My step daughter was watching a bit of The Simpsons t’other day.
For those who know, it was the ‘Homer The Great’ episode where Homer becomes leader of The Stone Cutters.
Lenny and Carl are telling Homer the only way into The Stone Cutters is to be the son of one.
Or to save the life of one.
Homer swats an egg sandwich from Lenny’s hand and explains that the cholesterol in the egg would kill him.
Lenny correctly points out that there is no proven correlation between dietary and blood cholesterol levels (link later).
Now this was 20 years ago.
In a cartoon.
And Lenny isn’t the brightest of characters.
Over the last 40 years there have been so many things about ‘healthy eating’ that seem to be have been accepted as a consensus of thought……..
Even though there was never a consensus.
There was always plenty of people questioning the cholesterol thing.
As there was plenty of people questioning the calorie model.
And the roles of fats, carbs and protein and what is a good balance of each.
The amazing thing was it was often those that were questioning this ‘consensus’ that were getting the best results.
Those that followed these guidelines got fatter and sicker.
Those that were recommending what we’ve been recommending for years got themselves and those that followed them in better shape.
And to be fair to the creators of the nutritional guidelines, they have been somewhat ‘twisted’ by food marketers.
The guidelines do recommend a certain amount of fat.
It being essential and all.
But food marketers have demonised all fats to the point where people avoid them as much as possible.
And the guidelines to recommend minimising sugar.
But, as sugar is cheap and high sugar foods profitable, the marketers have found all sorts of clever ways around this.
Such as putting 27 different types of sugar (or very similar things) in ‘foods’ so that sugar is no where near the top of the ingredient list.
Sneaky, heh?
And do you know what all the modern research is pointing to as the prime cause of heart disease?
Cellular inflammation.
And what it one of the primary causes of that?
Diets high in processed food and sugars and other fast acting carbohydrates.
Like we’ve been saying for years 🙂
So, in summary, just so you know…….
What we recommend………
The balanced diet (third each of your energy from protein, healthy fats and natural carbs)…….
Just eating real food (and not worrying about eggs) ……..
And good hydration, sleep, stress management, etc………
Not only works in real life…….
But is actually backed up by all modern scientific studies.
One day the guidelines (and maybe the food marketers) will catch up!
Here you go, you’ve waited patiently, here’s Lenny in action: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZkCXbbEJw
And while you’re clicking link, if you haven’t checked out our find-out-more meeting yet, here’s the old link-a-roo: myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting.
Much love,
Jon ‘You’d better run egg’ Hall and Matt ‘Attach the stone of triumph’ Nicholson
