Posted on 05/22/2008 2:27:21 PM PDT by blam
Way back in the early '90s when hydrogenated vegetable oil/margerine were being touted by experts and reports as being MUCH healthier for you than butter, I believed them, while my very healthy elders who had slim, healthy bodies into their 80s and 90s, p'shawed and said, "Eat food the way God made it, just do it in moderation." Except that I would have come across as a snotty little jerk, I would have said to them what you say to me: "Your 'common sense' is worthless when it comes to animal fats and cholesterol."
Then I was writing a story on a totally unrelated subject and a researcher and teacher from a university well-respected for its work in agriculture, told me that the truth about hydrogenated vegetable oil was that it was pretty bad for the body because of the kinds of molecular changes that are made in the oil to make it solid -- to mimic butter (margerine) or lard (shortening). Animal fat is the only fat that solidifies naturally. He told me that this was not news to doctors and folks in the health industry -- it was just that they had so much invested in the butter/animal fat scare, that they weren't comfortable admitting they were wrong. "Give it a few years," he said. "By the end of the decade, you'll be hearing them finally warning folks away from hydrogenated fats." HE WAS RIGHT. My elder relatives' common sense WAS RIGHT.
Yet at the time, had I mentioned it to people like you, you would have sniffed at me and accused me of being a "know-it-all" and "self-proclaimed" expert and that YOU would trust the REAL experts who, by implication, trump common sense in your book.
Don't get me wrong -- the "experts" are WELL worth hearing, but always with a grain of salt. If you don't adopt that attitude, that's your business. But please refrain from innacurately describing as self-annointed experts or know-it-alls those of us reluctant to blindly buy into "reports" prepared by "experts." We consider what the experts say but always reserve buying it wholesale because of past experiences with "experts."
I don't care that you choose a different path. What bugs me is that you're arrogant and snotty enough to publicly accuse Rides and me as claiming to be experts and acting like "know-it-alls." Anyone who reads this thread can see that we haven't done that -- all we've done is to offer up skepticism regarding the predicted death results mentioned in this news article. That you interprest our skepticism the way you do is annoying.
Yes. It is the Juan de Fuca plate.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/may/19/145slow-earthquake-reveals-new-vibrations/
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