Found myself in a friend's kitchen the other day and checking out her bookshelf. My eye wandered to a "heart healthy" cookbook recently published by the Cleveland Clinic, which is in the (very lucrative) business of plumbing and re-plumbing people with cardiovascular disease.
Per usual, there was the expected demonization of red meat and saturated fat. Went home and decided to order a side of grass-fed beef from my local farmer.
There's a world of difference between grass-fed, pastured beef and the stuff you buy in the supermarket. The former is, in fact, heart-healthy; the latter is not.
So why doesn't an outfit with the clout and resources of the Cleveland Clinic make any effort to make this distinction? Especially when putting people on a low fat diet will still give them heart trouble.
I guess this is the problem with healthcare in America. It's just business - as usual.
The dirty little secret about our healthcare system is how heavily subsidized it is. You know darn well that most of those people going to the Cleveland Clinic for their fancy and expensive heart work are having some third party (ultimately that's us) pay for it.
So why bother to delve into the science of the matter at the risk of seeing such a profitable gig come to a possible stop? What amounts to good economics for the Cleveland Clinic is, sadly, founded on bad science.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Truth About Obesity
It was hot yesterday. Found myself driving home from Mass. to Maine late in the day. Stopped at a rest stop on the Maine Turnpike. Walking in, I passed an obese mother with her son - maybe 5 or 6. He was already obese. What are his chances in life.?
Walking out, I passed a morbidly obese man laboring just to walk. He looked at me with sad recognition - "I know I'm fat, and I don't know what the hell to do about it."
A smart guy I know told me years ago that "inside every fat person there's a thin person struggling to get out." I believe this.
In our culture we judge the obese because it absolves us of any responsibility. These people, we tell ourselves, are slothful and self-indulgent. All they need to do is stop eating so much and start working out.
Wrong.
The true culprits are as follows. 1.) A food industry whose chief interest is profit - hence an endless flood of cheap carbs and adulterated fats - in short a horrible diet. 2.) A government whose bogus food pyramid reinforces this horrible diet. 3.) An indifferent and greedy medical/ scientific establishment. 4.) A zombie public whose main interests are cheap food and convenience.
Some day the truth will come out. High quality fats from pastured animals and fresh vegetables from local farms is pretty much all we need to live, and thrive, on. Until then, we'll just keep sickening and killing off our people, one person at a time, one day at a time. In the meantime, we drive the country into bankruptcy and permanent second class status.
Walking out, I passed a morbidly obese man laboring just to walk. He looked at me with sad recognition - "I know I'm fat, and I don't know what the hell to do about it."
A smart guy I know told me years ago that "inside every fat person there's a thin person struggling to get out." I believe this.
In our culture we judge the obese because it absolves us of any responsibility. These people, we tell ourselves, are slothful and self-indulgent. All they need to do is stop eating so much and start working out.
Wrong.
The true culprits are as follows. 1.) A food industry whose chief interest is profit - hence an endless flood of cheap carbs and adulterated fats - in short a horrible diet. 2.) A government whose bogus food pyramid reinforces this horrible diet. 3.) An indifferent and greedy medical/ scientific establishment. 4.) A zombie public whose main interests are cheap food and convenience.
Some day the truth will come out. High quality fats from pastured animals and fresh vegetables from local farms is pretty much all we need to live, and thrive, on. Until then, we'll just keep sickening and killing off our people, one person at a time, one day at a time. In the meantime, we drive the country into bankruptcy and permanent second class status.
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