Warning: if you don’t like to get riled up with your morning coffee or tea, the link below about saturated fats might not be the way to start your day… Thankfully, there are some other good links for you here, too.
- Don’t miss my other new post today about my niece getting her first deer! (With a venison recipe and some pictures at that post, too.) Her Dad’s version of the story is so special…
- A friend, Laura, sent the following link to me and guessed that it would get my blood boiling – she was right. If you can read it without hyperventilating, you’re stronger than this chick. Such bullcrap is why so many of us our getting (and staying) sick! Here’s the link for more saturated fat lies, and I’m only sharing it just so you can read the EXACT opposite of the truth, with the ONLY exception in that article being #3, the one about trans fats. How in the world can so many still have it so wrong? Read how the saturated fat myth or lipid hypothesis began. Also, check out this post with YouTube videos on healthy fats – an entertaining and easy-to-understand picture of how the myths began.
- Here’s one on saturated fats that will make you laugh. Tom Naughton’s book review of the Drs. Eades latest book – I loved the part about him not giving up his coffee. Here’s a good excerpt about an “expert”, Dr. Neeraj, who “advises patients with fatty liver disease to lose weight by decreasing their fat intake and increasing exercise. He encourages patients to consume a diet rich in complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables.” Tom’s response: “Oh, for cryin’ out loud … Drs. Eades and Eades cite evidence in their book that saturated fat actually protects your liver. If you want to give an animal a fatty liver, you feed it corn or fructose, not bacon and eggs. Was fatty liver disease common a hundred years ago, when Americans ate a lot more butter and lard? No, it wasn’t. But it’s very common now that we live on starch, vegetable oils and high fructose corn syrup.” (I recently posted about this book, too: The 6-week cure for the middle-aged middle.)
- Did you read my post last week, “The Dangers of Soy”? I just came across a helpful post from Lindsay at Passionate Homemaker: Choosing a Natural Soy Sauce & Why Bragg’s Liquid Aminos is Not It.
- Join me TODAY in beginning the Sugar-free Challenge with the Nourishing Gourmet – go there and read about it! (Sounds like fun, huh? NOT.)
- Now, on a whim, I’m sharing a YouTube video I just saw moments ago, which doesn’t really relate to anything normally on my site. Get your Kleenex ready for this amazingly beautiful story – don't worry, I only share stories that bring on the *happy* tears:
Have a great week!
KitchenKop says
Laurie, yes, I’d love to hear if someone else gets a similar result! 🙂
Laurie N says
LOl – I remember never having a bowl of cereal for breakfast without it being sugar sweetened or putting and ample spoonful of sugar over the top – as if processed cereals needed more sugar.
One thing about living out in the country (we’re about half an hour out of “town”), it’s really somewhat of a hassle to go out to eat, and don’t even think about home delivery – not going to happen.
I would really be interested in reading more about fermenting. So far I’ve just done kombucha and started a batch of saurkraut, but am planning on trying beet kvass and kefir soda in the near future.
Oh, my friend the chemist said she never learned how to check alcohol content. I told her maybe we should figure it out. 😉
Jeanmarie says
Laurie N, I enjoyed your comments. I’ve been on a similar path, through various degrees of misinformation. David and I often remark to each other over dinner, wow, this is as good as any nice restaurant we’ve been to — or better, actually, as some of what we eat is homegrown, the rest is local or otherwise carefully sourced, plus we enjoy several kinds of lacto-fermented and cultured foods and drinks, and it’s hard to find those in any commercial establishment!
After we congratulate each other for how well we’re eating at home, we sigh for a moment about all the wasted time, money, effort and diminished health thanks to the misinformation we were raised on. (All that margarine! Corn oil-fried foods! Hostess crap my mom bought on sale. I spent an entire summer watching the Watergate hearings and eating frozen Hostess treats from the freezer — this was in junior high.) No wonder I had cramps, painful periods, acne, pudge. We separately went through low fat, high carb, this and that diets and we actually met at a WAP-style feast!
As you wrote, we’re a synthesis of all these past experiences. None of this killed me so maybe it actually did make me stronger… I’m certain that the way I’m eating now makes me stronger.
KitchenKop says
Jo-Lynne, I know, it occurred to me too late that I sort of over-loaded the post this week, sorry! I’m going to try to ease back next week…unless a whole bunch of goodies turn up that I *have* to share. 🙂
Musings of a Housewife says
Gee, thanks. Now I have another 10 tabs open with things I hope to read before bed time. 😉
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Laurie and Kelly,
You’re right about the frustration and hitting-head-against-wall with the grassfed vs. conventional dairy debate at my post: https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/09/22/my-story-the-origins-of-a-book-or-my-time-of-insanity-part-one/
But it’s been an interesting conversation, and I like having research for both sides. I’ll still stick with what I know is right, that animals ought to be eating what God created them to eat. I don’t think my reader was disrespecting me, just relying on her science background, as well as some facts like Michigan’s dairy farmers leaving cows out to pasture in the summer, even on the farms that feed the big milk producers. That makes me feel a little better about having to buy store milk for my yogurt and store dairy products!
You both make a good point about the money for research not being available for WAPF ideas. If only!
