Tom Toles for February 15, 2015

Actually, it has been known for a very long time that most circulating cholesterol is created in the body from saturated fats, not from ingested cholesterol.The stricter suggestions on foods high in cholesterol still apply to those with existing cardiovascular problems and some with diabetes, just as recommendations to reduce salt intake apply to those with high blood pressure that responds to it. Healthier people have more leeway but still need to use moderation to avoid problems such as those mentioned, and gallstones.In reasonable amounts a number of foods which carry precautions for others are very nutrious for most people and that is what the revisions reflect.

Democrats in Congress just proposed a Bacon Tax!Dem NYC mayor de Blasio has now put a limit of one slice of bacon max per person.Smart people knew that once Obama and co got their grubby hands on healthcare, we’d all suffer.

I think one nutritionist summed it up very well. He said all you really need to know can be summed up this way:Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

There was a time when the lower middle class were healthier than the upper class. The upper class … oh, let’s call them the upper tier, “class” carries too much baggage … indulged themselves, while people in lower tiers bought locally, kept gardens, ate at home, and got more exercise (called “work” in those days). They had little choice, they could not afford restaurants.Now it is reversed. Better off people go to the gym, don’t smoke, shop at Whole Foods, concern themselves with nutrition, take cooking classes, etc., while people lower down the scale rely on prepackaged convenience foods, have no access to fresh vegetables and fruit, or find them too expensive and too much trouble when all the adults in the family are working, even working at multiple jobs. Kids grow up on high-sugar diets and snack foods. Malnutrition is rife in places where people don’t go hungry, but eat crap because we have discovered how to make crap tasty (add sugar or salt) and cheap. What is best to eat is pretty clear, and hasn’t changed much in decade. The details, and the fads, change. We do gradually get wiser, and learn more about how complex the body is.

Thanks, Doughfoot, for your last comment. It’s just too easy for the fat between the ears to blame government for their problems instead of taking responsibility.

As incompetent as the government is and dummies from both parties still want government to do more “for us and for the children”. Government is inherently corrupt so the only way to reduce corruption is to reduce the size of government, I’m paraphrasing Lew Rockwell here.

I wouldn’t blame it on the government. Most of these fads go viral among the populace. They all think there is a magic formula that will let them live forever. It is helped along by the “news” media who report on every study of five people that produce unexpected results. The Autism study in England was done on 15 subjects and was fraudulent but it got wide distribution as “news” and led to almost eradicated measles becoming epidemic again. We have met the enemy and they are us.

It’s been known for decades that dietary cholesterol is not an issue for most people. This is way too complex for a comment board, but the liver makes and recycles cholesterol as part of it’s essential function. Dietary cholesterol is assessed and bodily production adjusted accordingly. Cholesterol is necessary for a myriad of functions, by the way. Eggs have ALWAYS been one of the most nutritious foods. That’s never changed. While nutrition is an emotional topic closely associated with our earliest memories and daily anxieties, it’s really pretty simple. Start with the evolutionary evidence. We are omnivores, behave accordingly. Avoid processed food. Minimize sugar, grain, and industrial fats (corn oil, safflower oil, canola oil, etc.). Eat good fats (olive oil, coconut oil, and butter from grass-fed cows). Cook at home. Make sure you have a good balance of the essential macro and micro nutrients, including carbohydrates. Eat fresh food. Stay away from pesticides. There’s lots more, but those are the essentials. Oh, and the only 100%proven way to extend your life by applying nutritional information to your lifestyle is to fast intermittently. Less food means longer life for every organism ever observed.

You can feed it to the dogs. It’s just that the dogs won’t eat it.

Doughfoot, good comments.

Cerabooge, the proportions of fat types matter. Fat that is very unsaturated (polyunsaturated) carries certain risks in studies, especially w unbalanced diets, hense the problems you mention. Highly saturated fats like animal fats carry others, including that that body uses them to build the nastier cholesterol that circulates in blood. Now, Cholesterol is not all nasty. Even the one you want to keep down in safe regions serves purposes including helping with nerve health. It is a matter of degree. You wNt enough, but most people in industrialized nations have too much. You have too much and it will collect in plaques in places where bends, irregularities, protrusions, or flow problems exist in your blood vessels. Those accumulations reduce the flow through those vessels and problems spiral. When things become too messed up at those locations pieces of the plaque can break off and go somewhere where they cause even worse problems like strokes if carried to the brain or heart attacks if carried to the heart or too close to it.Those dietary saturated fats and the resultant cholesterol in too high are also the bases of gallstones.The safest fats are monosaturated fats like olive oil and peanut oil. Just replace a decent bit of your use of butter with some of the more flavorful monosaturated oils. For example, a first press of a good olive oil, even when not combined with anything is glorious for bread dipping. Add minced garlic and parsley and it is even better. Also, use ways to reduce the fats in the meats you eat, mammal especially though it makes sense w poultry, too, and your body will thank you. Even trimming it off helps, and when you make your own broth cool it for a day and skim off the risen fat.While i have not seen the finalized version yet the bit that has been announced sounds like they are trying to get across that for most people a balanced diet which does not go overboard on normally healthy food is best for most people. In doing so they are reflecting the current information. More IS learned over time. If that was not true most people still woukd die before the age of 40. Remember, the older guidelines still are what are used with some pre-existing health problems.

