Death By Supermarket (15 page)

The industrialized fats that were introduced into our food chain were a far cry from the organic, saturated animal fats eaten by Price’s native peoples. But these factory-polyunsaturated vegetable fats were touted as healthier than butter and other historically consumed animal fats. And in the minds of Americans, the word “polyunsaturated” became synonymous with protection against heart disease. However, back when scientists first decided the lipid hypothesis was the black-and-white answer to heart disease and began their campaign to eradicate saturated fat and cholesterol-laden foods from the American diet and to replace these fats with
polyunsaturated vegetable oils, in their haste they overlooked one simple and very important fact: By the 1950s people had already, for personal economic reasons, significantly decreased consumption of butter and increased consumption of factory-polyunsaturated vegetable fats in the forms of oil, margarine, and shortening.
¹⁵²

In 1900, the average American consumed 18 pounds of butter per year but only 3 pounds of polyunsaturated vegetable fat in shortening and margarine. By the 1950s, Americans were eating 10 pounds of polyunsaturated vegetable fat and only 10 pounds of butter per year.
¹⁵³
Americans had decreased their consumption of butter and increased consumption of polyunsaturated vegetable fats, and heart disease had increased correspondingly.

Some scientists questioned whether there might be a connection between the rise in polyunsaturated vegetable oil consumption and the rise in heart disease. But these rumblings were mere squeaks compared with the roar coming out of Madison Avenue—a din paid for by factory-fat makers who coined the slogan “Healthy for Your Heart” and whose sole interest was influencing Americans to eat factory-polyunsaturated vegetable oils.

Yet empirical evidence was mounting against the lipid hypothesis and the introduction of polyunsaturated vegetable fats. Empirical evidence is derived from observation. Let’s say you notice that your flower garden does better with one fertilizer over another. You don’t need a study to tell you what you see with your own eyes. Empirical evidence demonstrated that we had been healthier and had less heart disease before we traded our traditionally consumed diet that included saturated fats for a factory diet including factory fats. Still, the AHA launched the Prudent Diet in 1956, which encouraged Americans to replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated vegetable oils.

The expression “You are what you eat” aptly describes what happens when you eat any type of fat. “Dietary fat… is absorbed pretty much as it goes in and is then burned for energy, stored as adipose tissue, or
incorporated into cell membranes and other tissues in just about the same form in which you ate it,” write Michael Eades, M.D., and Mary Dan Eades, M.D., in their book
The Protein Power Lifeplan: A New Comprehensive Blueprint for Optimal Health
. “If you go out to a ball game and eat a hot dog, the next day… if you look in the mirror, the fat in the hot dog will be staring back at you, unchanged, in the lipid bilayers of your skin, in the whites of your eyes, and even in your brain. That’s why it pays to be careful about the types of fat that you eat.”
¹⁵⁴

Salad dressing, cheese “foods,” deep-fried foods, vegetable cooking oils, imitation meat products, mayonnaise and mayolike products, fake sour cream and dessert toppings, margarine, movie and microwave popcorn, nondairy artificial cream products, soy spreads, and vegetable shortening are all examples of toxic factory fats. But just because food makers have processed polyunsaturated oils into poisons doesn’t mean that you should avoid polyunsaturated fats altogether, because naturally occurring polyunsaturated fats are health-giving.

The two polyunsaturated fatty acids that are the most important for you to understand are linolenic acid (omega-3) and linoleic acid (omega-6). Omega-3 and −6 can’t be made in the body and thus are referred to as “essentially fatty acids,” or EFAs.
¹⁵⁵

Studies show that omega-3 promotes lean body mass, which means that including omega-3 fatty acids in your diet will help you burn fat and build muscle.
¹⁵⁶
Omega-3 fats are essential to cellular health. Without omega-3 you will likely end up with dry skin, premature wrinkles, thin, brittle hair and nails, depression and other neurotransmitter imbalances, chronic constipation and a malfunctioning immune system, leading to muscle and joint pain and arthritis.

