{"id":2056,"date":"2014-06-02T09:17:06","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T23:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2014-06-02T09:17:06","modified_gmt":"2014-06-01T23:17:06","slug":"the-case-for-eating-steak-and-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2056","title":{"rendered":"The case for eating steak and cream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602984-why-everything-you-heard-about-fat-wrong-case-eating-steak-and-cream<\/p>\n<p>Economist Book Review<\/p>\n<h1>The Case For Eating Steak and Cream<\/h1>\n<div class=\"content-image-full\" style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.static-economist.com\/sites\/default\/files\/imagecache\/full-width\/images\/print-edition\/20140531_BKP003_0.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"335\" \/><span class=\"caption\">Shifting the argument<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.\u00a0<\/strong>By Nina Teicholz.\u00a0<em>Simon &amp; Schuster; 479 pages; $27.99.<\/em>\u00a0Buy from\u00a0<a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1451624425\/theeconomists-20\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Amazon.com<\/span><\/a>,<a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1451624425\/economistshop-21\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Amazon.co.uk<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cEATING foods that contain saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood,\u201d according to the American Heart Association (AHA). \u201cHigh levels of blood cholesterol increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.\u201d So goes the warning from the AHA, the supposed authority on the subject. Governments and doctors wag their fingers to this tune the world over. Gobble too much bacon and butter and you may well die young. But what if that were wrong?<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"main-content-container\" style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\">\n<div class=\"secondary-header grey-header size-compact\" style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In this section<\/span><\/div>\n<ul class=\"expanded-list white-palette typog-list-exp related-items\">\n<li class=\"0 first\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602980-twenty-five-years-after-bloodshed-beijing-new-details-keep-emerging-ageing-rebels\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Ageing rebels, bitter victims<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"1\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602978-how-countryand-peopleare-changing-wild-heart\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Wild at heart<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"2\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602986-motors-and-mayhem-saudi-arabia-fast-and-furious\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fast and furious<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"3\"><span class=\"current-article \" style=\"font-weight: bold; color: #000000;\">The case for eating steak and cream<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"4\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602985-myths-and-mavericks-worlds-greatest-marine-site-world-water\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A world in water<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"5 last\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602983-prizewinnning-stuff-prize-dying\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A prize before dying<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"bottom-links\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/rights\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Reprints<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"secondary-header grey-header size-compact\" style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Related topics<\/span><\/div>\n<ul class=\"expanded-list white-palette typog-list-exp related-items\">\n<li class=\"first\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a class=\"related-inline-topics\" style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/topics\/cardiovascular-medicine\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Cardiovascular medicine<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"even\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a class=\"related-inline-topics\" style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/topics\/healthy-eating\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Healthy Eating<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a class=\"related-inline-topics\" style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/topics\/health-and-fitness\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Health and fitness<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"even last\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a class=\"related-inline-topics\" style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/topics\/diet-and-nutrition\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Diet and nutrition<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Nina Teicholz, an American journalist, makes just that argument in her compelling new book, \u201cThe Big Fat Surprise\u201d. The debate is not confined to nutritionists. Warnings about fat have changed how food companies do business, what people eat, and how and how long they live. Heart disease is the top cause of death not just in America, but around the world. The question is whether saturated fat is truly to blame. Ms Teicholz\u2019s book is a gripping read for anyone who has ever tried to eat healthily.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The case against fat would seem simple. Fat contains more calories, per gram, than do carbohydrates. Eating saturated fat raises cholesterol levels, which in turn is thought to bring on cardiovascular problems. Ms Teicholz dissects this argument slowly. Her book, which includes well over 100 pages of notes and citations, covers decades of nutrition research, including careful explorations of academics\u2019 methodology. This is not an obvious page-turner. But it is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Ms Teicholz describes the early academics who demonised fat and those who have kept up the crusade. Top among them was Ancel Keys, a professor at the University of Minnesota, whose work landed him on the cover of\u00a0<em class=\"Italic\">Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine in 1961. He provided an answer to why middle-aged men were dropping dead from heart attacks, as well as a solution: eat less fat. Work by Keys and others propelled the American government\u2019s first set of dietary guidelines, in 1980. Cut back on red meat, whole milk and other sources of saturated fat. The few sceptics of this theory were, for decades, marginalised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But the vilification of fat, argues Ms Teicholz, does not stand up to closer examination. She pokes holes in famous pieces of research\u2014the Framingham heart study, the Seven Countries study, the Los Angeles Veterans Trial, to name a few\u2014describing methodological problems or overlooked results, until the foundations of this nutritional advice look increasingly shaky.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The opinions of academics and governments, as presented, led to real change. Food companies were happy to replace animal fats with less expensive vegetable oils. They have now begun abolishing trans fats from their food products and replacing them with polyunsaturated vegetable oils that, when heated, may be as harmful. Advice for keeping to a low-fat diet also played directly into food companies\u2019 sweet spot of biscuits, cereals and confectionery; when people eat less fat, they are hungry for something else. Indeed, as recently as 1995 the AHA itself recommended snacks of \u201clow-fat cookies, low-fat crackers\u2026hard candy, gum drops, sugar, syrup, honey\u201d and other carbohydrate-laden foods. Americans consumed nearly 25% more carbohydrates in 2000 than they had in 1971.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #4a4a4a;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In the past decade a growing number of studies have questioned the anti-fat orthodoxy. Ms Teicholz\u2019s book follows the work of Gary Taubes, a science journalist who has cast doubts on the link between saturated fat and health for well over a decade\u2014and been much disparaged for his pains. There is increasing evidence that a bigger culprit is most likely insulin, a hormone; insulin levels rise when one eats carbohydrates. Yet even now, with more attention devoted to the dangers posed by sugar, saturated fat remains maligned. \u201cIt seems now that what sustains it,\u201d argues Ms Teicholz, \u201cis not so much science as generations of bias and habit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21602984-why-everything-you-heard-about-fat-wrong-case-eating-steak-and-cream Economist Book Review The Case For Eating Steak and Cream Shifting the argument The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.\u00a0By Nina Teicholz.\u00a0Simon &amp; Schuster; 479 pages; $27.99.\u00a0Buy from\u00a0Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk \u201cEATING foods that contain saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood,\u201d according to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2056\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The case for eating steak and cream<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,22,6,3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthy-habits","category-nutrition","category-policy","category-politics","category-rapid-learning-health-systems","category-research-methodology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2057,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions\/2057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}