Here is a copy of a point in a post to the paleo symposium that may not
have been read by people on this list. It is a contentious point that has
been touch on here before. The post was done by Enig and Fallon, who are
respected as experts in dietary fat. I think this has important
implications, because if this is true it opens up a whole new safe dietary
option. Soft,ripe Brie cheese(or any cheese for that matter) would not be
unwelcome on my table. It is a convenient,rich source of fat and calcium
and is a great snack. BTW. Atkins does not limit cheese unless a person
obviously has problems with it eg. allergies. Atkins is probably the only
physician with more than 25 years of clinical experience with this and low
carb eating. He may have a point. The entire post by Enig and Fallon is
worth reading.

Gary


<We cannot
understand how dairy products per se can be blamed for the CHD epidemic.
 Counter examples include France (low CHD, high consumption of butter and
cheese); Soviet Georgia (famed for longevity, high consumption of whole
milk
products); the Masai (high consumption of whole milk products, no CHD);
Switzerland and Austria (life span almost as long as Japan, diet rich in
butterfat and whole milk products) and America at the turn of the century
(diet loaded with butterfat and whole milk products, very little CHD.)
If
CHD is associated with milk consumption within individual countries, the
finger must be pointed at modern production methods (inappropriate feed for
the cows, cows bred to have a low butterfat content) processing
(pasteurization, homogenization) and additives (powdered skim milk
containin=
g
oxidized cholesterol and synthetic vitamin D2 or D3.  Synthetic D2 has been
very conclusively shown to cause calcification of the soft tissues
including
the arteries, and large amounts of synthetic D3, which has largely replaced
D2  as an additive to milk, have been implicated as a causative factor in
th=
e
initiation of pathogenic lesion development in the arteries. (8)  The N6-N3
ratio of the small amounts of PUFAs in bovine milk fat is excellent--about
2/1--whereas total N6/N3 in the modern diet exceeds 20/1.  So once again,
while we agree that high levels of N6 in the diet are a problem, the source
of excess N6 is not butterfat.  Dietary saturated fats  contribute to
improved assimilation of EFAs. (9)  In other words, we need less of the
EFAs
when there are enough SFAs in the diet.  Magnesium does seem to protect
against CHD.  The fault lies not with high levels of calcium from milk
products, but with the deficiency of magnesium in modern diets.  Weston
Pric=
e
found that the diets of healthy primitives contained ten times the amo=
unt
of calcium as the American diet of his day. (1)   Sources of magnesium
include nuts, meat and grains such as buckwheat.>