Folks, let’s be clear: However you may have been buttered up about it, there is no case for eating more “meat, butter and cheese.” None. We are not suffering from “meat, butter and cheese” deficiency. If you see a case, please let me know, and we can write it up together for the New England Journal of Medicine.
I hasten to note I am not arguing against cheese. Personally, I find a bit of flavorful goat cheese on a crusty bread, accompanied by a glass of fine Bordeaux (I am especially partial to St. Emilion and Pomerol), one of life’s truly indelible pleasures. I am, rather, arguing against the now seemingly popular argument that for the sake of health, we “should” eat more cheese and/or butter and/or meat.
Let’s start at the beginning — as in the very beginning of our species, and the imprint of evolutionary biology. The case for invoking that history is valid, and that’s what paleoanthropologists do when they advance the argument for a paleo diet. But a paleo diet incontrovertibly excludes dairy, so there go the butter and cheese. That leaves meat. (There are other arguments for dairy, as there are arguments against; I’m just noting that the Stone Age has nothing to do with them.)
Paleo experts are first in line to highlight the rather drastic differences between the meat most people eat these days, and the meat of wild animals consumed by our ancestors. The paleo flag cannot be flown legitimately to lead a parade of pastrami, pepperoni and bacon. There was no Stone Age pepperoni.
So what about grabbing a pointy stick and setting out to spear your own dinner? For the sake of personal health, that would likely be fine. But leaving aside how few people are either inclined or capable of eating only what they themselves kill, there is this little problem we call “humanity.” In the Stone Age, it comprised small, scattered clans with plenty of room to throw spears. Today, it constitutes an ever-growing, globe-spanning horde of more than 7 billion. For 7 billion-plus people to hunt and gather as our ancestors did would require approximately 15 times the surface area of the earth. (To say nothing of the fact that virtually everything they ate is now extinct.)
But isn’t it true that eating more “meat, butter, cheese” would be better for our health, whether or not it’s actually plausible? Wouldn’t it be “better” for us, even if it uses up all the water in California, decimates biodiversity and consigns the environment to rapid oblivion? In a word: no.
Arguments for the health benefits of “more” (whatever that means, exactly) meat, butter and cheese for health benefits have consistently, perhaps willfully — and perhaps even disingenuously — failed to address: instead of what? That has been the obvious question all along — at least to some of us. The notion that saturated fat is “good” for us now raises exactly the same question: good for us compared to what?
Those trying to sell you their ideology (and their books) have ignored the question. But ignoring this question is not a reasonable option. It’s the same as saying that arsenic is good for us — without explaining that you mean it will kill you more slowly than carbon monoxide, so replacing carbon monoxide with arsenic is “good.” Everything is relative, remember?
That’s true of food, too. So is saturated fat “good” for us and, if so, relative to what? Leaving aside the important subtleties about a large and diverse class of compounds, we now have an evidence-based answer to the general question, and it conforms perfectly to the mountains of prior evidence on the topic — to say nothing of common sense.
According to the new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, if you replace saturated fat with trans fat, your health situation is apt, if anything, to deteriorate. Proof that saturated fat is good for us now? Sure, just like the faster demise from carbon monoxide must mean the slower demise from arsenic is … good for us. That kind of proof.
If you replace saturated fat calories with calories from sugar and/or refined starches, which, in fact, is what we have mostly done in America, health outcomes are almost identically bad both times. Yes, it is possible to invent more than one way to eat badly. Yes, we have. Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny!…
If, however, you swap out calories from saturated fat and replace them with whole-grain calories, calories from unsaturated fats or both — to say nothing of whole vegetables and fruits — health outcomes improve markedly and meaningfully. This is exactly what ethnographic analyses of the health of whole populations has long suggested, it is just what randomized trials have long suggested and it is specifically what the new cohort study involving nearly 100,000 people concludes.
Given a recent, high profile imbroglio over the report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, this study and its implications could scarcely be timelier. Of course, the BMJ kerfuffle was a silly distraction in the first place. It positioned the arduous work of diverse, carefully-vetted, top experts against the opinion of one person with … an opinion, and a book to sell. In fact, the conflict of interest in this case was so blatant, I am tempted to say it may even make Coca-Cola’s funding our education in energy balance look wholesome. As noted, everything is relative.
Despite the nonsense on which this pseudo-controversy was predicated, the media — naturally — ran with it. So, I am perfectly glad to watch all who did so trip over the new study, and fall on their faces. The work of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is, in fact, exemplary. Their conclusions represent genuinely expert consensus about the actual weight of evidence, with one more important study now on that pile. The alleged counter-argument is a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing other than: “Let me tell you what you want to hear, and I’ll be happy to swipe your credit card.”
Some — Kipling might call them “knaves” — will twist these words of mine to set a trap, so be forewarned. They will contend that I am grasping beyond my reach, and saying we know that some very specific, prescriptive diet is best.
This is utterly false. My own peer-reviewed efforts lead to just the opposite conclusion. If by “diet” we mean a specific, prescriptive diet, we cannot say which is best for human health, and those who do so have either fallen into the vat of their own ideology or are trying to sell you something. What we can say, however, with considerable confidence, is what general theme of eating is best for human health. The most perspicacious among us have been saying just that for some time. The theme leaves many gaps, and doubts about details. That’s not a worry; all true scientists live in a world of infinite gaps, and perennial doubts. Even so, the science we know is enough to populate the modern world with its many practical marvels. We have many doubts about physics, too, yet manage to send messages through cyberspace with considerable reliability.
Still, the knaves will line up here, as they inevitably do, to tell you I am saying what I am not saying. They will also tell you what they know with absolute, doubt-free conviction, and nothing could suit me better. Their absence of doubt or self-reflection tells you just what they are made of, and I have no need to say it — Bertrand Russell already has.
We are not clueless about the basic care and feeding of Homo sapiens. We have had evidence for literal decades about simple, actionable fundamentals of healthy eating that account for a huge portion of chronic disease and premature death when we get them wrong; and the luminous prize of more years in life and more life in years when we get them right. The evidence in support of a basic theme of healthy eating is vast, consistent and concordant with the global consensus of experts. It argues for a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds — exactly as the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has said it does. It is evidence-based and thematic, not pedantic and prescriptive; it is born of data, not dogma; it emphasizes wholesome foods in sensible combinations, leaving nutrients to sort themselves out accordingly. In contrast, those telling us that saturated fat is suddenly good for us, and we should eat more meat, butter and cheese are the agents of an ideology at odds with epidemiology, and at war with the fate of the climate, the environment and the biodiversity that is the jewel in this planet’s crown.
So that’s it, then. I am looking our culture square in the eye and saying: the emperor has no clothes! Meanwhile, a dubious assembly is in line, casting sly winks at one another, to tell the emperor how glorious his raiments are. They will surely throw in, for good measure: “Here’s a copy of my book, and try the cheese.”
Author’s note: I am grateful to Governor John Kasich of Ohio for those immortal words: “Every day, oh no, we can give ’em cheese!“
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The Emperor Eats Cheese! originally appeared on usnews.com
