Health Writers

Who do they get to write these articles? Ninth grade high school drop-outs? I'd say so, except I believe that could be an insult to ninth grade high school drop outs.

The latest article I've come across that is as full of garbage as a neolithic midden, is one from the Miami Herald. I think that a monkey, yes just one monkey, in a room full of type writers could compose better literature than this crap.

"[Trans-fats] act as saturated fat once inside the body...

This expert recommends limiting the consumption of these industry-made foods and to treat the trans fat in them as saturated, equivalent to that of red meat that is so harmful to cardiovascular health...

Researchers at the University of Colorado say that 'it is important to read the nutritional information on all products, including foods marked free of trans fat, since some manufacturers are replacing trans fat with tropical oils from sources such as coconuts and palms, which are also rich in saturated fat.'"

First of all, I doubt seriously that trans fats act anything like saturated fat once in the body. I'm an artist, not a biochemist, but I ain't stupid. First of all, trans fat and saturated fat have different chemical bonds. Trans fats do have something in common with saturated fat, in that they have had hydrogen atoms added to their structure. However, their structure is not the same.

Also, whereas saturated fat is natural and your body has use for it, trans fat is man-made and it's "molecules have unnatural shapes that are not recognized by enzymes such as cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase." Those enzymes are used in the metabolism of fat. Your body cannot metabolize it and it does cellular damage. To imply that saturated fat, something we have been eating for millions of years, causes damage is to declare that evolution and mother nature are idiots. To paraphrase what Tom Naughton said in Fat Head, mother nature is not a dunce! The writers of these articles may be dunces, but evolution is not.

And they go on to malign red meat, and even coconut oil! It's absolute drivel, with nothing to back it up, masquerading as truth. And unwitting people believe it, because they read it in a major newspaper.