The Week in Digestion
Last week was a difficult one between it having been the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Rather than opine on the events, we will point out one thing to founders: the importance and power that’s in a name. If you name your company, say, Avalanche, which one did in the days of Web 1.0, whether as an act to defy fate or one of prescience, guess what happened? Yup, it all came tumbling down. The Bonfire Collective? Went up in smoke. Note to self: Charlie Kirk’s outlet was Turning Point and so far, from all indications, his assassination did appear to trigger something of a turning point. As always, time will tell.
In times of stress, people tend to turn to food for comfort, so let ‘s focus on food, speaking of turning points. Food and various ingredients have come under scrutiny of late. Seed oils, in particular. “For several decades, saturated fat was wrongly blamed for heart disease, while vegetable oils quietly caused a surge in obesity, inflammation, and chronic metabolic disorders. Newly appointed FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary is now leading efforts to revise outdated dietary guidelines that were built on cherry-picked data from Ancel Keys’ Seven Countries Study. There was just one problem with the research — Keys cherry-picked the data. He selectively chose the countries that fit his hypothesis while ignoring data from 16 other countries that went against his recommendations. Had he chosen a different set of countries, the data would have been the opposite — that increasing the percent of calories from fat actually reduces the number of deaths from coronary heart disease,” Mercola reported in The War on Saturated Fat is Finally Coming to an End.
Despite the methodological flaws in his data, the medical community accepted Keys’ study
FYI, “Seed oils, or “vegetable oils” are extracted from vegetable crops like soybeans, cottonseed, and corn,” HeartandSoil explained. “Seed oils were originally byproducts of manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution. They weren’t initially intended for the dinner table. However, by the mid-1900s, seed oils had become a staple ingredient in packaged foods, reshaping the Western diet in ways that are raising new health concerns today. The food industry favors seed oils for their low cost and so-called “heart-healthy” reputation. Research suggests that seed oils pose significant health risks.