SS and healthy eating: Why avoid powdered milk?

[DrakeMaiden]

PUFAs? Pastured Unfenced Farm Animals?

Not sure if you were being sarcastic or just unsure of what PUFAs are . . . but to clarify PUFA is Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acid (highly unsaturated fats, such as certain vegetable fats).

 

[me&thegals]

No, no! Not sarcastic, just silly I finally learned what CAFOs are, so I thought maybe PUFA was the opposite!

Reinbeau, I've heard that also about omega-6. My BIL works in a lab and tested our pastured hens' eggs last summer. I was thrilled to see really high levels of omega-3s instead of 6s. It basically followed the results of Mother Earth News pastured eggs reports.

 

[Wifezilla]

PUFAs? Pastured Unfenced Farm Animals?

I guess we have good PUFAs and Bad PUFAs...I was talking about the bad PUFAs

Now...for some linkage. First, the China Study...

"The China Study report lists only 6 statistically significant correlations between meat-eating and disease mortality. Further, 4 of the correlations are negative, which indicates that the mortality rate for that disease decreased as meat consumption increased. The two diseases that had positive correlations with meat consumption are schistosomiasis, a parasite, and pneumoconiosis and dust disease.

Thus, the direct evidence of the study is hardly the condemnation of meat consumption that veg*n dietary advocates may claim it to be. It should be noted here that correlation is a measure only of linear relationships, and other analytical methods may yield different results. Despite the possibility of the existence of more complicated statistical relationships, it seems quite odd, given the interpretations of the study made by veg*n dietary advocates, that meat intake generally did not correlate with disease mortality. (See table 5033, pp. 634-635 of Junshi et al. [1990].)"

"# Lack of actual income data for the survey participants is a serious flaw. It makes adjustment of the data for the effect of income less reliable. Ideally, one would like to adjust data for income in statistical analyses, as it is presumably a good proxy variable for the degree of Westernization. (Many of the degenerative diseases common in Western societies are in effect, diseases of affluence, hence adjusting the data for actual income may be important in statistical analysis.) However, the China Study has no direct measures of the income of the participants. Instead, the study includes demographic data that could be utilized to yield estimates of county average, per-capita income. However, such an estimate is a poor substitute for actual income data on the study participants. Also, per-capita income may be skewed by the presence of a few, very high-income individuals living in an otherwise (very) poor county.

# Attempts to use the China Study to prove that all omnivore diets are bad is yet another logical fallacy. Ultimately, attempts to claim that the China Study "proves" all omnivore/faunivore diets are bad fail as yet another logical fallacy. Basically, none of the county diets in the China Study were vegan diets, and none were evolutionary diets (and, by the way, none were the SAD/SWD diet). Most were high carbohydrate, grain-centered diets (though one county reported high consumption of both meat and dairy--reminder: dairy was never a part of humanity's evolutionary diet). Campbell, writing in Junshi et al. [1990], reports (p. 63):

The national mean [average] percentage energy intake obtained from animal foods was observed to be 5.7%, with a range of 0.1-59.4%.

Thus we observe that extrapolation to strict vegan or evolutionary diets (or even the SAD diet) go beyond the range of the China Study data, and hence such projections are less reliable statistically. Also, as none of the China Study diets were evolutionary diets, and the meat consumed came from domesticated rather than wild animals, the results from such (Chinese) diets cannot be extrapolated to evolutionary diets (i.e., yet another logical fallacy)."
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-8e.shtml

"Campbell asserts that diet is an effective treatment for melanoma and supports that claim by citing a Tijuana study of the discredited Gerson protocol, which includes coffee enemas and other non-dietary interventions. Patients allegedly cured of cancer by this method were tracked down by a naturopath who found that 5 years later all but one had died of their cancer and the only one still alive was not cancer free."
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=385

"What is most shocking about the China Study is not what it found, but the contrast between Campbells representation of its findings in The China Study, and the data contained within the original monograph. Campbell summarizes the 8,000 statistically significant correlations found in the China Study in the following statement: "people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease."26 He also claims that, although it is "somewhat difficult" to "show that animal-based food intake relates to overall cancer rates," that nevertheless, "animal protein intake was convincingly associated in the China Study with the prevalence of cancer in families."27

But the actual data from the original publication paints a different picture. Figure 1 shows selected correlations between macronutrients and cancer mortality. Most of them are not statistically significant, which means that the probability the correlation is due to chance is greater than five percent. It is interesting to see, however, the general picture that emerges. Sugar, soluble carbohydrates, and fiber all have correlations with cancer mortality about seven times the magnitude of that of animal protein, and total fat and fat as a percentage of calories were both negatively correlated with cancer mortality. The only statistically significant association between intake of a macronutrient and cancer mortality was a large protective effect of total oil and fat intake as measured on the questionnaire. As an interesting aside, there was a highly significant negative correlation between cancer mortality and home-made cigarettes!28"
http://www.westonaprice.org/bookreviews/chinastudy.html

 

[Wifezilla]

PUFA's ...

