I manned (wommaned?) a table for three hours, last saturday, at the American
Heart Association Heart Walk.  I was telling people about Piedmontese Beef:
The healthy beef to eat.  (I was helping a friend who raised Piedmontese
beef, a cross breed, part of which comes from Piedmontese steer which
originally came from the Piedmontese region of Italy).  This type of beef is
lower in total fat, cholesterol, calories, and saturated fat compared to
conventional beef... and my friend rasises the cattle (in Northwest Ohio)
without growth hormones.

Anyway, I  had brochures, articles about the beef, and a board with color
photos of meals I'd made and my husband and I had eaten using this beef.
The pictures of plates of food contained a lot of colorful non-starchy
vegetables with the meat.  I also had two pictures of conventional feedlot
beef and the Pidemontese beef (which is fed grain at the end.... but is
still leaner and more muscular than supermarket beef).  There were a fair #
of people who seemed pleased to say that they didn't eat meat (most of them
were not trim, by the way; they were at least several sizes larger than I
and admitted to not eating as many vegetables as they should either....)

Most of the people (who worked for hospitals, cardiac units, fire and resuce
depts, etc), most of the folks manning booths on the evils of cholesterol,
the benefits of having lots of these tests done (by the hospitals in town,)
and most of the visitors were significantly overfat.  Two ladies manning a
booth for TOPS (take off pounds sensibly) were OBESE!  I don't think they
were walking advertisements for whatever program that was!!!

They gave out free food at the event---apples and bananas (great choice!!),
white flour bagels (ugh!) and CHERRIOS (sponsorship is everything!!),
candies at one booth (on cholesterol evils and blood lips) and some
refeined, packaged, white little crackers that looked like what I got many,
many years ago with fish chowder in restaurants.

A nurse from one of the hospitals asked me some qustions.  When I told her I
teach cooking classes, she asked if they'd be suitable for stage II heart
patients on the American Heart Assoc.  diet. Turns out they encourage the
use of canola oil and DISCOURAGE the use of olive oil.... get this---because
olive oil contains saturated fat and canola oil doesn't, and the heart
patients are only allowed 15 grams of sat. fat per day which is easily used
up.  Can you believe it???  They are down on olive oil because of that????
I told her I don't use canola oil, that is highly reactive, unstable,
oxidizes easily etc. due to its high polyunstarate content, etc.  I told her
I use olive oil and coconut butter..... (maybe I blew her circuits, polite
as I was)....

My husband said I should have replied (to those who said they didn't eat
meat and were overfat), by telling them how much fish, fowl, and meat I eat
per day!  It was an eye opening event for me, but not in the way its
creators had hoped!  I saw very few healthy looking people there.

Rachel