Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
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Warning: long.
Summary: if you think saturated fats and cholesterol are bad because Dan Rather said so, then maybe you should check your sources. Reference to scientific literature carries greater weight with me than the "common sense" of daytime talk shows, newsrags, and the evening news.
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I'm not advocating bacon and eggs because soy is bad; I'm advocating staying away from soy because soy is bad.
So, (1) soy is bad. As for bacon and eggs, (2) there ain't nothing necessarily wrong with saturated fat, and often there's a lot of good there, and (3) there ain't nothing wrong with dietary cholesterol.
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Uhh...right.
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The issue at hand is what's called the Lipid Hypothesis -- the theory that the cholesterol in fatty foods builds up in your arteries and causes heart disease. This is true only in a very twisted way: artheriosclerotic plaques are indeed constructed of cholesterol, but they don't build up just because you eat cholesterol. It's the body's way of repairing arterial damage, caused by toxic chemicals, lack of essential vitamins (esp C, which is a building block of cell walls), and/or pathogenic microbes. The causes of arterial damage is a current, active area of research, so there's not a lot of answers for what causes that damage. But the remaining evidence is clear: plaques form as a result of that damage, not as a result of eating bacon and eggs.
The average adult liver produces 2000mg of cholesterol a day. That's the equivalent of 20 eggs. There's a huge amount of cholesterol in the brain, and pregnant women not getting enough cholesterol risk bearing children with neural defects. Cholesterol is used in the body's native production of Vitamin D and dozens of hormones, from testosterone to adrenalin.
Saturated fats are excellent sources of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K, anti-microbial and anti-fungal; some are essential (ie must be present in the diet for normal metabolic function); and short-chain saturated fats are premium sources for energy. Many older research papers confused natural saturated fats (cis) with hydrogenated fats (trans-fats), usually by using hydrogenated plant oils; much of the 'evil' attributed to saturated fats comes from just a couple of these studies.
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All you bacon and eggers are getting very excited about some new theories that ingested cholesterol isn't as bad as said previously. In fact, the response from bacon and eggers to these ideas has had an almost religious fervor.
But these ideas are hardly agreed upon by the main force of medical opinion.
And it was hardly Dan Rather who ever convinced any doctors, or probably anyone else, about the role of ingested cholesterol in arterial and cardiac disease.
Bacon and eggers are happily trying to paint pictures of the state of medical science as if they were reversed. THis is rather sly and self-serving and self-congratulatory regarding their bad habits, and does them no credit. It is not in fact the cholesterol chompers whose latest theories hold sway in the medical establishment while medical authorities who recommend against the ingestion of cholesterol who are the in the minority or silly upstarts. The opposite is true.
One wonderful way to regard issues is by how they are presented. When they are presented deceptively, it's a good clue that someone has an agenda and/or that the side trying to mislead is having trouble supporting its position.
Generally in such cases, and certainly in this case, it's best to stick with the general agreement of the bulk of medical authority, especially since we are not talking about something trivial here, but about heart health, which is literally a life and death matter. Even if some random poster on a web poker forum says different. Er, I mean, Dan Rather.
Seriously, fanatacism can go too far. Recommending eating bacon and eggs for breakfast over oatmeal for health reasons, or for any reason, is not only foolish but at the very least irresponsible and unkind.
One's enthusiasm for hot new theories should in some instances be kept to oneself. Especially when danger is involved. Thank goodness doctors have to swear allegiance to the idea, "First, do no harm." Unfortunately, OOT membership has no such requirement.
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Bacon and Eggs are tasty. I like cooking my eggs extra runny in the grease left over after I'm done cooking the bacon. Yummy!
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