They Lied To Us – fancy that – They are Still Doing It!

When was the last time your Doctor, your Cardiologist, your Diabetic Educator etc told you to use butter – it’s so good for you? No I am not going off the deep end – I am not bonkers either. If you have watched the media this past week you ought to have heard that scientists have discovered a GREAT BIG MISTAKE was made 30 or something years ago. For reasons which may become clearer as you read today’s blog, you will see that the advice they have been giving to us all this time has actually led to a lot of additional people dying!

The only reason ‘they’ strongly ordered us – think “Stalag Like” to  use PUFAS – polyunsaturated fatty acids – think liquid plant oils and margarine  instead of all natural saturated fats like butter and lard, was because:

PUFAs were regarded as a uniform molecular category with one relevant biological mechanism—the reduction in blood cholesterol.

The fact that there was absolutely no proof – still isn’t – that lowering blood cholesterol is going to save your life – is besides the point. There was money to be made, an industry to be grown and medical interventions to be put in place to keep this supposed lie alive well and raking in millions!

As you work your way through the attached file from the BMJ you learn that they have discovered there is no proof lowering your SFA (saturated fatty acid) intake – think butter and lard, and increasing your PUFA intake – think liquid oils and margarine,  actually does anything to save lives – quite the opposite in fact!

Conclusions

In this cohort, substituting dietary n-6 LA in place of SFA increased the risks of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease. An updated meta-analysis of LA intervention trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit. These findings could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute n-6 LA, or PUFAs in general, for SFA.

Several well-known, accredited and respected clinicians have responded to this new study. One in particular caught my attention.  Professor Mark Wahlqvist is Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Monash University and Past President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences.  (in part) He writes:

……. in 1978, the chief investigator, Prof Ralph Blackett, and colleagues made clear and published that all-cause mortality was increased when the dietary PUFAs known as omega-6 or n-6 were increased. This was disregarded in favour of the unproven possibility that the particular omega-6 linoleic acid (and implicitly the omega-6 arachidonic acid) was responsible for the observed effects. The plausibility of this position was provided by evidence that these PUFAs could not be made by and were therefore essential for humans.

(I do hope you will excuse me thinking this out loud, but the human body does not to the best of my knowledge make cyanide – does that therefore mean it is therefore essential for humans?)

“As time went on, more Australian work raised questions about linoleic acid, particularly as a risk factor for the severity and extent of coronary artery disease assessed during coronary angiography in Melbourne published by Hodgson and colleagues. Hydrogenated margarines with their trans fatty acids derived from PUFAs were also implicated. But advice from the key expert committees was restricted to the trans fatty acids, circumventing the concerns about omega-6. The WHO regional committee for the Asia-Pacific, which I chaired, recommended in a food-based approach to dietary fat, that it come preferably from a variety of sources and, when from plants, be unrefined from seeds, nuts or fruits (like olives and avocado); that the same should apply to oils produced from them; and that fats and oils should be labeled as to source. Yet apologists for omega-6 rich margarines and oils have lobbied against this, using Taiwan as an example of a population faring well in health with a high intake of linoleic acid……”

Basically this was an industry drive to keep the sales of margarine high. Most people love butter,  it is rich in healthy fats and it tastes sooooo nice. There has been a war raging between the two industries for a very long time.

Currently on Australian television there is an advert showing children carrying around kilos of a fatty substance – they tell you is found in butter and is unhealthy. They then go on to promote a margarine substitute – and thank their mums for helping to make them healthy by switching to this margarine product. I was horrified when I saw this advertisement – talk about corrupting juvenile minds!

There is a great article on CRIKEY about this very thing. They point us towards the Heart Foundation – who are manipulating Mum’s across Australia – to get their families to eat less saturated fat. The following comes from The Heart Foundation Website:

Saturated and trans fats are bad for our family’s health, and a lot of Australians eat too much of them. So how can you tell if your family is eating the bad fats? These foods are high in unhealthy saturated fats:

• Full fat milk and other dairy products      including butter
• Hard and full fat soft cheese
• Cream and crème fraiche
• Meat or chicken with the fat and/or skin on it
• Processed meats such as sausages, burgers and      salami
• Pastry
• Coconut oil and coconut milk
• Palm oil
• Fatty or fried take-away foods
• Packaged cakes and biscuits

Deep-fried food, like chips, and shop bought cakes and biscuits also contain unhealthy trans fats, and so we should only eat them occasionally and not every day.

Don’t panic! You can still serve up most of your family’s favourite foods; you just need to swap the bad fats for the good ones: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats

The first three suggestions that are made:

1. Swap full-fat dairy foods for reduced, low or no-fat dairy foods for everyone in the family over two years of age. You will remove 4 kg of saturated fat from your diet in a year if you do this with 1 cup of milk, two slices of cheese and a small tub of yoghurt a day. You can remove even more by choosing no fat foods.

2. Swap butter for a margarine spread made from canola, sunflower or olive oil. Just doing this with your daily morning toast and sandwiches will remove 2.85 kg of saturated fat from your diet in one year.

3. Trim off all visible fat from meat, remove the skin on chicken. Avoid processed meats, like sausages and salami, unless they have the Heart Foundation Tick.

OH MY GOODNESS ….. one can see in an instant just how far behind the times this organization is with current research.

Depriving growing bodies of healthy fats in favor of low-fat or no fat products ought to be considered criminal in my humble estimation. The first thing that springs to mind is that when the fat is removed from any product it becomes mostly tasteless. So what do the food industry do to compensate for this loss of taste? Yes it adds either sugar or an artificial chemical sweetener to make the food more palatable.

The second important thing that springs to mind is what is contained in that fat – which has been stripped out of the food you are told (in preference) to buy for your family? There are essential – by that I mean the body cannot do without them – minerals and vitamins and trace elements in natural healthy fats. Take the fat out and the eater is not going to stay healthy!

Time you told your medical provider to go back to school, or to read the latest scientific publications and bring themselves right up to date. The food that nature provided us with is by far healthier and life-giving, compared to the rubbish and toxic sludge – highly touted by big business interests who have conveniently purchased for themselves a TICK of approval.

Think fresh, think natural, think healthy – and ignore advertising hype on television – after all they are only in it for the $$$$$’s.

Till Next time – eat healthy and be well.