Diet and Morality

I'm finally back after a long absence. It's amazing what you let slide when things get busy. It's always the stuff you love, the stuff that feeds you, that gets set on the backburner - in my case, at least. But I'm not here to psychoanalyze myself. I'm here to probe deeply into the inner world of Ancel Keys.

I'm on my second read-through of Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories. I am loving both the book and the discussion it's sparked among my low-carb community and, to a lesser extent, in mainstream media. I thought I might even make like Oprah and post little book-clubby summaries of the chapters, if only just to aid my own understanding (and retention - my mind is a seive). So I've been highlighting and making little notes in the margins and feeling all studious and scholarly.

But something jumped out at me in Chapter 2 that I haven't been able to shake. There's lots of speculation as to why and how Low-Fatism became law of the land - politics, shitty science, sheer force of will. Personally, I think the entire theory is rooted in morality. Specifically, Ancel Keys' personal moral map. It occured to me that for someone to be so blindly passionate about a belief (so much so that they ignore evidence to the contrary), they have to have a deep emotional stake in it. There's some emotional payoff below the surface.

Keys was almost religious about this stuff. Having been raised catholic, I know that if something feels good it's a HORRIBLE SIN. All of the foods that were deemed "bad" were the sexy, lusty ones. Meat (flesh), creamy foods, sensual foods, foods that you had to rip and tear at, foods that felt good in the mouth, on the tongue. Foods that ignite senses and inflame passions. Foods that literally make you groan with pleasure. Perhaps in his mind, (as it is in many others of certain belief systems) these foods are indulgent and gluttonous, because denial of pleasure equals piety and goodness and purity ( at least when I was growing up RC - goodness was measured by what you DIDN'T do. Course you could allways just confess...) I personally think that Keys had some serious religious/moral convictions that fed the flames of his work.

And don't all of us do the same thing? Look at the language, particularly in advertising, we've attached to food: some foods are "bad", "sinful" and "naughty" while others are "pure", "good", "virtuous" and so on. Some foods are guilty pleasures, or indulgences. At a restaraunt, how many of us have announced"I'm going to be good and just have the salad", or winked at our dinner partner and whispered "wanna be bad and split a dessert?" And how about that dessert: is it a tempting, rich Devil's Food cake, or a low-fat Angel's Food cake instead?

Moral judgements cannot help but get in the way of sound decision-making, at least where nutrition is concerned. If goodness, to you, equals austerity, then foods such as steak, butter and cream (as well as cakes, cookies and the like) cannot equal goodness. It must follow that these "indulgent" foods are wrong. Therefore people who eat them are also wrong, or behaving wrongly. Therefore, obese people (who wear their sin openly) are behaving wrongly. Therefore, the solution to obesity is to change the behaviour, and to eat "right" foods - austere foods. Unsexy foods.

Why was fat (particularly animal fat) considered more sinful than sugar? In my opinion, it's the flesh connection. Fat comes from animals, from flesh foods, primitive foods. Foods that directly connect to our base nature. You can suck the meat and fat from the bone. And what gives baked goodstheir luscious, heavenly (there's that durn religion again) texture and moistness? Fat. Flaky pastry? Fat - lard, in particular. But fat is also what obese people have too much of - they are too fleshy. Too meaty. Too soft. So fat must be bad.

Or perhaps (wild speculation alert) Ancel couldn't get it up, and as a result hated any foods that reminded him of what he was missing. Just throwing that out there. Discuss.

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A Hug for Jane Brody

I am sending NY Times writer Jane Brody a virtual hug. Why? Because I am practicing compassion, and Buddha says that we should extend compassion towards people even when they're total blockhead fluffernutters who are so entrenched in their own nincompoopy dogma that they can't see their hand in front of their cockamamie face. I'm paraphrasing. (I'm also practicing not swearing as much).

No clue who I'm talking about? Let me sum up. Jane Brody is a health writer for the NY Times and on Tuesday she published a doodyful piece about her "uphill battle" with - horrors! - cholesterol. She got a total reading of 222 (readings of over 200 are flagged). Now, everything was within range except her LDL, the so-called "bad" cholesterol, which was slightly high. For an explanation of why none of this really matters, I'll refer you to those smarter than I: Dr. Mike Eades, THINCS and Anthony Colpo. Please read them. For now though, we'll stick with Sweet Jane's train of thought.