Thanks, Katie
Laurie N says
Raine, People should Eat Tame Animals – they’re easier to catch. Seriously, if you want to get into ethical animal treatment, avoiding animal products condemns to extinction all the heirloom livestock breeds. Small scale sustainable agriculture is their only hope. I think this a critical point that is completely missed during discussions of preserving species – it seems only wild animals count. I’m a firm believer in preserving genetic diversity in all our food crops. Who knows what conditions we may face in the future?
kc – I’m with you. I’ve been feeling the same frustration. You see more “fresh” and “local” references, but nothing WAPF.
KitchenKop says
Wow, I’ve got so much to say in reply to your comments but have little time before the other kids get home…….
KC, yes! Always a good idea to let companies know what we think! If you want to come up with a good list, along with pertinent emails (and a sample letter), I’d be happy to post it. Thank you for the idea.
Laurie, yes, the comments at the KS post were a bit frustrating (science would back up what we know from common sense, if only there was the proper funding, as you say), but in a way it’s good. It makes us think harder.
Raine, crazy timing with your post. I’m crafting an email now to a local artist who had an exhibit up in the “Art Prize” competition going on now in Grand Rapids – his was called, “Meet your meat”. Full of the same info you mentioned, all about the evils of factory farms and how meat eaters are ruining the earth, taking up so much extra fuels and resources, etc., but NOTHING about SUSTAINABLE farming methods as a better option, only gads of info about how much more ethical vegetarians are.
kc says
I recently left a comment on foodnetwork.com about lack of WAPF adherent chefs (except maybe Jamie Oliver). I occasionally find myself on that site in search of a recipe but the automatic playing of the videos plus commercials always runs me off (Hughesnet and daily download limit at play). I finally decided to let them know how they could make the site and tv network better. I have been quietly slinking away in disgust for months now, but I think maybe we should all start telling these corporations how we feel. I have a list of corporations that would benefit from a little constructive criticism as I am sure all of you do. What do you think?
Raine Saunders says
Hi Kelly – I took a peek at the MSN article about saturated fat, and that really is disheartening, but so typical of the mainstream mentality about health. Just last week I put up a post on my site about a comment I left on PETA Living web site about supporting sustainable farming and meats, because they of course think eating meat is unethical, unhealthy, bad for the environment, and the list goes on. The response I received was worth sharing with others, so I put it up and the I wrote another article about how I believe PETA is helping to sponsor “People for the Unethical Treatment of Animals and Humans” by not outwardly supporting truly sustainable farming and humane animal husbandry which supports health and the environment. It got my blood boiling, and I thought it was a pertinent point which is very much in line with this whole “saturated fat is unhealthy to consume” notion. Anyway, that’s my stew pot for the week, and I’m glad to see you are on the same page!
Laurie N says
You got me – I was trying to be intentionally vague. It does baffle me as to why someone would put those type of comments on a Weston Price style blog. I am absolutely for doing my research, and encouraging others to do the same, but we all operate with some degree of bias in our actions – it’s human nature. Dismissing others comments because they don’t agree with your perspective generally isn’t helpful to any of the parties involved.
I’ve come to be a Weston Price believer (although I’m not a purist – it’s a process, right?) because it feels, on some fundamental level, right to me. I tried the low-fat, “good carb” diet combined with rigorous exercise, and I did lose weight, but I felt ‘burnt out” and I just couldn’t keep it up. I tried cooking with soy four and it tasted absolutely nasty. I was raised with abundant use of white sugar and white flour, although we also drank raw milk (we had a dairy farm) and grew/raised most of our own food.
Where I am now is a synthesis of all these past experiences. I try to grow most of our own food or source it locally. I use less sugar and have been experimenting with stevia, honey and maple syrup. I am a saturated fat believer – plenty of butter, coconut oil and lard in the house, and I’m planning on getting some grassfed beef tallow. I’ve got various foodstuffs fermenting around the kitchen. If my grandmothers wouldn’t have recognized something as food, you’re not likely to find it in my house (except the kombucha and kefir, but I think they’d enjoy those, too).
I’m so glad to have found you and other like-minded bloggers to share the journey. So often friends and family just don’t “get it” (although I am slowly winning them over purely on taste ;-).
KitchenKop says
Laurie, I’ll bet I know which thread you’re speaking of…the one at Kitchen Stewardship, right?
Kelly
Laurie N says
This reminds me of another discussion thread I saw recently where a person was citing massive and very well funded research that supported the view that industrial dairy cows are perfectly happy, healthy critters, their milk is in no way inferior to grassfed milk, and they live full lives at optimal potential.
Whether or not one agrees with the findings, chances are you will never see this amount of research money throw at grassfed operations, because by their very nature they do not translate well to an industrial scale.
Like I tell my boys – follow the money. Who benefits from spreading the lies? The profit margins are much better on heavily processed foods.
Local Nourishment says
Oh man, I knew where that article was going as soon as I read, “says Lisa Dorfman, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.” The ADA is so completely out of it that they are still poo-pooing coconut oil. No, MSN Health, WebMD and Yahoo! Health are still spewing decades-old drivel promulgated by skewed research. My kids would call that a “massive fail.”
Shannon says
Thanks for the link love. And yeah, I get all riled up about the lies they tell us too. So frustrating!
kc says
I am also frustrated by the profitable misinforming of America that goes on every day. I followed a link and found myself on Webmd and the page was covered with ads for the new Country Crock with vitamin D and calcium added. I think it is so sad how Americans seem to have advertisements confused with facts just like we have editorials confused with news. In fact, I think one of the main hurdles the real food movement has to overcome is lack of advertising dollars. There just aren’t many products to sell or a large enough profit margin on the ones there are to fund a competitive advertising campaign.