks, this idea comes from manipulated data.

The body needs cholesterol. “Cholesterol is a key component of the cell membrane, and as such, is an important factor in the health and integrity of the trillions of cells that your body is made of.”

NB: These quotes are from: Natural Bias, read there to confirm.

“Cholesterol is required to produce important sex and corticosteroid hormones. It’s a precursor to vitamin D as well which is also a hormone and is of equal importance. These hormones effect human function in nearly every way imaginable and low levels of cholesterol will result in hormonal deficiencies and imbalances that can leave you susceptible to major disease.”

“Obviously, the body considers it [cholesterol] to be an important resource.”

High Cholesterol Doesn’t Cause Heart Disease

“Much of the general population still believes that atherosclerosis is caused by cholesterol and saturated fat sticking to artery walls simply because of high concentrations in the blood. However, it is now widely accepted in the scientific community that atherosclerosis is instead caused by cell damage and inflammation that occur within the arterial lining.”

The Paradox

“In 1953, determined to identify intake of saturated animal fats as the cause of heart disease, Ancel Keys published a chart showing that the number of deaths caused by heart disease increases sharply along with an increase in fat intake.

Manipulation

While the research used to create this chart included data for 22 countries, Keys only used data for 6 of them and conveniently excluded the 16 other countries that didn’t support his theory. Many of the excluded countries showed either low incidence of heart disease despite a high fat intake or a high incidence of heart disease with a low fat intake.

In the early 1960s, Professor George Mann of Vanderbilt University visited the Masai tribe of Kenya to solidify Key’s theory, but instead, he found evidence that strongly contradicted it. The diet of this tribe consisted entirely of milk, blood and meat. They ate no vegetables whatsoever and consumed excessive amounts of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat.“

Who’s doing this?

Although most of the information we receive about cholesterol is through mainstream media, much of it originates from the pharmaceutical industry, and they’ve been quite successful at leading us to believe that the majority of the population is at risk for heart disease.

Based on the shocking number of people currently taking cholesterol medication and the drug ads that downplay the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, it seems as if a large percentage of the population is genetically dysfunctional and is producing too much cholesterol.

Top selling cholesterol medication

Cholesterol medication is a $29 billion dollar industry that is keeping many families fed, putting many kids through college, and is providing many executives with big houses and fancy cars. As such, there is tremendous incentive for the pharmaceutical industry to have you believe that your cholesterol level puts you at risk for heart disease. Citing cholesterol as the root cause of heart disease is like blaming a fire truck for starting a fire…

The pharmaceutical industry has significant influence on politics, medical schools and doctors. As such, many of the doctors that prescribe you cholesterol lowering medication are products of this influence.

Another revealing piece of evidence that can be found from a close look at the research is that in many cases, low cholesterol levels can be more dangerous than high levels, particularly in the elderly…

The pharmaceutical industry is literally turning millions of healthy people into patients and customers with their questionable guidelines.”

I suggest you read the full story on the above link. I have selected and used these quotes as incentives to do so.

Chips taste better in natural fat

Now, would you like to return to having your chips (French fries to our American cousins) cooked in good old beef dripping, or have the flavourless tripe produced by the cooking oil industry?

Read some info on which tastes better  on Chip Recipes. And read the appended email: Quote “However I would ask you to reconsider what you say regarding some health issues with cooking in Beef Dripping and Lard.  These traditional fats are not as bad as once thought for ones health.  In fact many of the so called “healthier” oils are very bad for one’s health.”

Almost everything you see on the net and the information you get from doctors about cholesterol is contrary to nature. Remember, when a doctor recommends a medication, he benefits financially; so the more medication he recommends, the more money in his pocket.

I refuse to have cooking oil in the house. I use only beef dripping and lard.

What about you?