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I thought I'd create a thread for all the reports or studies that "hit the wires." Here is a recent one:
Here is a passage from the report:
Report title: "Diet High In Saturated Fat Contributes To Prostate Cancer Treatment Failure, Study Suggests."
"Saturated fats were most commonly consumed as beef steaks, cheese and cheese spreads, hamburgers and cheeseburgers, eggs, ice cream and salad dressings..."
Note that such imprecision makes it impossible to know whether SFAs were the culprit or something else, including the PUFAs interacting in the context of cooked meat and generating dangerous HCAs. The evidence, when viewed as a whole, makes the claim that SFAs ("saturated fat," of course, if a phrase that is too imprecise for scientific uses, as things stand right now). I "suggest" that they learn how to do science properly before scaring the public.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508184143.htm |
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This was posted on another newsgroup:
QUOTE: "Swank theorized that people with MS had been consuming far too much
saturated fat (found in meat).
He found that those eating low-fat diets (less than 20 grams daily)
suffered only "slight" myelin deterioration and 95 percent survived
the study. In contrast, 80 percent of the patients eating moderate to
high-fat diets (25 to 41 grams daily) had a serious progression of
their MS symptoms, with only 20 percent living through the end of the
study."
http://www.thenutritionreporter.com/MS-Polio_of_the_90s.html UNQUOTE.
I responded with: QUOTE: Great example of how the phrase, "saturated fat," which has no precise
scientific meaning, can be "twisted" to support just about any
conclusion. The scientific reality (as opposed to this nonsense) is
that saturated fatty acids do not contribute to biochemical
instability, which is why they have been fed to pregnant animals and
can hinder the pregnancy (depending upon exact circumstances, and so
this claim is beyond silly. In fact, it is the combination of
unsaturated fatty acids in the meat (and of course many people now use
highly unsaturated oils to cook meat with, making it worse) and cooked
meat that generate very dangerous molecules, like HCAs. Thank for
this great example of what I call "saturated fat" scare tactics... UNQUOTE.
All that needs to be done is to have a control group that eats a diet like mine. This would be the scientifically appropriate thing to do, yet it is never considered in nations like the USA. Why? Because they think "saturated fat" is so dangerous that it's "unethical" to feed people such diets! Thus, their minds are totally closed, and about as unscientific as is imaginable, especially in light of the raw demographic data - tens of millions of Asians have had very high "saturated fat" diets, due to coconut consumption, and if "saturated fat" was indeed "bad," the raw data (on cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.) would bear this out, yet the opposite is the case. Anyone who ignores this data, which I consider the greatest inadvertent nutritional experiment in the history of science, is just demonstrating that he or she is a buffoon rather than a scientist. |
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We also need a control group eating an extremely high-fat diet (60-80%), with 20-30% protein, and 0-10% carbs. Controlling for the type of fat is only one variable. Carbs and proteins must also be controlled to generate meaningful conclusions. I simply ignore claims based upon epidemiological studies. I call them "epidem-illogical" studies. Correlation doesn't prove causality. Traditional Eskimos and many other tribes ate lots of cooked meat, and yet were free of every disease. Stefansson also did his Bellevue study eating cooked meat for over a year, with no deficiencies or health complications.
http://www.lowcarbportal.com/archives/categories/nutrition_protein/index.php |
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| Well I also feel that carbs can be dangerous in certain context but we should be distinguishing them like the fats: What sugars are more harmfull - glucose, fructose, lactose, simple or complex carbohydrates? Also because of lack of the double bonds which make the PUFAs and hormones like estrogen very reactive and pro-oxidative the carbohydrates are not harmful directly. I feel that the level of physical activity/metabolism/thyroid determine what amounts of carbs are safe to consume. Remember Taubes - carbs put the ingested fatty acids into storage so you can load your fatty storage with linoleic acid when you combine vegetable oils with carbohydrates. And it gets released when you start wasting due to cancer or similar disease like damaged GI tract from Omega-3/NSAIDs supplementation ... |
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Elaine Gottschall's book "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" has argued that simple sugars are best (like glucose, fructose, and galactose). She thinks that double sugars (like sucrose, lactose, and maltose) are worse. She also avoids starches.
