Caustic Commentary, Winter 2007

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DEATH DIET FOR PREGNANT WOMEN

For decades the USDA has promoted a lowfat, high-fiber, high-carb diet for the general population, schematically presented in the form of a pyramid. Yet even the most brainwashed citizens knew that pregnant women required more animal food, especially more animal fat, in order to have a healthy baby. Now USDA has come up with My Pyramid for Moms, enshrining the same lowfat suggestions in stone for pregnant women. The guidelines urge expectant moms to eat lean meat, skinless chicken breasts, nonfat milk and dairy products, vegetables and fruits, lots of grains and pasta—and to avoid butter—while carrying their developing child. The same diet is recommended for breastfeeding also. It is impossible to find words harsh enough to describe this genocidal plan—guaranteed to result in more low birth weight babies, more birth defects, more miscarriages, more health problems, more behavior disorders, more learning problems and more suffering for both children and parents than ever before—especially with the big promotion it is getting from columnists like Sally Squires of the Washington Post’s Lean Plate Club, who describes the new plan as “a savvy way to be a healthier new mom.” If you disagree, you might want to post your comments to Sally Squires via leanplateclub (at) washpost.com.

VITAMINS IN BREAST MILK

A common myth about breastfeeding is that diet has little effect on nutrient levels in breast milk. Recently investigators in Iceland looked at levels of the all-important fat-soluble vitamins in breast milk. They found that women who took cod liver oil had higher levels of vitamins A, D and E in their breast milk. Supplementation with cod liver oil supplying about 5,000 IU vitamin A and 130 IU vitamin D per day resulted in breast milk that met the recommended intake of vitamin A for infants but fell short of the recommended intake for vitamin D (Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism 2001; 45:265-272). The cod liver oil used was very low in vitamin D—the result of modern processing techniques. It would be interesting to repeat the study using cod liver oil to supply at least 500 IU vitamin D per day.

UNHAPPY THANKSGIVING

Sales of Tofurky—fake turkey made with soy—have increased 37 percent since last year. Seth Tibbott, founder and president of Turtle Island Foods of Hood, Oregon, producers of Tofurky, expects to sell 270,000 Tofurkys by the end of the holiday season. A vegetarian, Tibbott developed the fake poultry to provide solace to vegetarian students coming home for the Thanksgiving holiday, students who were “feeling a bit neglected because all they get to eat are side dishes.” He’s happy that people laugh at the name he gave his product, but his customers may not be laughing after eating it. Tofurky is made of estrogen-laden tofu, gut-gumming wheat protein, corporate canola oil, and “spices”—probably meaning lots of addictive, brain-numbing MSG. One-time hippy Tibbott likes the out of doors—he once lived in a tree house—but there is nothing natural about Tofurky, in fact, it represents a sort of quintessence of processed food. The Vegetarian Resource Group acknowledges that the product does not actually taste like turkey—it has the “salty-savory flavor” of fake turkey (Washington Post, November 17, 2007).

LONG SHELF LIFE

There’s an old saying, “Long shelf life, short human life.” What about food that has an infinite shelf life—that never spoils? One enterprising investigator decided to see how long it took various fast foods to spoil. He put several types of burgers and two types of French fries in glass jars. One serving of fries was hand cut and prepared in a restaurant; the other came from a well known fast food outlet. After several weeks the burgers and the hand-cut fries were all covered with mold. But after ten weeks, the fast food fries looked exactly like they did on day one.

PUZZLING RESULTS

Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine are scratching their heads over results of a new study, published in the November 6th issue of Neurology. In 2001 and again in 2004, the researchers evaluated 1146 African Americans aged 70 and older living in Indianapolis, testing them in various cognitive areas including language, attention and calculation, memory and orientation. They also compared use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, noting whether, if used, they were taken consistently. They found that cognitive decline in those who had taken statins for a short period of time was less than in those who did not take statins, but those who continued to take statins from 2001 to 2004 had greater cognitive decline than those who were taking statins in 2001 but were no longer taking them in 2004. How to explain these puzzling results? High cholesterol levels are associated with good cognitive function and people with high cholesterol levels are most likely to be put on statins. Thus at the beginning of the study, taking statins was associated with relatively good brain function. But those who continued to take statins showed predictable cognitive decline—predictable because cholesterol is necessary for brain function. Those with the best brain function figured out that statins made them feel lousy and stopped taking them—thus preserving good cognitive function as they grew older. Perhaps the best conclusion to make is that persistent compliance with doctors’ instructions is a sign of poor cognitive function.

CAN YOU BE TOO THIN?

“You can’t be too rich or too thin,” goes an old saying. But a new study shows that you can, indeed, be too thin. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (2007 Nov 7; 298(17):2028-37) found that being overweight but not obese was associated only with excess mortality from diabetes and kidney disease, but not from cancer or heart disease. Moreover, the researchers found an apparent protective effect against all other causes of death, including tuberculosis, emphysema, pneumonia, Alzheimer’s disease and injuries. The association between excess weight and nearly 16,000 deaths from diabetes and kidney disease was overshadowed by a reduction of as many as 133,000 deaths from other causes. Even moderately obese people appeared to be less at risk for overall mortality. These findings have the diet dictocrats sputtering. “It’s just rubbish,” said Walter Willett, famous professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, who’s gotten pretty rich touting the Gospel of Unachievable Thinness. But Glenn A. Gaesser, professor of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia is not surprised. “I think we’ve overstated the case that being overweight is something that poses a great health hazard” (Washington Post, November 7, 2007).

