SIGH, YET ANOTHER MEAT-CAUSES-CANCER SCARE

default image

The anti-meat activists are having a heyday with the new study from the World Health Organization that states unequivocally that, hot dogs, bacon, and other processed meats cause cancer. I’m sure you have seen it everywhere, even though the study has not even been officially released! Here is a link to the story in yesterday’s Washington Post if you need a refresher: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/26/hot-dogs-bacon-and-other-processed-meats-cause-cancer-world-health-organization-declares/ Below is my response. I’ve posted on every news story I could find that gave me a comment box! Also check out Zoe Harcombe’s…

Continue reading

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: A BETTER ALTERNATIVE TO STATINS?

default image

  This story was in the headlines today. Merck finally got the results they were looking for on their drug Vytorin. Note that the drug did not lower plaque build-up and that all the subjects in the test were eating a low-fat / low-cholesterol diet. Vytorin (a combination of ezetimibe and a statin) showed a slight improvement over a statin alone, but it was not tested against a dietary change. Moral: give people (who already have coronary disease) a diet that causes inflammation and a drug…

Continue reading

COULD THIS DIET SAVE THE WORLD?

KETO CLARITY The partnership between Jimmy Moore and Dr. Eric Westman reminds me a little of the relationship between Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley, who was known as “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Darwin provided the science; Huxley defended and popularized it. Jimmy is more like a big, lovable, puppy dog than a bulldog, but his communication skills and status as a social-media celebrity make him the perfect spokesman and n=1 test subject for the low-carb guru who inherited Dr. Atkins’s mantle after his untimely, accidental death.…

Continue reading

MEA CULPA FROM TIME MAGAZINE?

1984 2014 The March 26, 1984 cover of Time Magazine showed a frowny face made out of bacon and eggs. The headline of the feature article said, “Cholesterol, and Now the Bad News.” Inside, an article titled, “Hold the Eggs and Butter,” started with this line: “Cholesterol is proved deadly, and our diet may never be the same.” Amazingly, that original article from the 1984 issue (you can read it here) actually stated that the study on which this conclusion was based was not a diet study…

Continue reading

EGGS EN COCOTTE

Yet another study has exonerated saturated fat and cholesterol of any link to heart disease and fingered the real culprit. The new research, just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found no evidence that eating saturated fat led to an increase in heart disease or coronary events. The researchers evaluated the best evidence to date from almost 80 studies with more than half a million subjects. They looked, not only at what people reported eating, but the composition of the fatty acids in their fat tissue…

Continue reading

AND NOW FOR A LITTLE GOOD NEWS: BUTTER IS BACK!

  Joe Ortner performs maintenance on a robotic palletizer at Grassland Dairy Products Inc. in Greenwood, the largest family-owned butter producer in the nation. Picture by Mark Hoffman.   The headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel proclaims, U.S. butter consumption reaches highest level in 40 years. Joe Taschler reports, “Butter is back. Driven by the movement toward food that contains natural ingredients as well as the foodie and gourmet cooking trends, butter consumption in the United States has reached its highest level in 40 years,…

Continue reading

EPITAPH FOR AN EGG

How do you like your eggs? The best way to prepare eggs, except for raw, which brings a different set of issues to the table, is poached. Lightly cooked whites and lovely, liquid yolks retain all their nutrients, including their precious, undamaged cholesterol. British chef, Heston Blumenthal, demonstrates his method for Perfect Poached Eggs in the YouTube video below. His secret is to use very fresh eggs. My daughter’s family has backyard chickens and they write the date on each egg to show when it was collected, so I decided to see for myself if the chef’s passion…

Continue reading

CHOLESTEROL MYTH BUSTERS AROUND THE WORLD

It looks like Sweden is going to be the first Western nation to officially endorse low-carb/high-fat nutrition and reject the low-fat, low-calorie dogma that has been in place for the last 30-plus years. The change followed the publication of a two-year study conducted by the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment. The council reviewed 16,000 studies published through May 31, 2013. Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt (DietDoctor.com) published some of the highlights of this study on his blog here: low-carb-diet effective for weight-loss. He says he expects future dietary guidelines for the…

Continue reading

CHOLESTEROL CLARITY

default image

Cholesterol got a bad rap. The evidence continues to accumulate that cholesterol is not the villain it is made out to be, but is actually part of your body’s defense system against the real killers: chronic inflammation, the lack of good, natural fats, and stress. Dr. Dwight Lundell, one of the 29 experts interviewed by author Jimmy Moore in Cholesterol Clarity, noted that in the absence of inflammation, “Cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended.” Mark Sisson, another contributor, said, “Cholesterol is one…

Continue reading

SCORE! GARY TAUBES IN SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MAGAZINE

default image

Don’t miss the article by Gary Taubes in the new “Special Food Issue” of Scientific American Magazine, titled, “Which One Will Make You Fat? Rigorously controlled studies may soon give us a definitive answer about what causes obesity—excessive calories or the wrong carbohydrates” (September 2013). It features a picture of a skillet containing a burger with cheese and bacon and a plate with a bun on the opposite page. Gary says, “After a decade of studying the science and its history, I am convinced that meaningful progress against obesity will come only if…

Continue reading