I went to bed and woke up in Sleeper. You may recall in Woody Allen’s comedy a health food eating nebbish from the present has surgery. When it goes wrong he is wrapped in foil like a TV dinner and is unthawed in the future.
In a post-thaw interview he learns everything our day thought about health was false. Wheat germ bad. Red meat good. Have a cigarette and some ice cream. Well, Woody was right according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
The seminal study that scared everybody into fleeing bloody steaks, runny eggs, stinky cheese and other good things was wrong. The methodology was flawed. The foreign cultures selected for comparison with ours to study low fat vs. high fat diets had other peculiarities that accounted for the discrepancy..
Even more embarrassing, the alternatives to animal fat now appear to be even worse. As people quit eating so much steak ad eggs, they ate more carbs which are implicated in soaring rates of obesity and diabetes. So in an attempt to dodge clogged arteries, which animal fats may not be as responsible for as we thought, we created even worse problems for ourselves.
It even appears that supposedly healthier carbs like brown rice and whole grain bread don’t make that much difference. Even more comical, it appears vegetable oils are worse for you than good old butter and lard. Julia Child and the French were right all along — bon appetit.
Disclaimer. What do I know? I’m not a doctor, but it looks like the doctors who fell for faulty research weren’t so smart either. I suspect the truth is, trust the Greeks. They were right all along. All Things in Moderation.
A nice little steak occasionally? Why not. Delicious butter and eggs rather than egg whites and margarine? Fine. Gluttony, probably not. And industrial quantities of sugar and dough and pasta, not unless you want to resemble a Zeppelin when you grow up. Oh, and an apple a day still appears to be okay advice, along with chicken soup. Grandma knew best.
Actually mine knew even better. She made pie crust with lard. Fantastic.