I recently came across an interesting blog called Junkfood Science.
This blog written by Sandy Szwarc is not a ‘normal’ blog in that you can’t leave comments and it’s clearly not run by an amateur. Sandy appears to be a well established journalist. This blog is also very North American (mostly United States) in flavor, and may not be of great interest to people not living there or who otherwise don’t have roots in the area. This blog also has very little to do with gardening.
What I find interesting about this blog is that while written mostly from the perspective of a health professional and nutritional specialist, it has a very similar tone and point of view as this blog has to biodiversity, gardening, agriculture and processed food. Most of the topics she addresses on her blog have a direct counter part with something discussed over here.
I think it’s a very interesting blog to read along side this one!
Also, if you are interested in learning more about the US health care system, I recommend Michael Moore’s latest film Sicko.
Well, that is a strange web site. The author seems to be taking the line that obesity has nothing to do with what you eat!
I found it interesting that she didn’t mention how they tracked calories in study that supposedly showed that there was no correlation between the subjects weight and diets because self reporting of diets in notoriously inaccurate.
I did a little research of my own into the idea that elderly people who weighed more lived longer and it seems to be true but mainly because they survived things longer when nutrition was intravenous or they were thin because of an underlying health problem, depression etc. I’m thinking a major heart attack might be the way to go not lingering in a nursing home. Pass the (organic) butter please!
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for your comment!
Of course I’m not Sandy Szwarc, and don’t have any way of knowing what she is thinking. I can however take a guess at what she meant.
I think the point she was trying to make was not that there is no connection between what you eat and obesity, only that some of the widely held views on the topic are lacking in hard science and represent the interests of large food and drug companies who are trying to sell their products. I think she was also trying to say that especially for elderly people there is also a lot of value in letting people eat what they want, without making them feeling guilty or afraid.
Since you mention butter, let me say something about that too. To some people’s point of view butter is high in saturated fat (which is probably true) and therefor bad for you (which is debated). To me, butter is made from modern cows that are fed corn or soy (often itself containing high levels of pesticide residues, and now are usually GM varieties), which changes the chemical composition of the fats in butter. Cows are also sometimes injected or fed hormones and antibiotics, raised under stressful and unsanitary conditions, and often spend most of their life sick. Modern cows are also kept pregnant or lactating nearly all the time, something that make dairy products much higher in natural hormones (estrogen) than cows from a few decades ago. Cows raised this way consume vast amounts of energy and cause wide spread environmental pollution.
We also know that anytime cows are exposed to environmental contaminates, these are usually found most concentrated in the milk and the fat of the animal.
A growing number of people assert that eating butter is not unhealthy because of the fat it contains, but because of these factors.
Of course you are probably familiar with the problems with most of the butter substitutes like margarines that contain hydrogenated oils or trans-fats. Even the currently much touted olive oil is grown with pesticides, and is transported long distances to dinner tables which many people object to, and many people don’t consider it an acceptable or desirable substitute for butter anyway.
I think a good argument could be made that butter, made by a local farmer who raises traditional breeds of cows naturally and grass fed, is better for both you and the environment than anything else you could spread on your bread. After all, people who lived decades ago when it was normal to eat this kind of food, didn’t suffer much from obesity, strokes and heart attacks. These are very much modern ailments, and the result of eating modern foods.
If you don’t happen to live next to a farmer who makes butter like this, what do you do? Well for many people the answer is to do their best to choose traditional foods, that they like to eat, and avoid modern foods and ‘modern thinking’ on foods.
This is all at least the point of view this blog takes. Whether you agree with it or not, you are always welcome here and your comments and opinions are always appreciated!
I would say we do seem to be in complete agreement that supermarket ‘organic’ butter is no better for you than normal butter!