Okay, so she gets a slightly elevated reading. Her doc is like, whatever. No biggie. Sweet Jane, however, knows better. She writes for the frickerfrackin NY Times, after all. So she launches her very own war against cholesterol, which naturally involves her lowering dietary fat intake by removing cheese from her diet (she cuts the cheese...tee hee), even though "I eat a healthful diet and I exercise every day for 60 to 90 minutes and run up and down scores of steps." She also started taking plant stenols, which are supposed to help lower cholesterol.

Three months later she goes for another checkup and guess what? Her cholesterol has RISEN. So naturally she lowers fat further, since it worked so well the last time. Her words: "Now it was time to further limit red meat (though I never ate it often and always lean), stick to low-fat ice cream, eat even more fish, increase my fiber intake and add fish oils to my growing list of supplements." Pretty dagnabbin' smart, no? (Am I starting to sound like Annie Wilkes from Misery? Where's my sledgehammer...)

Another checkup, and her levels are EVEN HIGHER. So she decides to start taking statins.

Let's take a moment here, shall we, and recap. Chicky-poo has followed a fat-conscious diet for most of her 65 years. Her cholesterol starts going up. She cuts fat. Cholesterol goes up. She cuts more fat. Cholesterol goes up. She goes on meds.

Sweet Jane - wake the fudge up.

First, statins. Read this, and then do your own research. And then email it to Jane Brody, because she obviously doesn't read anything but her own copy. According to many sources, but here quoting from Dr. Mike Eades, "the preponderance of properly done studies have shown that statins confer no health benefits to women of any age and that women over the age of 65 (she is 65) who have high cholesterol live longer than those who have normal to low cholesterol. And she missed the studies that show that both men and women over the age of 65 who take statins have an increased incidence of cancer."

Second, cholesterol. Read the links I posted earlier for in depth info. Basically, cholesterol has NEVER BEEN PROVEN to have a causative effect on heart disease. The link just ain't there, kids. It's a bunch of cockadoodie.

Third, and my biggie: diet. Low carb diets have been proven to lower triglycerides, and saturated fat makes HDL (the "good" cholesterol) go UP. Sweet Jane has quite helpfully demonstrated for us all how lowering dietary fat does not improve lab values - it, in fact, worsens them. She makes recommendations that even Buddha would bop her one for: eat leaner meats, trim the fat, eat more beans and soy, more whole grains, and "Start by switching to low-fat and nonfat dairy products, like skim milk and, if you can stand it, fat-free cheese. Substitute sorbet, sherbet or fruit ices for ice cream, or choose ice milk or ice cream with half the fat." In other words, stand at your kitchen counter and shovel spoonfuls of sugar down your throat. Helps the statins go down.

She also lets us know what to avoid: organ meats, egg yolks, fat. Okay, pastries and such too, gotta give her something.

Basically, her advice (and the methods she herself is following) is based on outdated research that has never been proven. The reason the low-fat craptasticisms stem from the lipid hypothesis is because IT'S A HYPOTHESIS. And it hasn't been proven. In fact, it has been disproven several times over. Buddha is wagging his finger and making clucking sounds with his tongue.

This is what worries me about dogma of any kind. Adherents to a particular dogma often refuse to listen to, examine or acknowledge conflicting viewpoints and/or evidence. It is staring Sweet Jane in the face, for land's sakes, and it doesn't even make a ripple because it isn't within her comfy dietary dogma. And thing is...it could really hurt her. She could get very sick. And she doesn't have to. I know I'm ragging on her here, but I'm lippy by nature. Really, it saddens me to see someone headed down a dangerous road especially when all the information they need to choose a healthier path is readily available to them. She is a health writer. She has access.

I rag on vegans too, but quite honestly I have the same concerns. So many vegans eat the way they do because of deeply held beliefs, beliefs rooted in emotion, and as a result are unlikely to connect any health problems with their diet. Not everyone will develop problems, but many do - I believe the average time span is 12 years of veganism before health problems become apparent. Because their WOE (way of eating) is something they hold quite dear to them, it becomes difficult to abandon. Maybe it's arrogant of me, but I feel...well, compassion. I was a staunch vegetarian. I made a huge deal of it. It wasn't easy for me to realize that, in my case at least, my dietary beliefs had done me more harm than good. So I get it - but jeezum crow, people, I made the paradigm shift and am healthier and happier for it. Your principles don't matter a whit on your death bed.

So, Sweet Jane, I am sending you and your heart a great big ol' (((hug))) in hopes that you'll come to your senses and realize that being right means nothing compared to being healthy and alive to annoy us with your column for another 20-30 years.

And fuck these unswears. Ahhhh, that's better!!