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(Vanity) Confessions of a Crunchy Con II, or, I Left My Heart in Cans of Crisco
grey_whiskers ^ | 10-05-2006 | grey_whiskers

Posted on 10/05/2006 11:41:11 PM PDT by grey_whiskers

As you may recall, in my last vanity, ”Confessions of a Crunchy Con, or, You Can't Judge a Conservative by his Birkenstocks”, I discussed how I became a “crunchy con”—someone who endorses certain cultural and lifestyle values which have traditionally been associated with the left. In this piece, I follow up with some thoughts about health and lifestyle issues, with application to American society at large.

Taking fish oil supplements, despite my misgivings, and finding how successful it was at rejuvenating me, was a real eye-opener. In fact, it got me thinking not just of my own health, but the health of the American population as a whole. Sure, we’re all getting older; and the aging of the boomers is forecast to do many things to our health care system. But I am talking not of the inevitable changes that come with turning grey: but of eminently preventable changes which we have come to accept as part of the aging process.

Look at the general state of health of the US population. Not only is the population getting older, it is getting fatter, more out of shape, more prone to heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, and to other diseases which arise from these conditions. Consider all of the adds for Viagra and its competitors. Did you know that erectile dysfunction is commonly found among diabetics and heart patients? It’s a classic symptom of general poor circulation. The common dismissal of this circumstance is that these types of things are all “diseases of aging” – that since most people at the turn of the century died (say) in their 50’s (due to poorer health care in general, higher rates of infectious diseases, etc.), the onslaught of degenerative disease is inevitable.(*)

So what has changed since the good old days? Both our knowledge, and our waistlines. But not all of our knowledge was for the better—in fact, I think a great deal of the waistline problem is due to misguided or incomplete knowledge. “It ain’t what you know, it’s what you know that just ain’t so” as the saying states. One of the most significant things to happen since I was young was the increasing concern with cardiovascular disease. The garden variety advice has included the following:

-- cut down on fats, especially animal fats.
--substitute “healthy” margarine for butter.
--the food pyramid with its emphasis on grains and pasta

A lot of this got started back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, due to the idea that saturated fats should be restricted—and the hunt was on for substitutes. Enter partially hydrogenated vegetable oils; enter margarine; and enter “fat-free” or “low-fat foods” such as bagels and (oh boy!) vitamin-fortified breakfast cereals. But somehow, reliance on these items has not seemed to improve aggregate health. Why, what could have gone wrong?

The answer, I believe, is that the answer was only *partially* correct. It is true that diet affects one’s heart, but not in the way originally thought. As it turns out, more recent discoveries about insulin, glucagon, eicosanoids, and leptin are showing that the very foods proposed as “remedies” to overweight and poor cardiovascular health have actually been contributing to the problem. But by the time the medical consensus began to pull its fingers out of its collective ears, revisit the earlier studies, and reconsider, the damage had been done. In particular, I think that a lot of savvy businessmen took advantage of the good intentions of the medical community, by touting these foods as “heart healthy.” But then something else happened. Somewhere, the “bean counters” got involved, and noticed that many of the items which were being sold as “heart healthy” were not only cheaper than the original, non-processed alternatives (leading to a higher profit margin); but they had longer shelf lives as well!

There is a certain irony here—many of the very items which were originally touted as being part of the first line of defense against disease, turned out to contribute in large part to what they were supposed to prevent. While making two groups of people a load of money. Did I say two? Yes, that’s right. Not only did the original food marketers make out like bandits, but once the long-term effects of the “heart healthy” diet kicked in, suddenly Americans developed the need for numerous medicines for everything from high blood pressure to cholesterol – making the pharmaceutical industry a lot of money. (Ironically, one detractor against the so-called “sensible diet” was the Harvard cardiologist, Paul Dudley White. Since Dr. White had acted as President Eisenhower’s personal physician, and Eisenhower coined the term “military-industrial complex,” I am going to borrow his term and refer to the “agricultural-pharmaceutical complex.” One of the things that makes me so suspicious in this area is the immense amount of government regulation behind food and drugs. You know, the FDA. I’m not a conspiracy nut, but I *do* know better than to blindly trust some bureaucrat just because he says, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”) I think that the problem is caused by the big, multinational corporations—to quote Alec Baldwin from Team America: World Police:

” And then Team America goes out, and the corporations sit their in their corporation buildings and see.. they're all corporationy.. and they make money.”

