Pass the butter: The experts were all wrong

[tacklejunkie]

From the article:

 

"When I was a kid, the milkman came right to our back door. He brought us bright glass bottles of rich whole milk and thick sweet cream. We drank a lot of milk. Nobody had heard of skim. On weekends my dad cooked up breakfasts of eggs fried in butter, piles of bacon, delicious German sausages. For dinner, we had big chunks of fatty meat every night.

That was in the 1950s. Nobody was fat, except for one lone girl at school who everybody picked on. Most kids ate like horses and were skinny as rakes.

Then the experts came along and declared that all that fat was killing us. Whole milk was banished from children’s diets so that they would not develop clogged arteries and heart disease in later life. To keep our cholesterol in check, we began to ration eggs and treat butter like a toxic substance. We gave up our juicy, marbled steaks and switched to pasta. Ever since the 1960s, the authorities have told us that a healthy diet is a low-fat diet.

The results were not what they had hoped. Obesity rates soared, but heart disease did not subside. And now, a mountain of new evidence says the experts were all wrong. One Harvard study found that people who had consumed the most dairy fat were far less likely to develop heart disease. Researchers at Oxford University discovered that the biggest consumers of saturated fat in Europe – the French – also have the healthiest hearts. Last year, a major review in The BMJ, a leading medical journal, found that “saturated fats are not associated” with mortality, heart disease, strokes or Type 2 diabetes. As Ian Leslie, writing in The Guardian, puts it, “The promotion of low-fat diets was a 40-year fad, with disastrous outcomes, conceived of, authorized, and policed by nutritionists.”

The modern history of nutrition science is fraught with controversy, flawed theory, faulty research, vested interests, suppression of evidence, and vicious battles between the old guard and the insurgents. They’re still fighting. But it’s clear that a lot of what your Food Guide says is flat-out wrong.

The biggest villain of modern diets isn’t fat. It’s sugar and carbohydrates.

As far back as 1972, a mild-mannered British nutrition scientist named John Yudkin challenged the conventional wisdom, arguing that sugar, not dietary fat, was what was making people fat and sick. His reasoning was in part grounded in history: Humans have been carnivores forever, but carbohydrates, and especially sugar, are very recent additions to the human diet.

The Yudkin theory made sense, and is undergoing a revival. But in the meantime, as Mr. Leslie writes, he and his work were brutally suppressed. By then the North American dietary establishment was firmly in the grip of the fat hypothesis, which had been developed by a forceful and ambitious American nutritionist named Ancel Keys. He had all the institutional power, and he used it to trash his rivals.

Dr. Keys, who died in 2004, also seems to have suppressed inconvenient evidence. In the late 1960s and early seventies, he and a research team conducted a massive investigation into the effects of diet on thousands of mental patients. One group was fed a “heart healthy” diet low in saturated fats; the other ate a more typical American diet. The special diet did indeed reduce blood cholesterol, what the researchers called a “favourable trend.” But the published results were incomplete. The full results were published for the first time last week in the BMJ, they tell quite a different story. Patients on the special diet, especially those over 64, had a higher mortality rate than those on the regular diet.

The Keys theory is on the way to being thoroughly debunked, not least because of the investigative work of journalist Nina Teicholz (author of The Big Fat Surprise, who is persona non grata among the nutrition establishment). Yet the establishment is still deeply embedded in the status quo. Reputations and careers are at stake; plenty of leading doctors have diet empires of their own.

What’s so devastating about this story, as Mr. Leslie points out, is the answer it supplies to one simple question: Who made us fat? And no, it wasn’t the usual villains – big-food interests, the sugar lobby – although they certainly played a role. It was the scientific authorities and the governments that believed them.

So Vive la France, and pass the butter. There’s no time to waste."

 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/pass-the-butter-the-experts-were-all-wrong/article29670004/

 

On a personal note, I will vouch for what this article says. I'm a fit, mid fifties guy, with decent lab work. I take no medications except Vit D3. When I eat a steak, I eat it all, fat and all.  Yet, I never really got into the low fat, high carb craze of the late 80's early 90's. My favorite breakfast is an omelet with one yolk and 4 egg whites with sauteed in butter vegetables. And I don't use PAM or other such nonsense spray substitutes. I use butter to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan.In fact, I feel more full after this breakfast than I do after eating a bowl of cereal with fruit and toast in the am. Comments from others?

