There They Go Again

Seems I can’t get away with one single post on the glories of butterfat without some member of the health police stepping in to issue a citation:

I know you think you’re being cute, but the fact is that fat isn’t funny, it’s dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year in this country from heart disease and other diet-related disorders. Consumption of fat is an epidemic that should not be encouraged. Please be more responsible in your writing.

Sigh. I’ve tried and I’ve tried to get through to you people. Now you leave me with no choice but to pull out the big guns: research studies. Did you know that just this last winter the results of the country’s largest, longest, most exhaustive study on the connection between fat consumption and disease were released? It followed 50,000 different women from all walks of life for eight years and cost $415 million. And do you know what it found? No relationship whatsoever between fat consumption and incidence of cancer, heart attacks or strokes. But low fat diets keep weight off don’t they? Uh-uh. Not according to this AMA study just out this past January, which found that low fat diets lead only to moderate, and then temporary weight loss in humans. Both were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Both are considered “Rolls Royce”-caliber studies in their fields.

The lesson here? Not to eat a stick of butter as you would a banana, not to start dousing your breakfast cereal in bacon drippings, but to stop demonizing foods. Butter has as much of a claim to the dinner table as a brussel sprout. A pork chop as much as bran muffin. We should eat and enjoy them all, in moderation, as a part of a normal diet.

Still want to mess with me? Fine. Keep sending the emails. I’ll just pull out more studies like this one that shows there’s no connection between Omega-3 fatty acids and reduced cancer risk. If you ever want to feel good shopping at a health food store again you’ll stop sending the nasty notes. Capeche?