Now that I’ve convinced everyone that I’m an commie granola-munching eco-freak, I’m going to let the other shoe drop. Imelda Marcos, take warning! I don’t think the problem is that corporations are bad, or that we should all join a commune or a family farm. I think the problem is an unintended side effect of the corporations' success, and of a perversion of America’s great spirit of free entreprise and entrepreneurialism. And so the solution can come from us as well.

What do I mean? Hang on for Part III of the thread, where I take us from Adam Smith’s “hidden hand” all the way to “Hidden Valley Ranch” salad dressing, with a bit of free-market libertarianism on the side.

(*) I beg to differ. Looking at a variety of sources, one finds that the incidence of diabetes and heart disease was much smaller in the past. How do I know this? Because all of the health websites are now decrying an “explosion” in diabetes rates—they are going up. For example, according to the American Heart Association,
“In the United States, 2.6% of adults aged 45 years and older had been diagnosed with diabetes in 1960; by 1990, this proportion had risen to 7.0%. These trends may be attributed to marked increases in obesity and physical inactivity, which are major risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Obesity has become epidemic in the United States. In 1960, 13% of US adults were obese (body mass index >30 kg/m2); this rate had risen to 27% in 1999”

And of course, we all know about the rates of heart attacks. For example, the late Robert Atkins (of Atkins Diet fame) quotes the US Census as saying that there were less than 3,000 heart attacks in the United States in 1930. Compare that to the estimated 1.1 million people with a “coronary heart disease” – related event in the year 2001 (according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Yikes! But if we got into this mess, we can get out of it again. Stay tuned.

By the way, while researching this article I came across an interesting link called The Townsend Letter. I don’t know if it a nutcase website, or quack, or reasonable—but it did contain some interesting information about diet and heart disease, particularly the studies on fat intake and heart disease. As usual, the opinions are my own and are subject to change without notice. If you want Medical AdviceTM, you should see your doctor, or at least write him a check…


TOPICS: Agriculture; Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Conspiracy; Education; Food; Health/Medicine; History; Hobbies; Humor; Miscellaneous; Reference; Science; Society; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: agribusiness; bigpharma; cardiovascular; crunchycon; fat; greywhiskers; health; nationalreview; vanity; wellness; whiskersvanity
Part III coming this weekend.

No, I'm not giving away the title.

Cheers!

1 posted on 10/05/2006 11:41:13 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: don-o; SuziQ; Welsh Rabbit; Tax-chick; NutCrackerBoy; alwaysconservative; Talking_Mouse; ...
You guys were kind enough to read and reply to my previous post (as always, suitable for printing out and lining bird cages).

...and if I missed anyone, I'm sorry. It's past my bedtime...

Courtesy PING!

Cheers!

2 posted on 10/05/2006 11:48:10 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: grey_whiskers

Thanks - will look at it as time permits. Big story in NC this morning, industrial fire.


3 posted on 10/06/2006 3:37:09 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I was shouting at my Voices. I'm sorry I scared you.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Thanks for the ping! Many of my earlier opinions were formulated after reading "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" (I don't remember the author), which gave me a healthy (pun intended) skepticism of all things medical. Dr. Andrew Weil is the current inheritor of that kind of legacy. He opines that traditional, or allopathic, medicine is great for trauma intervention, such as broken bones or accidents, but that it stinks with respect to chronic or long-term treatments, such as chronic pain. And the recurrent theme is that WE have to be responsible for our own health care decisions, after being informed about all the options.

I never have been much of a believer of the "better living through chemistry" approach to pill-taking. Instead, healthy eating (no fake fats or fat-reduced food of any kind, and I personally eat no meat) and regular exercise are "a must". And to underscore my tag, a cheerful and optimistic attitude is essential. (I wonder whether Republicans, a more cheerful lot overall, are generally more healthy than Democrats. Hmmmmm.) But the point is that it is MY responsibility to oversee my health decisions, and not the gummit's.

(Climbing down off soapbox now, LOL!)


4 posted on 10/06/2006 5:09:03 AM PDT by alwaysconservative (A cheerful heart is good medicine.)
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To: grey_whiskers

I stopped using margarine and tried to avoid using hydrogenated anything -- I'm interested in reading your next article.


5 posted on 10/06/2006 6:03:58 AM PDT by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch (good fences make good neighbors!)
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To: Tax-chick
The fire was going on last night, started around 11:00 PM my time...?

(At least that's when I first saw the thread.)

Apparently a major leak of chlorine gas, nothing to mess around with...

Prayers up!

6 posted on 10/06/2006 6:18:04 AM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: grey_whiskers

Yes, I saw the live thread this morning. We have FReepers on the spot, of course!