Her diet allows fruit, honey, cheese, home-made yogurt with special instructions, meat, butter, eggs, fish, veggies, nuts, and seeds. No grains, soybeans, fresh milk/cream, yogurts sold in stores, cottage cheese, refined sugar, maple syrup, etc. It's called the 'Specific Carbohydrate Diet.'
.
http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/
http://www.scdiet.org/
http://www.pecanbread.com/ |
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| I'd like to see the evidence, if any that she bases her claims upon. And what is wrong with foods rich in simple starches? |
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| Looking briefly at her site it seems to me that it's all about dysbiosis, i.e. people who cannot completely digest and absorb the complex sugars (starches) have increased bacterial growth in the intestines and this creates endotoxin and immune problems. Simple sugars don't need digestion by pancreatic enzymes so they are absorbed right away before having chance to reach and feed the bacteria in the distal intestine/colon. However, there are also good bacteria which turn ugly (clingy) when exposed to PUFAs as Hans says. Perhaps switching to the PUFA restriction diet would help the dysbiosis and restart the pancreas to produce enough starch cleaving enzymes like in the case of thyroid and coconut oil ... |
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There is a lot of evidence in her book, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet." Her theory was based on the biochemistry of carbohydrates, as some are digested easily (simple sugars), while others require enzymes for their digestion. The latter can feed harmful bacteria if you are not able to digest them perfectly. Also, gluten and lactose allergy are common. She eliminates those completely.
I don't know what you mean by simple starches, but her book explains all of this and it's very short. The whole book is 165 pages and much of that is recipes, index, and recipes. Book itself is under 100 pages, I think. Anyway, starches are very complex molecules that often escape digestion.
You said yourself that if you eat lot of sugar you gain weight, but if you eat a banana you lose the weight. This is showing that the carbs in the banana are better, IMO. I wouldn't want to eat something that easily caused weight gain. Gottschall says to avoid starches and double sugars. Eat all of the ripe fruits and honey you want. But also some cheese or eggs or meat. Maybe vegetables, nuts, and seeds. But she blames many health problems on grains, potatoes, milk, and sugar, because they are more problematic to digest.
I don't know whether she is right or not, but I do feel good on diet with no starches and just simple sugars. If you want, you can probably borrow her book from the library. |
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Another example which misleads people to consuming Omega-3s and avoiding saturated fat:
Cancer Res. 2008 Apr 15;68(8):3066-73.
Effect of low-fat diet on development of prostate cancer and Akt phosphorylation in the Hi-Myc transgenic mouse model.
Kobayashi N, Barnard RJ, Said J, Hong-Gonzalez J, Corman DM, Ku M, Doan NB, Gui D, Elashoff D, Cohen P, Aronson WJ.
Department of Urology, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1738, USA.
This study evaluated the effect of dietary fat on prostate cancer development by using the Hi-Myc mouse transgenic prostate cancer model. Hi-Myc mice develop murine prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (mPIN) as early as 2 to 4 weeks and invasive adenocarcinoma between 6 and 9 months due to the overexpression of human c-Myc in the mouse prostate. Three-week-old male Hi-Myc mice were placed on high-fat (HF; 42% Kcal) or low-fat (LF; 12% Kcal) diets, and equal caloric intake was maintained until euthanasia at 7 months. The number of mice that developed invasive adenocarcinoma at 7 months was 27% less in the LF diet group (12/28) compared with the HF diet group (23/33, P < 0.05). Epithelial cells in mPIN lesions in the LF group had a significantly lower proliferative index compared with epithelial cells in the HF group (21.7% versus 28.9%, P < 0.05). During the mPIN phase of carcinogenesis (4 months), the LF group had higher serum insulin-like growth factor (IGF) binding protein-1 levels (21.0 +/- 8.9 ng/mL versus 3.2 +/- 0.8 ng/mL, P < 0.05) relative to the HF group. Akt (Ser(473)) phosphorylation, Akt kinase activity, and phosphorylation of downstream targets of Akt in prostates were significantly reduced in the LF diet group compared with the HF group. We conclude that dietary fat reduction delays transition from mPIN to invasive cancer in this Myc-driven transgenic mouse model, possibly through suppression of the IGF-Akt pathway and decreased proliferation of mPIN epithelial cells.
