I caught the end of a report on NPR (*sigh* Why do I listen to it?). It was an interview with a nutritionist at NYU about the revision of the food pyramid. She conceded that the designers of the pyramid made a mistake in being obssessed with fat. But then she went on to say that the real issue is calories. Grrrrr!

She then praised brown rice and other complex carbs. She added that she hoped the pyramid won't change too much. Her proposal is that it be redesigned to show someone running up the pyramid to indicate the value of exercise.

Same old thing.

Sheldon

Sheldon, it gets worse. What you heard was the end of a segment, the first part was about a report on the food pyramid for Harvard University. They said the food pyramid was bad, but their solution wasa "unrefined " carbs and a vegetable diet with the standard "good" fats. It should be avaliable on www.npr.org by tomorrow.

When will they understand that saturated fat is good fat?! (And that it is not a big component even of red meat?)


Sheldon

To clarify what I said above, read this:

"[C]onsider a steak--to be precise, a porterhouse, select cut, with a half-centimeter layer of fat, the nutritional constituents of which can be found in the Nutrient Database for Standard Reference at the USDA Web site. After broiling, this porterhouse reduces to a serving of almost equal parts fat and protein. Fifty-one percent of the fat is monounsaturated, of which virtually all (90%) is oleic acid, the same healthy fat that's in olive oil. Saturated fat constitutes 45% of the total fat, but a third of that is stearic acid, which is, at the very least, harmless. The remaining 4% of the fat is polyunsaturated, which also improves cholesterol levels. In sum, well over half--and perhaps as much as 70%--of the fat content of a porterhouse will improve cholesterol levels compared to what they would be if bread, potatoes, or pasta were consumed instead. The remaining 30% will raise LDL but will also raise HDL. All of this suggests that eating a porterhouse steak rather than carbohydrates might actually improve heart disease risk, although no nutritional authority who hasn't written a high-fat diet book will say this publicly.

Gary Taubes, "The Soft Science of Dietary Fat."