" rats fed a diet enriched in omega-6 from sunflower oil showed an increase in nitrosative damage, damage to mitochondrial DNA, and a decrease in maximum cardiac work capacity (i.e., their hearts were weaker). This is consistent with the previous study and shows that the mammalian heart does not like too much omega-6! The amount of sunflower oil these rats were eating (20% food by weight) is not far off from the amount of industrial oil the average American eats. "
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=385115&page=4

"Problems associated with an excess of polyunsaturates are exacerbated by the fact that most polyunsaturates in commercial vegetable oils are in the form of double unsaturated omega-6 linoleic acid, with very little of vital triple unsaturated omega-3 linolenic acid. Recent research has revealed that too much omega-6 in the diet creates an imbalance that can interfere with production of important prostaglandins.34 This disruption can result in increased tendency to form blood clots, inflammation, high blood pressure, irritation of the digestive tract, depressed immune function, sterility, cell proliferation, cancer and weight gain.35"
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html#omega6

"Israel has one of the highest dietary polyunsaturated/saturated fat ratios in the world; the consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) is about 8% higher than in the USA, and 10-12% higher than in most European countries. In fact, Israeli Jews may be regarded as a population-based dietary experiment of the effect of a high omega-6 PUFA diet, a diet that until recently was widely recommended. Despite such national habits, there is paradoxically a high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and obesity-all diseases that are associated with hyperinsulinemia (HI) and insulin resistance (IR), and grouped together as the insulin resistance syndrome or syndrome X. There is also an increased cancer incidence and mortality rate, especially in women, compared with western countries. Studies suggest that high omega-6 linoleic acid consumption might aggravate HI and IR, in addition to being a substrate for lipid peroxidation and free radical formation. Thus, rather than being beneficial, high omega-6 PUFA diets may have some long-term side effects, within the cluster of hyperinsulinemia, atherosclerosis and tumorigenesis."
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._high_omega-6_polyunsaturated_fatty_acid_diet

 

[reinbeau]

We are what we eat, people. Up and down the foodchain.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Very true, Reinbeau.

I had the misfortune of watching tv last night and saw first a Dunkin Donuts commercial, followed by an image of hot dogs and french fries. Classic American food. And we wonder why we have health problems, especially obesity.

 

[freemotion]

America runs on Dunkin'!! And America is fat and unhealthy, too!

 

[sylvie]

Thanks, Wifezilla, for taking the time to post all that. That was exactly the sort of information for which I was looking. I have requested the book through my library but intend to familiarize myself with your links before it arrives.

PUFAs-
Dh worked at a fatty acid plant for years, in some instances hydrogenating fatty acids primarily for Kosher products. Your information is spot on regarding PUFAs.

These oils have their initial problems without compounding it by hydrogenating. The guys at the plant avoided as much as possible any foods with these ingredients, knowing what they were and how they were made. Even without ingesting them the blood tests continuously returned high for LDL and triglycerides. The general consensus was that these fatty acids and trans fatty acids became aerosols in the work environment.

Part of the process of hydrogenating sunflower, safflower and palm oils was the filtering of the product, using nickel catalyst, which is also a carcinogen, and is never completely eliminated from the finished product.
Nickel also causes organ failure by damaging tissue.

Anyone who eats products containing these ingredients is taking risks on so many levels.

 

[Wifezilla]

ANd now you know why I use coconut oil and cold pressed olive oil...and ghee

 

[FarmerDenise]

It sure took a long time to read all these pages. I kept wanting to jump in, but realized I had several more pages to go.

I didn't know that about powdered milk. I don't use it, but now I'll look for it as an ingredient in other products and avoid it.
I wish I could eat foods as close to nature as possible all the time, but my budget won't allow it. I have to accept and eat stuff that is given to me for free to some degree. There is alot of it I won't eat though.

I grew up in the country as a teen, where our whole family got into eating natural and as much as possible homemade food. We were all into it. It was a lot more work, a lot cheaper and we knew it was healthier. People always commented on how thin we were.

My family comes from Europe (Poland and Germany). The food in those countries is different. I grew up eating a lot more vegetables and fresh fruit was a treat. Processed food was more expensive and we didn't get it. My parents couldn't afford it. My paternal grandmother would occasionally (rarely) give us a treat of a storebought cookie and once canned peas.

So for the most part, I don't even crave all that processed stuff. When we first came to the states, we couldn't figure that people actually considered "wonder bread" bread. We found little mom and pop shops, where they made food the old fashioned (European) way. We did learn to eat bagles, pizza and chocolate brownies and "Chef boy R dee spaghetti". But mom and grandma made most of our food from scratch. Once we moved to the country, they started making bread from scratch too and we grew a garden. We also foraged for food in the fields and woods around us. We never ate so well before in all our lives. Us kids helped with everything. And that's how we learned.

So now I still love my vegies, love real whole grain bread (pumpernickel, where you can see the kernels), real cheeses, yogurt with live cultures and no gelatin, etc.
For a while I did not eat so healthy, mostly due to lack of money and also do to a husband who didn't like my kind of food. My health went down the drain. I was sick nearly all the time. I found out I have blood sugar issues.

I changed my diet. Avoided eating processed foods, especially processed starches and sugars. White french bread was probably the hardest thing to give up. I never had much of a sweet tooth. Most american sweets were too sweet and cloying for me, so they were easy to give up.
I also gave up the husband. My friends told me, I looked better in about a month.

Now I live with my SO and we grow most of our own food. Storebought stuff tastes artificial to us now. We had storebought canned peaches the other day, wow what a difference in taste! Our homegrown, homecanned peaches have taste. The storebought stuff was just sweet - cornsyrup sweet. Yuck (where is that throw-up smiley?) I'll rather do without than eat that stuff again.

Now I better get outside and get some more of those vegies planted and pick asparagus for dinner!