 

Edited April 30, 2016 by tacklejunkie

[PurpleFloyd]

To be fair there were no computers, cell phones,video games and other things and if you stuck around the house you got put to work. Lots has to do with that but yeah, processed food has a lotto do with it. Go to europe where they have very little processed foods, people walk a lot and you will see very few fat people. 

[delcecchi]

And folks rarely drank pop or ate between meals (unless my mom had baked chocolate chip cookies) 

[tacklejunkie]

I'm not advocating a stick of butter per meal. I'm just saying this article confirms my own experience. Back when the " low fat high carb" craze took root, I watched people cut their fat intake to only watch them get fatter themselves. What they were replacing fat with was pasta, bread, white rice, and processed snacks but the package said "Low Fat" so it had to be healthy, right? 

 

 

 

[Getanet]

It can be frustrating following the latest information about what is and isn't good for you. About the only thing they can always agree is good for you is water.

The one thing I know is having your weight yo-yo up and down through fad diets bad for you, so I just stay fat.

[leech~~]

4 minutes ago, Getanet said:

It can be frustrating following the latest information about what is and isn't good for you. About the only thing they can always agree is good for you is water.

 

Well not in Flint, Michigan anyway!

[delcecchi]

1 hour ago, tacklejunkie said:

I'm not advocating a stick of butter per meal. I'm just saying this article confirms my own experience. Back when the " low fat high carb" craze took root, I watched people cut their fat intake to only watch them get fatter themselves. What they were replacing fat with was pasta, bread, white rice, and processed snacks but the package said "Low Fat" so it had to be healthy, right? 

 

 

 

That has been called the "Entemann's diet" or the "snackwell diet"

[RebelSS]

But remember, according to my doc and Mayo, a lot of high cholesterol is hereditary...

[DrJuice1980]

I only drink whole milk. Watering it down never made much sense to me.

 

[RebelSS]

And people drink that "blue" skim carp. 

[swamptiger]

4 hours ago, DrJuice1980 said:

I only drink whole milk. Watering it down never made much sense to me.

 

I only drink whole milk too, but I drank raw milk straight from the cow when I was a kid, and I remember the first time I tasted homogenized milk, it didn't taste good at all.

[MN Hooksetter]

On ‎4‎/‎30‎/‎2016 at 6:30 PM, tacklejunkie said:

From the article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/pass-the-butter-the-experts-were-all-wrong/article29670004/

 

On a personal note, I will vouch for what this article says. I'm a fit, mid fifties guy, with decent lab work. I take no medications except Vit D3. When I eat a steak, I eat it all, fat and all.  Yet, I never really got into the low fat, high carb craze of the late 80's early 90's. My favorite breakfast is an omelet with one yolk and 4 egg whites with sauteed in butter vegetables. And I don't use PAM or other such nonsense spray substitutes. I use butter to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan.In fact, I feel more full after this breakfast than I do after eating a bowl of cereal with fruit and toast in the am. Comments from others?

 

 

 

I can also vouch for this article and can share my experience.  I'm a 37 year old male and pretty much ate the standard American diet (garbage) for the first 35 years of my life along with a lot of veggies, fruit and my fair share of low fat stuff too.  I'll probably catch a lot of flak for divulging this, but since last July, I've been on a true zero carb diet where everyday I make sure to get 70-80% of my calories from animal fat and the other 20-30% from protein (mainly beef).  I shoot for 2000-3000 calories a day.  The only carbs I get are the trace carbs from eggs, cheese, and heavy cream.  Everything is cooked in either butter or bacon grease.  I can honestly say I've never felt better in my entire life and have never had this much sustained energy through out each and everyday from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed.  The only downfall is my family and friends think I'm off my rocker because I don't eat veggies, fruit, pizza, beer, Mom's home cooked meals, etc...anymore, but the trade off, feeling this great, is worth it.

[delcecchi]

I hope you are taking a multivitamin too.  There are a few things, like vitamin c, that you need and meat doesn't have. 

But if it works for you.... 

[RebelSS]

3 minutes ago, delcecchi said:

I hope you are taking a multivitamin too.  There are a few things, like vitamin c, that you need and meat doesn't have. 

But if it works for you.... 

I take my Wally world over 50 megavitamin...do you  Del?  And my fish oil caps...

