For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?
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We also eat very healthy in general as a family. Lots of pasta with clam sauce, red sauce, alfredo sauce. Lots of vegetables. Avocados. Clementines.
And we all lead healthy lifestyles in regards to exercise. Lots of musical instruments being played, hiking, canoeing, walking, and biking.
So, I'm not sure what my comment is here really, but the moral of the story seems to be for me: If you eat healthy foods (and don't eat too many processed items), and if you partake in healthy activities, you'll probably end up pretty healthy.
How much of it is genes? I have no idea.
"X seems particularly common in family" does not imply "X is genetic".
Its environmental, but one of the key environments for transferring them is mother-to-child, particularly at birth.
A lot of things that are environmental rather than genetic are shaped particularly strongly by the early (prenatal, perinatal, or early childhood) environment, which can confound efforts to intuit the degree to which a feature is genetic vs. environmental based on unstructured observations of the degree to which it seems to be associated with families.
If I'm wrong here I have a lot of scientists who would like to examine your family.
There are certainly fully matured people who can eat more than other fully matured people who are the same size and weight, but the amount they can eat more is like a cookie a day maybe.
And, I don't mean to detract away from what you're saying. Eating a healthy balanced diet is the most important way to prevent heart disease.
a) As you mentioned, smoking is a huge confounder in your example
b) A lot of congenital heart disease is not preventable via dietary intervention. For people who do require dietary intervention it's going to depend on the disease. For a small portion of people, for instance, eating low cholesterol is important, but the vast majority it makes no difference. For these people eating low cholesterol is the biggest difference, not a generally balanced diet.
c) There is a ton of science showing massive improvements in heart disease outcomes from losing weight.
I'm not saying eating a balanced diet doesn't matter, but for most people actually being a healthy weight is the most important thing, and for many others the dietary intervention is pretty specific, ie: not low cholesterol not "eat a balanced diet."
I'd urge you to change your frame of reference from "certain foods are healthy or not" to "certain foods are optimal for certain scenarios." Pasta in clam sauce is a pretty calorically dense food, and while there is nothing toxic about it, it's difficult to argue that many people need another calorically dense food, especially one that is low in protein.
This is not to say carbs and fat are bad, but that for the vast majority of Americans they need to reduce carbs and fat and increase protein to move towards a healthy diet.
Relevant the op, and your point about milk being high protein, milk could be a way for this to happen.
The majority of Americans consume more than the recommended daily intake of protein, the source of which is mostly red meat, which is arguably a less healthy diet. I do agree that the average American consume to many carbs, and again, from sub-optimal sources. What need to happen is an increase in fruits and vegetables which most American are sorely deficient in.
The red meat stuff is controversial. From everything I've read, including the China Study, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of red meat in an otherwise healthy diet is probably fine. Who knows though. There definitely isn't clear science there.
I totally agree that in general vegetable intake needs to increase. Fruits are ok, but not great because of the fructose. I don't really think fruits are a necessary part of a healthy diet, but they certainly can be.
What I find more ridiculous though is how the food industry sells Whey, Casein and Cheese separately at up-marked prices and people have bought into the idea that it's ok to consume these milk by-products separately while avoiding milk.
Most schools don't even have 1% milk, but they all have chocolate milk with tons of added sugar. Great healthy choice there.
Everyone thought eggs and butter were unhealthy too. 6-11 servings of grain though! The "food pyramid" was beaten into my head repeatedly as a child, with some suspicious board of agriculture sponsored exercises too. Turns out it was total bullshit.
We feed our kids the worst garbage, at least we did from 1992-2005. A nation should want its kids to grow up big and strong. But nope, let em eat french fries and pears in heavy syrup.
The strong part? I dunno cut out recess and PE?
The 50's saw that change with widespread refrigeration and more varied diets. The standards should have changed but once instituted change comes hard.
Now the Pentagon responds to obesity by restricting school lunch calories. Misguided in my opinion; school kids are growing fast and need good calories. Restrict calories at lunch, and the kids eat junk after school to make up for it. I would much rather schools provided unrestricted salad bars etc. instead of trying to put all the kids on a diet.
The real reason? Good calories are expensive.
Pasteurization is an entirely different matter though. Heat treatment will convert some fraction of lactose into smaller sugars, including its constituent galactose and glucose[2]. This is why ultra-pasteurized can taste a bit sweeter than untreated milk. Pasteurization also inactivates lipases which would otherwise cleave the fat molecules, reducing the likelihood of rancidity[3].
1. https://books.google.com/books?id=1OhFPZ7tFz8C&pg=PA864&lpg=...
2. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6Q8mX8DsDe4C&oi=...
3. https://books.google.com/books?id=gJ6jA7LG-bsC&pg=PA276&lpg=...
I learned about lipase when I was a kid and followed my dad around at the farm. According to him it was the lipase in the homogenized whole milk that made the difference in taste that I recognized between milk from the storage tank on the farm and bought milk.
Reading up on it now it seems to be a bit more complicated but still.
I have some formal training in biology, but I'm certainly no expert and may be incorrect. What I do know is that dairy systems are complicated.
Obviously that's not a scientific study but for me it's good enough to conclude that something is different.
I should add that my observations are mainly about fresh milk from a farm. But even the ultrapasteurized milk they sell in tetra paks is better digestible for me.
*Also PSA: Europe is many different countries, not a single one like the US. So it doesn't make much sense to say "in Europe", because there are huge differences between countries ;-)
I am not talking about "H-Milch" in tetra paks :-)
The saturated v. unsaturated distinction is one that we are finally realizing is not an important to overall health. However, this has been replaced by another is the trans fat v. cis fat distinction.
