By: Odis Johns

Odis Johns — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:36:52 +0000

I think Annie’s Naturals makes some OK ones.
-R
On Wednesday, September 4, 2002, at 02:31 PM, Courtney Jones-Ramirez

By: Odis Johns

Odis Johns — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:26:18 +0000

Why the Current US Dietary Guidelines are Making Americans Fat
by Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.
The McGovern Committee Senate Hearings, held in the 1970s, grew out of
the ideas for developing nutrition policy that were put forth at the
1969 White House Conference on Foods and Nutrition. Some of the
recommendations that came out of the White House conference were
orchestrated by lawyers and lobbyists from the food industry. The
McGovern Committee originally planned to hold hearings on heart disease
and diet, but evidently changed to hearings on all the killer diseases
and their nutritional causes, although the major emphasis still came
from the National Heart and Lung Institute (as it was called at that
time) and the American Heart Association, with much testimony
orchestrated by the American Health Foundation. Behind the scenes, the
edible oil industry and the Grocery Manufacturers of America played a
major role in lobbying efforts.

The McGovern Select Committee heard erroneous testimony from various
research scientists, most of whom had particular biases against animal
fat and meat. For example, Dr. Gio B. Gori from the National Cancer
Institute and Dr. David M. Hegsted from Harvard School of Public Health
testified that there was a direct relationship between dietary intake
and forms of cancer and that it was their recommendation that Americans
should cut down on the amount of food they eat, and specifically, eat
less meat and fats (Congressional Record 9/16/76 p S15993-4). The
animal fat and cancer connection was first introduced by Dr. Ernst
Wynder from the American Health Foundation using processed vegetable fat
data mistakenly labeled animal fat. Colon cancer was also tied to beef
in an erroneous interpretation of the National Cancer Institute
Japanese-Hawaiian study which actually showed macaroni, green beans and
peas to have higher risk associated with colon cancer than beef or lamb.1
Committee members ignored testimony debunking the anti-animal fat agenda
even though the testimony defending meat and animal fat was supported by
science and came from highly qualified researchers. The meat and dairy
lobbies were very ineffective in defending their products.
The Select Committee produced a report that called for the decrease in
consumption of animal fat, dairy fat and eggs. If you decrease the
amount of fat in the diet, something has to increase to take its place
and that something was to be the carbohydrates.
Once mandated, no government employee or government-funded researcher
could contradict the US Dietary Goals. All the research from that point
on had to be geared to creating educational material to match the US
Dietary Goals and to produce a science to support them. If a researcher
wanted another grant, the results he or she came up with would have to
fit the guidelines.
Even though these goals/guidelines originally had no science to back
them up, and still have no clear science to support them, they have
become the law of the land.
Thus the Senate, with the help of the food industry and the complicity
of a major part of the nutrition community, came up with a low-fat,
high-carbohydrate Rx that produced profound changes in the way Americans
ate. Vegetable oil and carbohydrate (mostly refined carbohydrate)
calories replaced animal fat calories resulting in massive obesity in
the populace. The US government is now proposing more of the same to
combat. . . the massive obesity epidemic among Americans!
1. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD, Its the Beef, Wise
Traditions, the quarterly Journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation,
Spring 2000 1(1):27-35.
First published in Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal of
The Weston A. Price Foundation, Volume 3, Number One, Spring 2002.

Comments on: Axel’s Rantings

By: Odis Johns

By: Odis Johns