“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” ~Mark Twain, autobiography, 1904
There’s no polite way to say this: Americans are the fattest people on the planet. […] In releasing the abstract Friday, the Census Bureau said the information is presented raw, without explanations, interpretations or cautions.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, increased emphasis on reducing saturated fat in diets led to more carbohydrate consumption. The CDC postulates that the consumer made the decision to switch from fatty foods to high carbohydrate foods, but that’s not really the case.
Due to pressure from health watch groups, fast food chains and food manufacturers were pressed to switch away from fatty foods and many rushed to market with low fat substitutes. What did they substitute the fat with? Sugar and other simple carbohydrates.
As it turns out, an overabundance of carbohydrates in your diet will make you fat faster than fatty foods will. And yet in 1992, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the “food pyramid”, lopsided towards complex-carbohydrates, despite the fact that scientists had found little evidence that a high intake of carbohydrates is beneficial.
Since 1992 more and more research has shown that the USDA pyramid is grossly flawed. By promoting the consumption of all complex carbohydrates and eschewing all fats and oils, the pyramid provides misleading guidance. In short, not all fats are bad for you, and by no means are all complex carbohydrates good for you.
But in the case of meat, another heart killer where fat could not be substituted for sugar, fast food restaurant chains started adding soy meal to their meat to reduce fat and the projected risk of heart attack. It would appear that soy has some unintended side-effects.
Soy formula is equivalent to feeding infants “five birth control pills a day.” […] Research in 2000 showed that a soy-based diet at any age can lead to a weak thyroid, which commonly produces heart problems and excess fat. Could this explain the dramatic increase in obesity today?
Another fun quote on the hormonal effects of a soy-heavy diet:
The highest intake of soy in Japan is among monks, who eat it to turn off sexual desire. (Think about that the next time you're in the grocery store.)
Of course, the main reason soy is heralded as a great dietary supplement is that it encourages weight loss, or the maintenance of a healthy weight. What's ironic about this is that farmers give slaughter animals soy-based feed in order to fatten them up quicker for sale.
Farmers give animals soy feed to fatten them for slaughter as fast as possible. Isoflavones interfere with the thyroid gland's ability to manufacture thyroid hormones, and that means weight gain, tiredness and depression.
In 1990, amid a barrage of criticism over the amount of cholesterol in its fries, McDonald’s switched to pure vegetable oil. The consumer watchgroup BanTransFat, has forced transfats out of Oreos, and is suing McDonalds over the level of transfats in it’s fries. Stephen L. Jeseph, spoke at the 2003 PHAI conference and stated that trial lawyers’ biggest obstacle is “the conservative, right-wing public. […] It’s white males who love freedom versus moms who care about what their kids eat.” That’s right, conservative fathers don’t care about what their kids eat!
You may remember the PHAI lawyer, Ben Kelley, as the man who submitted the staged SUV explosion to Dateline NBC that resulted in the award of $100 Billion in a fraudulent lawsuit. Ben Kelly also pushed the staged videos that purported that Jeep’s tended to flip over and tires exploded when inflated. In both instances the events were staged for litigation purposes, dummies were programmed to turn the steering wheel faster than humanly possible and accelerate while strategic weights were placed in the jeep, and the rims of the exploding tires were filed down prior to inflation.
It’s pretty hard to shame trial lawyers, or their PR flacks, but just months after PHAI hosted its 2003 “Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic” conference, Kelley’s history was revealed. He stepped down as executive director of PHAI. But he apparently couldn’t leave an organization dedicated to frivolous lawsuits. He is now back on the obesity attack at PHAI.
So, now Kelly and PHAI are back on the case to tell you what’s good and not good for you to eat, and the popular target now seems to be trans fats and fast food establishments. What’s interesting is that the trans fats that occur naturally in dairy products and meat, especially milk and butter are good for you.