The ideal and traditional ratio of omega 3:6 polyunsaturated fatty acids is about 1:1-2. Today we consume a 1:10-46 ratio. Too high levels of omega-6 promote inflammation, and this high ratio of omega 3-6 has been shown to be a major contributing factor in the development of cancer and other degenerative diseases. Omega-6 is found in meat—but unfortunately
it’s too high of a ratio now that factory-raised animals are fed an unnatural diet of grains and soybeans. Like humans, they are what they eat, so when we eat them, we’re eating too many omega-6s. Because we still need some omega-6 (and saturated animal fat), it’s important to eat free-range, grass-fed animal
foods
.

Omega-6 is the precursor of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), used in the production of prostaglandins, which are fatty acids that act as hormones. Prostaglandins are essential to the proper functioning of each cell and play a role in many biological processes, including regulating your immune system. Prostaglandins maintain homeostasis in your body—the body’s adaptive responses that attempt to return the body from an abnormal state back to the status quo. GLA is an anti-inflammatory agent, inhibits the growth of some cancer cells, aids fat metabolism, and helps prevent rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, premenstrual syndrome, and neurological problems related to diabetes. The GLA oils black currant, borage, and evening primrose can be taken in supplemental capsule form.

Now that people are becoming aware of the health-giving properties of omega-3 fatty acids, factory-fat makers are jumping on the bandwagon to produce their factory omega-3 “spreads.” However, it’s important to note the distinction between factory omega-3 spreads and naturally occurring polyunsaturated fats. We now understand the fragile nature of the polyunsaturated fatty acids. These oils should be protected from heat, light, oxygen, and chemical processes. Just as when polyunsaturated vegetable oils were oxidized through heat and chemical processes, turning them basically into shellac, and those damaged fats were then partially hydrogenated, creating trans fats, omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are now being subjected to unnatural industrialization. Omega-3-fortified butter-like spreads like Smart Balance Omega Plus are not the same healthy polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids found in foods, no matter what the ads say, because manufacturing processes alter, reduce, or deaden the healthy biological properties of oils.

Processed polyunsaturated oils not to eat are corn, cottonseed, safflower, soy, and sunflower. Because of the heat/chemical/oxygen processing of oils, two other oils, canola and peanut, which are mostly monounsaturated fatty acids, should also be avoided.

Examples of healthy polyunsaturated fats are cold-water fish such as cod, herring, mackerel, salmon, sardines and their oils, flax seeds (in moderation), krill oil, marine plankton, and GLA oils (borage, evening primrose, and black currant).

My grandma was a believer in the power of healthy oils and chugged olive oil directly from the bottle every day and more if she needed to “fix herself.” Olive oil is a monounsaturated oil. Monounsaturated fats lower LDL cholesterol in the blood, are necessary for healthy skin, maintain the structural integrity of neural membranes, and are high in the antioxidant vitamin E, which boosts immunity and provides protection against certain cancers, such as breast and colon cancer. Monounsaturated fats are more prone to the creation of oxidizing free radicals than are saturated oils when they are cooked, so it’s best to eat monounsaturated foods and oils at room temperature, with the exception of olive oil, which can be used for cooking. Examples of healthy monounsaturated oils are almonds and their oil, avocados and their oil, cashews, fowl fat, hazelnuts and their oil, lard, olives and olive oil, peanuts and peanut butter, and pork (including bacon). (Saturated fat is the subject of
chapter 13
.)

It seems crazy in retrospect that anyone could be convinced that fats made in a laboratory were healthier than butter, a naturally occurring dietary fat that was historically eaten by humans. But as a friend of mine said, “Eighty percent of Americans believe that wrestling on TV is real.” In other words, if there’s enough pomp and press—or, in this case, studies—we’ll go along.

IN THE EARLY 1970s,
I visited a friend who was going through medical school. He fixed himself instant Top Ramen for dinner and offered me some, too, but I declined. “I can’t believe you’re going to eat those chemicals,” I said.

