Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Heart Foundation has me "ticked-off"!


Someone needs to make this organisation accountable! Their latest news release a few weeks ago has me and anyone knowing the truth of the matter, ticked-off. Their silly Media Release, which can be viewed on the URL http://tinyurl.com/3ajvgn3 is entitled "To Avoid Trans Fat, Avoid Butter". It seems they are all in an ill-informed tizzy because popular cooking programs, celebrity chefs and food magazines are all using butter in their recipes and butter sales are up over 9% in the past year. So this Media Release is asking Australians not to eat butter because it has trans and saturated fats and to eat margarine instead. Holy embolism! My blood pressure went right up reading this nonsense.


Those of you who have been following my Blog postings have read my post "Ancel Keyes and his Phony Fat Myth" back in April and you would now know more than this supposed scientific foundation. Their stupid advice to switch from a natural fat to a phony substitute is down right irresponsible. The public needs to know the truth about margarine. From its conception in the 1930's it has had a trans fat percentage of between 14-35% ! The Heart Foundation had given this product (which is just a few molecules away from becoming a plastic) their tick of approval for many decades despite evidence against trans fats since 1978! Their ignorance and attitude makes me believe that the Australian public's health is not in their best interest and we should start to wonder what is behind some of their marketing strategies. Perhaps it is the almighty dollar. I seem to remember McDonald's getting a tick for one of their hamburgers shortly after a $330,000 donation.

In actuality, butter has a small amount of trans fat occurring naturally and reacts in the body differently than chemically produced man-made trans fats, or the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oil. Butter also contains saturated fats but these are not the enemy; that was totally misrepresented for 50 years as the Curse of Cholesterol. Fat is important for our health but we must eat the right type -- the good fat. It's really easy. All fats from nature, like nuts, seeds, avocado, olives, eggs, butter, coconut and anything extracted from these foods in a healthy way is good fat. A bad fat is a fat that has been manipulated, changed and contorted in some way in a chemical laboratory.


The Heart Foundation tick of approval adorns foods that aren't even foods, but rather a bunch of chemicals disguised as food but as long as they are low fat, low salt, high fibre, low calorie they get that tick. Just check out the ingredients (not the nutrition label) on the following and see if you really think they are good for your health. Kellogg's Just Right, ProActive margarine, Healthy Choice Meals, Farmers Own Milk, Diet Yoghurts and Birds Eye Chicken & Vegie Patties, just to name a few.


The Way I See It....we need to move away from the old Margarine-is-Better argument and eat real food! With new evidence over the past 7 years steering away from the links between cholesterol and saturated fat and more towards other factors then I think that the Heart Foundation needs to smarten up, jettison 50 years of Junk Science and let the public know or it's reputation will be totally discredited.

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