Page 5 - Fall2011

Letters

Harvard's recommendation to avoid full- lower incidence of type-two diabetes, Are there organizations that are
fat dairy products is likely to greatly relative risk 0.41! That is a 59 percent aware of correct dietary principles that
increase vitamin K deficiency. A search reduction in risk (www.ncbi.nlm.nih. successfully seek to alleviate hunger? I
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of the website search engine for vitamin gov/pubmed?term=21173413)! would greatly appreciate hearing your
K or menaquinone turns up nothing! What strikes me is that whole-fat thoughts on this. Feeding the poor seems
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They are decades out of date. dairy consumption reduced CHD risk to be a tricky business. For example,
I recently ran across a study by and greatly reduced risk of type-two dia- our local Meals on Wheels program
D. Mozaffarian and others of Harvard betes, in spite of the fact that the vast ma- provides meals that are 100 percent pro-
which suggests rather remarkable ben- jority of milk consumed was damaged cessed (canned stew, canned vegetables,
efits resulting from the consumption of by pasteurization, ultra-pasteurization boxed mashed potato and I Can't Believe
full-fat dairy products. The disparity and homogenization and comes from It's Not Butter!). I think it might be bet-
between the study findings and the dairy cows ill from eating an unnatural diet ter for our dear elderly to eat nothing. I
bashing on the website of the Harvard of grain. Imagine how much better the would like, as a start, to get real butter
School of Public Health is so stark (or results would have been if the subjects into the meals but the first work will be
perhaps amusing and crazy) that I had had consumed decent milk! educating the local administrators of the
to comment on it. John Cameron program on the health benefits of butter
The wording of the study is some- Fairhope, Alabama and the dangers of margarine. So many
what obscure, to say the least, so I will folks seem to think that any calories
provide my layman's interpretation: FEEDING THE POOR are better than none. This may be true
Dairy fat is the most complex of fats, I support various missions involved to a point, but there must also be a point
containing over four hundred fatty acids. in feeding the hungry of the world. where it stops being true.
One dairy fatty acid, trans-palmitoleic I recently read about one sister who Cassandra Peterson
acid, is a good marker of full-fat dairy imports soybeans and develops them Frazier Park, CA
consumption in part because it is not into various soy products (including
synthesized by humans and, in multi- soy milk) to supplement the diet of poor You are right, there are so many di-
variate analysis, was found to be most communities in El Salvador. Apparently lemmas in food giveaway programs,
strongly associated with whole-fat dairy the program (which started in 1993) is especially when unhealthy foods are
consumption. very successful. This lovely woman is promoted by sincere and dedicated
In a study of over thirty-seven obviously dedicated to serving the poor individuals. Possibly on the very short
hundred women, those in the highest and far be it from me (an American who term the benefits of a soy-based food
quintile of trans-palmitoleic acid levels has a choice in what I eat), to criticize could provide needed calories to prevent
(that is, higher whole-fat dairy intake) her, but some questions were raised in starvation, but the long-term effects
were found to be associated with slightly my mind. Isn't this just playing right into can be devastating. How much better to
lower adiposity and independently the hands of GMO proponents who tout become involved in programs, such as
with higher HDL cholesterol levels, soy as the salvation of the hungry? Heifer International, that give domestic
lower triglyceride levels, and low TC/ Can the benefits of sheer protein animals, which provide long-term good
HDL-C ratio, lower CRP levels and calories, which are lacking in any form nutrition such as eggs and milk. For
lower insulin resistance. These are all in these poor people's diets, outweigh the food programs in the U.S., it is obvi-
considered indicators of reduced risk dangers of soy? It seems that the fifteen ous that they mirror the conventional
of CHD and atherosclerosis. Further, or more years of the program would be attitudes about food. We can’t really
those with the highest level of trans- enough time for the adverse effects of suggest any solutions except for each of
palmitoleic acid (therefore highest soy to present themselves, but maybe us to share home cooked food with the
whole-milk intake) had a remarkably they are attributed to other causes. elderly to whom we are close.
Wise Traditions FALL 2011 FALL 2011 Wise Traditions 5

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