“The human body is made up of chemicals,” he replied. That statement—from a medical student—blew my mind and has stayed with me all these years.

Modern medicine has advanced beyond our wildest dreams to a point where the impossible is now possible, and many brilliant, caring, hardworking M.D.s are able to perform seeming miracles on a daily basis. As extraordinary as medical feats are today, the advancements that are clearly obtainable in the near future boggle and excite the mind. To achieve this level of medical competence takes years of dedicated, tenacious hard work and sacrifice. However, nutrition is one area that most doctors have no experience with and should not lecture us about. Since Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease influenced Western medical schools to reject nutrition as an important aspect of medicine, doctors haven’t seen fit to learn about nutrition. And I say this with all due respect, as I have many doctor friends and am confident that most of them wouldn’t profess to be qualified to give nutritional advice.

If a person wanted to go into the business of winemaking and become a vintner of fine wines, that person might end up at a school like UC Davis
studying viticulture. The study of viticulture includes how and what to feed the grapevines in order to produce the best-quality grape. But somehow modern medicine has felt it unnecessary to understand—and teach—how and what to feed the human body to produce the best-quality human being.

After medical training, M.D.s are required to obtain continuing education credits every year. Other than these required courses, doctors learn from drug reps, medical journals, conferences and lectures, books, and the media. Sixty to 70 percent of nonsurgical continuing education comes to doctors via drug reps, referred to as “detail people,” as in that’s where docs get the details on which new drugs have hit the market, not about how to prevent patients from having to take drugs in the first place. (Now that the feds have squeezed pharmaceutical companies to knock off the gifts to doctors, this industry has cleverly turned to recruiting beautiful, sexy former cheerleaders as drug reps.)
¹⁵⁷

Very few doctors independently pursue an education in nutrition.

Nutritional information in medical journals is highly tainted. Nutritional research is often funded by the food industry. A 1996 survey disclosed that nearly 30 percent of university researchers investigating food products accepted funding from the food industry. Another survey demonstrated that 34 percent of the lead authors of 800 papers in molecular biology and medicine were involved in patents, served on advisory committees, and/ or held shares in the companies that would benefit from their research. The
Journal of Nutritional Education
accepts financial contributions from eight corporate patron friends and four corporate sustaining friends, and the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
accepts financial assistance from twenty-eight companies and associations that support selected educational activities. Such sponsors are Coca-Cola, Gerber, Nestlé/Carnation, Monsanto, Proctor & Gamble, Roche Vitamins, Slim-Fast Foods, and the Sugar Association. In addition, drug advertising contributed $20 million per year to prestigious journals such as the
New England Journal of Medicine
and the
Journal of the American Medical Association
, which publish the supposedly latest nutrition research.
¹⁵⁸

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) survey demonstrated that 33 percent of U.S. scientists admitted that they engaged in “unethical practices” such as manipulating or hiding data, designing their studies to reach certain conclusions, or altering the conclusions of their studies to satisfy sponsors.
¹⁵⁹
(The NIH is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research.)

With nutritional education coming from factory-food manufacturers, our medical community’s collective consciousness has deteriorated to the point where diseased and injured patients in hospitals are served Ensure, Jello, Diet 7-Up, Better’n Eggs, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and coffee with Coffee-mate Creamer and NutraSweet. Hospitals are also the new frontier for fast-food franchises.

Unfortunately, doctors are notoriously skeptical—to the point of scorn—of empirical evidence, which they refer to as “anecdotal.” If you went into your doctor’s office claiming that ingesting a certain substance caused you a health problem, he or she would not likely agree with you unless you provided evidence that that substance caused said symptoms. The evidence they want is at least one double blind, peer-reviewed study that is published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. A double-blind study means that neither the test subjects nor the researchers know what treatment the test subjects are receiving. At the conclusion of the study, the code is broken and the data analyzed. This method eliminates observer and test-subject bias. Peer-reviewed means that researchers of equal standing to the investigators evaluate the quality of study. Once a double-blind study is published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, the conclusions of the study are considered medical truth.