Joanna Blythman’s “What To Eat”

If someone in the Government says “all scientists agree” you can be sure of two things. First, that all scientists don’t agree – there will be some holding out against the official line – and secondly that sooner or later the orthodoxy will be overturned. For years officialdom has been saying that we should eat less saturated fat because it causes heart attacks. The evidence for this was shaky in the first place and has now been disproved, following a number of studies both here and in the States.

​The very least that the public can expect from those who have misled us so badly for so long is an apology, but not surprisingly we are still waiting, and in fact those in charge are rather hesitant about even admitting the truth. But the facts are being acknowledged, and celebrated, by nutritionists and food writers, not least by the wonderful Joanna Blythman.

 In her new book, “What to Eat” she does her best to rehabilitate what she calls the “big bad bogeyman” of saturated fat. This is what she says:
“Increasingly, the health benefits of natural saturated fat are being acknowledged. Saturated fats are key components of cell membranes and essential for the production of certain hormones. They act as carriers for important vitamins, and are needed for mineral absorption and lots of other biological processes. The ‘saturated fat is bad for you’ gospel is likely to melt away in coming years.”

She also rehabilitates that other big bad bogeyman, cholesterol:
“Likewise, while we were once told authoritatively that foods that naturally contain cholesterol, such as eggs and whole, full-fat milk, were bad for the heart, this nutritional script is being hastily rewritten to concede that the cholesterol we eat in food does not lead to heart disease and acknowledge that some dietary cholesterol is actually essential for maintaining health.”
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I’d recommend ‘What to Eat’ to anyone, except, perhaps, those who’ve been suffering on a low fat, low cholesterol, diet and whose raised blood pressure might just go through the roof when they read that they’ve given up all those lovely foods for no good reason at all.