Page 16 - Summer2010

Caustic Commentary

Sally Fallon Morell and Mary Enig take on the Diet Dictocrats

FOOD POLICE TARGET TWO-YEAR OLD GOOD GENES, OR COD LIVER OIL?
Two-year-old Jack Ormisher was left in tears as nursery Researchers are crediting good genes for the health and lon-
school staff confiscated his “unhealthy” cheese sandwich. His gevity of a family of eight brothers and sisters, ages 79-96,
mother sent a homemade lunch because she suspected that who have no history of heart attack, stroke, dementia or other
school food was causing him stomach problems. Although diseases associated with getting old. Not one of them needs
his lunchbox also contained vegetables and a piece of melon, a cane. “I don’t even remember having a medicine cabinet.
school staff offered Jack fruit, nuts and seeds, while informing No, we didn’t,” says Helen Hurlburt. “Just molasses on bread
his mother that future cheese sandwiches must contain lettuce and cod liver oil. That’s about it,” says her sister Agnes. “We
or tomato to pass muster. Instead, his mother moved him to a never had junk food. We always cooked, and we ate together
new school. One blogger posted the following comment on the in the evening,” says Helen (TheBostonChannel.com, April
incident: “If he was older, he might have had the wherewithal 29, 2010). Miriam Tyler, of Timperley, U.K., age one hundred,
to shout back at them: ‘Do I look like a credits her longevity to “a
bloody chaffinch, you self-important, spoonful of cod liver oil
doctrinaire Stalinist harridans?’ But he once a day, washed down
didn’t, because he was only two years with maluca honey” (www.
old, so he just cried his eyes out instead. messengernewspapers.
What can we do about these people?” co.uk, December 31, 2009).
It’s a good question, because the food What would happen if the
police are determined to eliminate every general population were
real, nutritious morsel of food that goes to learn that the secret to a
into our mouths—and especially into long and healthy life is so
the mouths of children. Parents need to simple: real food and cod
take a very firm stand against these Food liver oil. The whole edifice
Puritans, and insist on their right to give of life extension through
their children healthy traditional food, genetic testing and stem
with or without lettuce and tomatoes. cell research would come
tumbling to the ground.
FAT TAX
A proposal to tax butter has been floating around for awhile, PASTEURIZATION AND LISTERIA
but the idea is so ridiculous that few people have taken it While public health officials harp on the alleged dangers of
seriously. However, a Danish correspondent reports that the raw milk, in Europe six people have died from listeria in pas-
Danish People’s Party has agreed to introduce a tax on butter teurized milk cheese. Four of the deaths occurred in Austria
and fatty meat because “saturated fat increases the risk of car- and two in Germany, all traced to cheese made by dairy gi-
diovascular disease.” Ironically, proponents of the tax cite the ant Prolactal. Will health officials give the same treatment to
work of researcher Arne Astrup, who has recently backtracked Prolactal—which has an annual revenue of sixty-five million
on his opposition to saturated fat and admits that high-fat Euros—that they mete out to small raw milk producers in the
cheese has many benefits and may even protect against heart U.S? Not at all. Production will be renewed “once the causes
disease (www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2010/03/12/05347.htm). have been fully clarified.” News of the incident did not appear
The Food Standards Agency in Britain is also discussing a in U.S. newspapers, while the European press simply noted
fat tax, ostensibly against “junk food and sugary drinks” but that listeria can contaminate “a range of foodstuffs including
also against full-fat milk, butter and cheese “to encourage a . . . plants, meats and dairy products. . .” with no singling
switch to products with less saturated fat” (dailymail.co.uk, out of raw milk. Austrian health officials reported a total of
May 11, 2010). forty-five cases of listeria-related illness in 2009, of which
16 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2010