On Mon, 24 Jul 2000 22:51:13 EDT, Juliann Martin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Thanks. I have printed out a ton of stuff and will get reading. This is all
>so amazing to read - it is so logical. I am just surprised (and sad) that I
>never even heard about this theory until three weeks ago.

Yes, this is actually the most fascinating aspect for me, how we have ended up
poisoning ourself as a society.

A lot of the blame in recent times falls on Senator George McGovern, who was
chairman of a committee investigating heart disease and other "diseases of
civilization".   It is pointed out in several books, that he caused strong
evidence that vegetable oils (ie trans fats) were implicated in heart disease to
be ignored, in favor of very tenuous and some say flawed studies that appeared
to implicate saturated fats.   Some say that he was in the pocket of the
vegetable oil industry.

However, when he tried to get this made an official government statement, ie
that saturated fats caused heart disease, the meat industry were able to use
their political leverage to get the word "saturated" removed.    Thus, the
official government policy on diet and heart disease, ie that "eating fat
contributed to heart disease" was due to political compromise and influence by
the vegetable oil and meat industries, NOT by medical information !

But, in the long run, the medical industry itself has not been interested in the
truth either.  In our culture, just as "kleenex" now is synonymous
with facial tissue, "snake oil" is synonymous with selling a fraudulent panacea.

But, it turns out that snake oil IS a panacea.   Check out Dr. Udo Erasmus' book
"Fats that Heal, and Fats that Kill".   It turns out that snake oil is very high
in Omega3 fatty acids, which modern man is very deficient in, but was very
prevalent in the diet of Paleo man.   Omega3 fatty acids (as usually found in
fish oil) are great for asthma, arthritis, headaches, a.o. diabetes, FM, CFS,
prevention of CAD, and inflammation of any kind.

So, the decades of trashing of "snake oil salesmen" was designed solely to
protect the MD's monopoly on health care (a protection racket where you are not
protected!).

Of course, any of this could be easily exposed by the media - if they were
interested.   But, in actuality, they are rarely interested - for which you can
get a better feel by watching the excellent film "The Insider", which shows how
media executives are thoroughly steeped in corporate culture, and thus have the
welfare of their corporation as their paramount interest.

And, naturally, when someone reads and hears the same thing for 30 years (for
some people all their lives), they tend to take it as one of their assumptions -
"fat is bad for you".   When an entire society has the same assumptions, it is
incredibly difficult to change that point of view.   Look how difficult it has
been get ANY media person to investigate "fat is bad for you".   They
immediately take the person who claims "fat is good for you" (eg Ray or Atkins)
as the subject of their investigation !


--
Cheers,

Ken
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