A growing number of studies have demonstrated that, at least in animals, these unusual fats fight a host of chronic health conditions from heart disease to diabetes to cancer. Most recently, several CLAs have shown promise in moderating the runaway inflammation that underlies arthritis, asthma, and even lupus.
The sad fact of the matter is that the public’s 30-year long fear of saturated fat is, in fact, without a scientific basis.
It’s really odd that when their research inadvertently debunks itself and other food myths, almost no one learns of it. And that’s true for their trans fats research, as well.
The Board’s notice of its decision to ban trans fats tries to bolster its case by playing on popular misconceptions about saturated fat. The notice states that, “trans fat appears even worse than saturated fat.” The Board apparently isn’t familiar with the several Ascherio-Willett studies that fail to link saturated fat with heart disease and stroke.
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is proof of the endemic problem Americans have with the “smarter than you” vegetarian lobby mucking around with your diet. Consider, if you will, how the PCRM has started a war with the diet guru, Dr.Atkins, widow. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the guy that just banned trans-fat in New York restaurants, because he’s such a sensitive liberal and only wants the best for his constituents, was very considerate of Dr. Atkins widow when he said the late Dr. Atkins looked fat on his deathbed. Such considerate social commentary prompted the widow of the late Dr. Atkins to demand an apology of the sensitive, liberal mayor.
It would also appear that the PCRM is pressuring doctors not to prescribe the Atkins Diet to overweight patients in light of the numerous lawsuits over fat content in fast foods. Neal Barnard alleged that doctors who prescribe high-protein diets “may be assuming serious legal liability.” In February 2004, PCRM ran the following advertisement in The Express, a free commuter newspaper distributed on the DC metro-rail system by the Washington Post:
Have you had serious problems on an Atkins-style, high protein, low carbohydrate diet? Were you advised by a doctor to go on the diet or did you consult with a doctor about the diet? If so, you may be able to file a lawsuit to recover damages. If you believe you are injured, contact attorney Daniel Kinburn at …
As it turns out, the PCRM’s membership consists of less than 5% of physicians according to a Newsweek study.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. PCRM is a fanatical animal rights group that seeks to remove eggs, milk, meat, and seafood from the American diet, and to eliminate the use of animals in scientific research. Despite its operational and financial ties to other animal activist groups and its close relationship with violent zealots, PCRM has successfully duped the media and much of the general public into believing that its pronouncements about the superiority of vegetarian-only diets represent the opinion of the medical community.
A Harvard professor is denouncing efforts by an animal rights group to show a link between milk and cancer, accusing it of misrepresenting his research. The group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is using the research of Dr. Daniel Cramer, M.D. to support a recent ad campaign that claims milk and dairy products contribute to “obesity, ear infections, constipation, respiratory problems, heart disease, and some cancers.”
But Cramer said those conclusions are false and that his research never supported such claims … “I think that particular group has their own sort of agenda, of not wanting milk production around, and cows to be utilized,” said Cramer. “Their agenda is that [they] don’t want … cows exploited or they want everybody to be vegetarians,” Cramer said.
What isn’t widely publicised is that, Neal Barnard, president of the PCRM, is also the president of the PETA foundation, a money funnel between PETA and other animal-rights groups, the foundation also pays the mortgage on PETA’s Norfolk, VA offices. If you haven’t been around the site for long, you might not be aware of the intense dislike I have for PETA.
This ban on trans fats isn’t really about obesity or your health, it’s about frivolous lawsuits, PETA politics and the war that the socialists in this country are waging against capitalism. This nanny-state mentality is going to reduce the amount of choice and freedoms we all take for granted and it needs to be stopped.
Small hint, the next congressional election, when you think you’re going to, “teach the Republicans a lesson“, remember that you’re handing the keys to the kingdom over to a bunch of socialist ne’er do wells who will fuck this country up beyond all recognition and bring legal action over a cheesburger. A fucking cheesburger!
Posted by Philip McClure in Political Rants on December 18, 2006