The government is pushing for the removal of trans fats from foods without consideration to the fact that vaccenic acid is a trans fat that is extremely good for mammals (it's found in high quantities in breast milk, for instance) while elaidic acid is what has been linked to low HDL and heart disease.
Of course, the population as a whole is no better. They also cherry-pick things they want to be healthy with little consideration of the science behind it. So I'm not sure this is an issue that needs addressing.
The social engineering has got to stop. A free people should not be subject to the latest schemes of self-appointed masterminds. The most evident and dangerous venue for such engineering is the public schools, in which the government subjects our children to every sort of social experiment, and what have we to show for it?
Well my wife's (who's from a third-world and (formerly) most isolated country in the world) grandma (eldest of 13) explained it to me: She's always taken newborn's and placed them by the window for an hour. That'll do it!
Then I read the history of neonatal jaundice care and I was shocked to learn that light therapy for jaundice wasn't discovered until the 50s (when a doctor noticed that newborns under the care of a nurse with particular habits fared better) and widely practiced until the 70s!
+1 for folksy medicine!
Come on now.
> We can't leave it to intuitions of the masses.
Precisely the mindset of the power elite that gets us into so much trouble.
I lean toward valuing individual rights over all else, but this scenario does present a serious challenge to that worldview.
Another contributor to the problem is that people trust science a lot less today than 2 generations ago. They've seen the negative results of a lot of fraud that has been perpetuated under the banner of "science". (E.g. "scientific socialism", the food pyramid, most of psychology, etc...)
Could we be getting better at a faster rate, as a species? Most likely, but it's not like we've halted progress or something.
Totally agree. But are those improvements due to the decisions of central planners?
> What do you mean 'so much trouble'?
Things that come to mind: abysmal outcomes for many in the public school system; skyrocketing prices in healthcare; urban families almost completely destroyed by paternalistic welfare programs; massive suffering and death caused by the warfare state; shredding of the Bill of Rights by the TSA; economic calamity caused by Fed-fueled booms and busts; etc.
Look at the places with the worst outcomes and you will find the most government involvement.
Of course. That doesn't mean they are the problem. It's entirely plausible they are involved because there's a problem. In a system with honey, bees and bears, just because you often see bears involved with honey doesn't mean they are responsible for its creation.
LOL, really ? There are more and more obese people in the US, does that count as getting healthier ? What are your metrics exactly ?
As for living longer lives, that's already clearly proven most of the life expectancy gains happened since we reduced infant mortality to minimum levels, raising therefore lifetime for all individuals on average.
Exactly, that's why Freedom is to be left alone to individuals so that they can choose for themselves what best fits their lifestyle.
Governments have roles to play, but telling people what to do and not to do at a private level is certainly not one of them.
You don't think "freedom is the right to be wrong" wasn't something you were taught as a child by adults?
Or are you trying to suggest that your genetics have a role in determining what rights you have or who has power over you?
Usually governments make worse decisions than common folks - in about every area (economics, science, medicine, education). I can hardly think of any area where Governments actually did not divert funds resulting in a bad consequence.
The human body won't tell you to avoid lifelong tanning to avoid cancer in your 60s, because living to your 60s isn't all that evolutionarily important (and hell, likely made you a drain on your hunter-gatherer tribe). There's no selection pressure.
Apparently there are some arguments that having elders around was a boon for prehistoric tribes. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/24/prehistoric-m...
I don't know how much this is validated, but thought it was interesting nonetheless because it seems counter intuitive at first.
I'm somewhat doubtful of this claim. If anything scientists would have everyone avoid sunburn since skin cancer and cataracts.
Tans looking good are a recent phenomenon: A couple hundred years ago light skin was a sign of high status since you could afford to stay indoors instead of having to work in the fields, so light skin was deemed to be more beautiful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color#Social_status...
Really? This is a naturalistic fallacy. It's out precisely our instincts that cause us to overeat. As has been pointed out our instincts haven't adapted to the abundance and availability of food seen today. In an environment where food is scarce it is evolutionary advantageous to ensure your body had enough calories to make it until the next available meal. And this didn't mean picking the most nutritious food sources, we didn't have that luxury, it meant picking the most available. Only as directed by science do we now know what foods provide the most benefit or determent to our health.
Don't forget that the things that make the news have a huge selection bias.
First two to spring to mind: A dramatic drop in violent crime since the 1970s because the "self-appointed masterminds" restricted lead. A dramatic drop in road deaths because the "self-appointed masterminds" required seatbelts, airbags, and crash standards.
That regulators make mistakes, even fairly often, doesn't necessarily convince me my life would be better without them.
Your example about automobile safety devices makes the dubious assumption that manufacturers wouldn't include such technologies if not mandated by the state and that consumers wouldn't demand them. You also ignore the ridiculous amount of other required features on modern automobiles that make base models more and more expensive, hurting the lowest income levels.
There are many possible factors that went into this reduction in crime, but it's not entirely settled. For example, a substantial portion is attributable to a decrease in unwanted pregnancies [1].
1. http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUndersta...
I'm somewhat skeptical about that; while lead may be a contributor, there's fairly strong indication over a long period of time of age demographics being a key driver in crime rates, and the curve of the crime wave is fairly consistent with that, making an additional explanatory factor unnecessary.
Nature is not out to help us be healthy, despite all the books written about it. A plant would gladly poison us (many try) if it's seeds would sprout better from our dessicated corpses.
Totally not what you were saying, I get that, but I think it's always a good public service type message to spread.
Well, no, but I wouldn't eat human muscle either... but I'll eat a cow's.