A LONG LIFE ON ALL THE WRONG FOODS

Varvara Semennikova grew up deprived of modern dietary advice. She loves eating raw fish and drinking champagne. She also eats boiled meat, tea with milk, jam, bread and butter, and sour cream. She was born in Yakutia, a backward (that is, traditional) part of Russia in 1890, so today she is 117 years old. She has raised four children and 10 grandchildren. She does not look frail and she seems to be fully coherent; her speech is loud and clear. She credits her longevity to her husband, who was her junior by 27 years. “We used to share the yurt with his parents. We were a really close-knit family back then,” says Varvara (http://newsfromrussia.com/print/society/stories/98613-oldest_woman-0).

POUNDING SATURATED FATS WITH THE TRANS FAT HAMMER

“Americans’ Knowledge of Fats Growing, Still Insufficient” is the title of an American Heart Association (AHA) press release issued October 9, 2007, which describes an AHA survey showing that “consumer awareness of the ‘bad’ fats—trans fats and saturated fat—is at an all-time high. But consumers still need key information to improve how they eat.” The survey found that “awareness of the link between the bad fats and increased heart disease risk is up from 63 percent in 2006 to 73 percent in 2007 for trans fat, and from 73 percent to 77 percent for saturated fat.” However, “only” 21 percent of consumers can name three food sources of trans fats and only 30 percent can name three food sources of saturated fat on their own—that is, without prompting from AHA propagandists. “We’re encouraged to see that consumer awareness of saturated and trans fats is higher than ever and that more people understand the link between these fats and increased heart disease risk,” said Robert H. Eckel, MD, past president of the AHA, chair of its trans fat task force and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center. “But it’s clear consumers need to know which foods contain what [sic] fats to minimize, both saturated and trans fats, and make heart-healthier food choices. Food labels help, but it goes far beyond that, in knowing more about the food products without labels we purchase in the grocery or when eating out.” In other words, some recalcitrant citizens are still eating butter! You have to hand it to the AHA for the masterful job they have done transforming embarrassing revelations about trans fats into a propaganda machine against the competition—healthy traditional fats like butter, meat fats and coconut oil.

DRUG RESISTANT STAPH

Here’s an acronym that you’ll be seeing in the news for a long time to come: MRSA. It stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Once an innocuous bacterium, Staph aureus has morphed into a strain that is resistant to the most powerful antibiotics and has become a very serious health problem. A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (2007 Oct 17; 298(15):1763-71) details almost 9,000 observed cases of invasive MRSA in 2005, with 1,600 in-hospital deaths. Health care workers believe that these figures represent the tip of the iceberg, with many more unrecognized and unreported. And antibiotics are no longer working for another strain of bacteria that causes ear infections in children. Most disturbing was the finding that MRSA infections are not confined to intensive care units, acute care hospitals or any health care institution. For example, a 17-year-old student of Lunch Station, Virginia succumbed to MRSA in October, prompting officials to shut down 21 area schools for cleaning to prevent further infection. Schools and hospitals are engaging in top-to-bottom cleaning activities, spraying disinfectant on door knobs and warning against sharing towels, clothing or personal equipment, and scientists are pinning their hopes on the development of new antibiotics. Medical orthodoxy does not want to admit that an over-hygienic environment and food supply, along with the overuse of antibiotics, is what caused this crisis in the first place. The solution is not wall washing and stronger drugs but raw milk and lacto-fermented foods. Oh, and also, cod liver oil (for vitamin A) and the much maligned saturated fats, which strengthen the immune system, especially lauric acid from coconut oil, shown in recent studies to be highly effective against MRSA (Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods 2005;15:279-285).

HORMONE ATTACK

An aerial eradication program for the Light Brown Apple Moth, an insect native to Australia that causes damage to a variety of crops, has begun over sixty square miles near the Pacific coast between Monterey and Santa Cruz. The program involves spraying pheromone chemicals called Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F, which disrupt the mating process of the moths. Opponents of the spraying obtained a court injunction halting the pheromone spraying on October 10, 2007, but it was lifted nine days later with official assurances that the pesticide was safe for humans. The state of California plans once-a-month spraying for at least nine months, to the tune of seventy million dollars. Reports of vomiting, mood changes, coughing up blood, asthma and yellow-red urine (a sign of poisoning) have followed the first spraying in October. The Checkmate pesticides are endocrine disrupters that attach to estrogen receptors and force the activation and constant production of estrogen in men, women and children. The compound is delivered in tiny plastic micro-capsules that float in the air like pollen and which have not been tested on humans. One chemical used in the production of the microcapsules is the preservative BHT, which carries the label, “Do not inhale this product. Dangerous to respiratory health.” And BHT, also known as DBPC, can cause sterility in men. Recently Dole Food Company lost a lawsuit in which Nicaraguan Banana farmers were exposed to DBPC. In pending lawsuits, thousands of South American farmers claim harm done from exposure to the chemicals. Concerned Californians are urged to contact their elected officials to put a stop to this insane program. A lawsuit instituted by Helping Our Peninsula’s Environment (HOPE) is ongoing. (See http://www.1hope. org/chkmate.htm.)

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