Page 12 - Winter2010

Caustic Commentary

has come up with a variety of “non-dairy whipping cream” the late 19th century and reached a plateau during the 1930s,
products for use as cake decoration, pastry fillings, ice cream this increase did not happen in France, a Mediterranean coun-
and. . .whipping cream. Always looking for ways to make try, until from the 1970s” (Financial Times. Letters, October
things cheaper and harder to distinguish from real food, the 16, 2010). What are you smoking, dear Timo? Your editor
company Premium Ingredients has launched “a new blend visited France for the first time in 1959, and remembers cream
of hydrocolloids and emulsifiers” for vegetable whipping cheese, whipped cream, soufflés and plates swimming with
cream that offers “high versatility, cost savings and freeze- butter. Even today, saturated fat consumption by the French is
thaw stability.” Most important, the product is “cheaper than the highest in Europe, while rates of heart disease are lowest
traditional dairy cream and any other vegetable cream alter- (www.heartstats.org/uploads/documents%5CPDF.pdf). Ac-
native.” One reason the product is cheap is because it has a cording to Professor Strandberg, low levels of heart disease in
“very high overrun of more than 250 percent.” This figure France today are due to the use of cholesterol-lowering statin
expresses the percentage of drugs. “Eating lots of cream cheese
expansion of cream that can be and butter-rich croissants may not be
achieved from an amount of air so dangerous if you are on a statin,”
incorporated into it. According says the professor. What’s really dan-
to a company spokesperson, gerous is advice from academics so
“unlike conventional cream blinded by their own dogma that they
that is very soft and struggles cannot distinguish fact from fiction,
to hold its shape for very long, and who continue to promote the very
its vegetable alternative is lowfat or wrong-fat diets that are obvi-
relatively high strength. . . the ously killing us.
blend maintains its strength
through time and can withstand INVESTING IN DIABETES
freezing and thawing cycles One thing the USDA Dietary Guide-
to maintain stable emulsion lines have surely contributed to is an
without breakage” (foodnavigator.com, October 21, 2010). increase in diabetes, since the Guidelines gave Americans
Unfortunately, those who try to nourish themselves on this the green light to eat lots of carbs and demonized the healthy
food-like product may indeed struggle to hold their shape, animal fats that help normalize blood sugar levels and provide
as they will need to eat and eat and eat in an effort to obtain key nutrients for the pancreas and adrenal glands, the main
nourishment for their starving bodies. organs involved in blood sugar regulation. The Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) estimates that currently one US adult
HAVE A STATIN WITH YOUR CROISSANT in ten has diabetes, mostly type-2 diabetes, and predicts that
It is truly incredible the lengths to which scientists invested in by 2050, one in three Americans could be diabetic (http://
the lipid hypothesis will go to explain away all the contradic- www.foodnavigator-usa.com, October 25, 2010). While pub-
tions to their theory. The French Paradox, for example, derives lic health officials wring their hands, the diabetes epidemic
from the observation that the French have low rates of heart translates into a lot of profit for certain industry groups,
disease even though they consume a lot of saturated fat in the starting with the pharmaceutical industry. At a September,
form of butter, cream, whole cheeses, paté, sausage and meat 2010 meeting for the European Association for the Study
fats. According to Timo Strandberg from the University of of Diabetes (EASD), Dr. John Betteridge declared that all
Oulu, Finland, “Fewer coronary deaths during the 1970s and diabetics over forty should be on cholesterol-lowering statin
1990s in France than in Britain (or in the US) were simply drugs. Other beneficiaries include makers of food products
reflecting much lower saturated fat consumption and lower for diabetics, such as low- and no-calorie sweeteners, and
cholesterol levels in France during earlier decades. While “functional fibers,” said to blunt blood sugar spikes after
saturated fat consumption started to increase in Britain from eating. Alas, more and more people are opting for real food
12 Wise Traditions WINTER 2010

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