7 posted on 10/06/2006 6:22:24 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I was shouting at my Voices. I'm sorry I scared you.)
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To: grey_whiskers
The change in diet to the one heavy in carbs and hydrogenated fats was one part of the equation. The other is clearly our much more sedentary lifestyle. Up until the 1960's most folks engaged in manual labor, and that required a lot of calories to maintain, so folks stayed slim, their circulation was good, and they rarely had problems with diabetes or heart disease.

When folks began working in offices more, they moved around a lot less. When folks had to start traveling longer distances to work, that left less time in the evenings for activity. Most times, the man of the house would come home and just sit while the wife was preparing and serving dinner. Not making a gender offensive statement here, just the facts. There were exceptions, of course, some men still did some manual labor in the evenings. Many nights, my Dad would come home from his regular job, sit for an hour or two, reading the paper or watching the news, then get up from the supper table and go out into his shop and spend the rest of the evening building cabinets for a customer. Even then, he dropped dead of something at the age of 64; don't know if it was a congenital heart condition or not, my older brother died of a heart attack this summer at the age of 66.

Women have not been immune from this. Women used to stay slimmer by doing work around the house without modern conveniences like washers and dryers, dishwashers, central vacuums, etc. It took a lot more motion and activity to do the work. The more women moved into the realm of office work, the more they didn't move around a lot during the day, but they still continued to eat as much as they did before, so they started gaining weight, and it's HARD to get off, once it's there.

8 posted on 10/06/2006 7:16:30 AM PDT by SuziQ
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To: grey_whiskers

That was informative, thanks.


9 posted on 10/06/2006 7:22:21 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I was shouting at my Voices. I'm sorry I scared you.)
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To: grey_whiskers
Thanks, GW!
substitute "healthy" margarine for butter
Amazing (or not) that the push for hydrogenated oils used for margarines led to a backlash; I've even seen lard recommended over vegetable oils for deep frying (not that deep-frying is necessarily a great idea to begin with). I'm a food ho, in that I'll eat pretty much whatever's put before me, but I way prefer butter, and prefer lard in pie crusts.
No, I'm not giving away the title.
LOL!
10 posted on 10/06/2006 10:10:27 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (If I had a nut allergy, I'd be outta here. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv

I took a baking class a few years ago, and the teacher used lard for pie crusts and many of her breads and rolls (and oh, were they delicious!). I don't use lard, but I refuse to use anything other than butter or real oils in my cooking or baking.


11 posted on 10/06/2006 6:27:32 PM PDT by alwaysconservative (A cheerful heart is good medicine.)
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To: alwaysconservative

For one thing, they're so much more filling than the imaginary ones. ;')

[rimshot!]


12 posted on 10/06/2006 6:38:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (If I had a nut allergy, I'd be outta here. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: grey_whiskers
Well done!

If I can just list out the knee-jerk responses that often appear on threads that dare suggest there's a diet-health connection:

1) We're all going to die of something anyway, so why bother?

2) We only have these diseases because we're living longer.

3) All our ancestors died at age 40 - so quit yer complaining.

4) Bah, that's all just quackery. My doctor said so. So does Snopes and QuackWatch.

might be inspiration for future crunchy articles.

13 posted on 10/06/2006 7:00:40 PM PDT by Lil'freeper (You do not have the plug-in required to view this tagline.)
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To: SunkenCiv

LOL! I meant olive oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil, or macademia nut oil, instead of those sprays that contain other junk.


14 posted on 10/06/2006 7:11:59 PM PDT by alwaysconservative (A cheerful heart is good medicine.)
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To: alwaysconservative

Safflower?


15 posted on 10/06/2006 10:20:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (If I had a nut allergy, I'd be outta here. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: grey_whiskers
Alas.
16 posted on 10/07/2006 3:30:05 PM PDT by Lil'freeper (You do not have the plug-in required to view this tagline.)
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To: Lil'freeper
I had just finished reading that thread, and was pondering whether it would look egotistical to link to it on my thread...

Thanks for taking the decision out of my hands ;-)

Cheers!

17 posted on 10/07/2006 3:55:45 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: SunkenCiv
Safflower?

I have a jar of safflower-oil based mayonnaise in the pantry as I type...

Cheers!

18 posted on 10/08/2006 6:26:34 AM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: grey_whiskers

Keep writing and I'll keep reading.... Thanks for the ping.


19 posted on 10/09/2006 6:06:30 AM PDT by Vor Lady
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