[delcecchi]

Yep, and I eat fruit and veg too.   But a 100% carnivore diet needs the vitamin C and scurvy is a real disease.   It takes months to show up, but is bad news.  So I am curious about Hooksetter's experience, and what he is doing.

I got my multivitamins at Costco. 

 

[LindellProStaf]

I agree 100% TJ.  I heard a very interesting interview on MPR a few years ago.  This guy was a retired Federal Economist or some title like that.  They were talking about health issues of fat and sugar.  He said that in the 60's they were starting to realize that people were gaining too much weight and were starting to realize it was from sugar in our diets.  Candy bars pop etc were becoming much more popular.  Well the sugar industry immediately pointed the finger at the meat and dairy industry claiming fat was the issue.  Well that started the war between fat and sugar.  Sugar won!  Gas stations back then had about 4 or 5 different candy bars and a bag of peanuts and 4 or 5 kinds of pop.  Now look at a gas stations shelves.  They have 100's of kinds of sweets and pops in each store.  They did a fantastic job of marketing sugar to the public.  The dairy and meat industry worked on maknig their product more healthy via leaner hogs, beef etc.  Dairy came out with skim milk type things etc.  Margarine products became what we thought were healthier.  They did this to reduce the fat in their products.  

Diabetes and obesity are directly related to this time slot of the sugar industry and fat industry war so to speak.  In the 60's is when these two issues really became out of control.  The sugar industry has a very strong lobby and did their job well.  Too well, look at us now.  

A few years ago I stopped drinking any pop or fruity drinks except real fruit products.  I drink water.  I now eat real butter not the made in a lab grease.  I try to avoid sweets although I still have some.  I love bbq'ing and that means meat.  

I have brought this radio interview up on here before so sorry to repeat myself but thought this was so interesting.  Good post TJ.

[MN Hooksetter]

3 hours ago, delcecchi said:

Yep, and I eat fruit and veg too.   But a 100% carnivore diet needs the vitamin C and scurvy is a real disease.   It takes months to show up, but is bad news.  So I am curious about Hooksetter's experience, and what he is doing.

I got my multivitamins at Costco. 

 

I don't supplement any vitamins at all.  I eat mainly the fattiest beef available, whether it's hamburger or steak (mainly hamburger because it's cheap), eggs, lots of grass fed butter, some cheese and cream, and every so often, pork, chicken and fish.  There is starting to be some speculation and evidence that once you remove many of the foods/aspects that are associated with the modern western/American diet, that the need for some vitamins are either greatly reduced or no longer needed.  In my own experience and the health benefits I've gotten over the last nine months since eating like this, I'm starting to believe that this may be true. 

Hopefully this link works, it's an interesting read.  It talks a bit about vitamin C and scurvy.

https://autoimmunethyroid.wordpress.com/2006/09/04/why-meat-prevents-scurvy/?hc_location=ufi

 

[swamptiger]

The other thing is the amount of corn syrup used in every processed food item under the sun.

7 minutes ago, MN Hooksetter said:

I don't supplement any vitamins at all.  I eat mainly the fattiest beef available, whether it's hamburger or steak (mainly hamburger because it's cheap), eggs, lots of grass fed butter, some cheese and cream, and every so often, pork, chicken and fish.  There is starting to be some speculation and evidence that once you remove many of the foods/aspects that are associated with the modern western/American diet, that the need for some vitamins are either greatly reduced or no longer needed.  In my own experience and the health benefits I've gotten over the last nine months since eating like this, I'm starting to believe that this may be true. 

Hopefully this link works, it's an interesting read.  It talks a bit about vitamin C and scurvy.

https://autoimmunethyroid.wordpress.com/2006/09/04/why-meat-prevents-scurvy/?hc_location=ufi

 

 

Some of the comments below the article talk about cooking decreasing the amount of Vitamin C.  Do you eat your meat raw or rare?

[MN Hooksetter]

3 hours ago, swamptiger said:

The other thing is the amount of corn syrup used in every processed food item under the sun.

 

Some of the comments below the article talk about cooking decreasing the amount of Vitamin C.  Do you eat your meat raw or rare?

I don't eat steak very often, but I'll cook those medium rare to rare.  Most of the time I'm eating ground beef and I'll cook that anywhere from medium to well done.  Once and a awhile I'll when I make hamburger patties, I'll eat those medium/medium rare.  I'm not too much into the raw thing.

[delcecchi]

Cool.  Please keep us updated.