Why is it that so-called “conservatives” consider labelling what is IN food to be a business strangling regulation?-Remember how the meat packing industry fought like hell to keep from having to show the actual bacon inside the package? The concealment continues to this day. And the so-called “conservatives” think it’s just swell.

Our TEETH tell us we’re supposed to eat a balanced diet from multiple sources, and our feet say we’re supposed to use them and get a reasonable amount of exercise regularly to keep the body above them healthy.

Food fads are driven by the media and “industry”-corporate and political. Behind that media are food industry giants, and that pharmaceutical “friend” that will sell you statins at high prices, that can kill you, to reduce cholesterol, or blood glucose reducers at high prices, that can kill you, to control your pancreas. Don’t need to go to Viagara, rice crispies, V8, or McDonalds ads to see diversity in action.

It never ceases to amaze me how people w the sense to use electricians for electrical advice, mechanics for auto advice, etc. fail to realize that their junior high or high school intro to intro biology (That is not redundant in this application.) does not prepare them to very much understand sciences, just to better understand what experts note so that they can themselves then learn more. The same people realize that automotive advances and changes happen so read up on the topic and respect mechanics, yet for some reason fail to understand that medical and biological studies are constantly introducing new information. Some areas of medicine are still intheir toddlerhoods such as endocrinology, others in their infancy such as biome work and nutritional oncology. Nutrition and obesity studies are both still areas that coukd be termed as being in either their infancies or toddlerhoods. Both stalled for some time due to widely held and incorrect preconceptions and therefore lack of funding. Progress is a good thing except for people who are afraid of learning or of change, or who can not separate fad resources from rigorous work.

Dtroutma, fine comments. Few people realize that the majority of us have grinding molarform molars and premolars (though our premolars are only partly molarform in the chewing surfaces), and slicing incisorform canines and incisors well suited to veggies and fruits. (A few people have good displaying canines.)

Canines and most other animals in Carnivora have specialized molars and first molars w slicing edges to cut meat. These are called carnassials and speak to a long ancestry of meat eatting.

Well, congrats Tom, you finally drew a funny one.

Dietary guideline of (not so) common sense: Everything in moderation. If you’re allergic to it, avoid it.Exercise guideline of (not so) common sense: get your @$$ off the couch once in a while and go do something useful. While your at it, make your kids go outside and play.

“And one might wonder why I always question mommy government. now go eat all this that is “good for you” and you end up with Miss Obama’s school lunches I would not feed to my dog. Where inmates get fed better then the kids.”Right. It’s better to let the schools feed kids the same cut-rate, low-grade industrial processed generic salty breaded meat patties I was fed in school. You could not tell the difference between the breaded chicken patty and the breaded pork patties. God forbid you force your kid to eat a f—king carrot now and then.

No need to make a political thing of this cartoon. I have said many times that George Carlin had it right about 40 years ago.: “Scientists announced today that saliva is hazardous to your health. ………………………………… But only when taken in small doses over long periods of time.”

“Our brain is made up of fat”Do you mean yours and @ConserveGov?

I remember in Reagan’s day when ketchup was ruled to be a “vegetable” when it formed part of a school lunch.

I’ve not heard of any school that provides only ONE meal. “Choice” is the big thing in school cafeterias these days, but trying to provide something that is both healthy and palatable to kids who think everything worth eating is salty or sweet while keeping the cost down to what parents can afford … not easy. Brown bagging it is a good idea, but the same problem prevails at home. How often have I heard parents say, "I want them to eat healthy, but all they want is … " And then there are all those kids whose only access at home to fresh fruits and vegetables is what they happen to carry in “mart” attached to the gas station.

Sunny side up??