PMID: 18413778
The comment by an "expert" Dr. Gabe Mirkin:
Fewer Omega-6's May Reduce Cancer Risk
Researchers at UCLA show that reducing intake of corn
oils helps to prevent prostate cancer in mice (Cancer Research,
April 15, 2008). Corn oil and other vegetable oils are extremely
rich sources of omega-6 fatty acids.
Fats are classified by their chemical structure into
omega-3s, omega-6s, and omega-9s. Omega-6s cause your body to
produce prostaglandins that turn on your immunity to cause
inflammation, while omega-3s turn down your immunity to reduce
inflammation.
Your immunity is supposed to be good for you. When a
germ enters your body, your immunity produces white blood cells
and proteins called antibodies that attack and kill the germ.
After that germ is gone, your immunity is supposed to stop making
so many immune cells and proteins. If it remains active, your
immunity attacks your own body to damage tissue and increase
risk for heart attacks, certain cancers, and diabetes; it can
also worsen existing diseases such as some types of dementia,
asthma or psoriasis.
For more than 2 million years, humans have eaten diets
that have a ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s of about two to one.
However, over the last 100 years, humans have added extracted
vegetable oils to other foods that they eat and increased the
ratio to 12 to one and perhaps as high as 20 to one. This increase
in the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s is a cause of inflammation.
The increase in omega-6's has come primarily from
vegetable oils that are added to baked, fried and other prepared
foods. Omega-3s oils are relatively unstable so they are not
found in most prepared foods.
Good food sources of omega-3's include seafood and
beans, whole grains, nuts and other seeds. We do not know if
changing the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s will help to prevent
cancers in humans, but several studies show that they appear to
both prevent and slow cancers in animals. |
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| On the other hand certain starches like in potatoes are being promoted for supporting the growth of "good" bacteria while undigested meat is said to rotten and support the growth of "bad" bacteria. Also there are undigestable starches like the fructooligosaccharides which are used as dietary supplement to support the growth of the "good" intestinal bacteria. I have a feeling it's the PUFAs+iron which make the bacteria go bad. IMO the undigested starch support the growth of both good (gram postive) as well as bad (gram negative - producing endotoxin) bacteria. We need some amount of them to produce the short chain fatty acids like butyrate - that's being said e.g. on the other group by Kofi. |
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Taka: "Omega-6s cause your body to produce prostaglandins that turn on your immunity to cause inflammation, while omega-3s turn down your immunity to reduce inflammation."
I found that omega-3 (flax oil) made my immune system very weak while eating a raw diet with raw milk, raw cheese, raw cream, raw eggs, raw meat, unheated honey, and raw green vegetable juice. I used less than 1 tbsp of flax oil a day and I developed a rough sore throat that lasted about a month. My sore throat vanished immediately when I stopped taking the flax oil. Maybe you need more omega-6 when eating a diet with raw meat, so your body can fend off the bacteria.
"For more than 2 million years, humans have eaten diets that have a ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s of about two to one."
The problem with this line of reasoning is that they don't also consider other factors, like the vast increase in total PUFAs. People 100 years ago wouldn't have eaten more than 10% PUFAs at the very most, given a mixed diet. If they focused more on beef and dairy, they would have had <4% PUFAs. Meanwhile, corn and soybean oil are like 60% PUFAs. The talk about ratios is unscientific, unless you also address the total amount of PUFAs in the modern diet. Maybe if people ate a low PUFA diet (ex: coconut oil, butter, beef fat, cocoa butter, mac oil), the ratio wouldn't matter.
"However, over the last 100 years, humans have added extracted vegetable oils to other foods that they eat and increased the ratio to 12 to one and perhaps as high as 20 to one. This increase in the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s is a cause of inflammation."
So maybe the whole problem is the high PUFA oils and not the ratio at all. It is unscientific to talk about omega-6/3 fatty acid ratio without considering the total amount of PUFAs or the ratio of MUFA/PUFA, SFA/PUFA, etc. Maybe if you had lots of SFAs and/or MUFAs, with very little PUFAs, it would not matter how high the ratio was. As HSWS has noted, the coconut oil has no omega-3, so it should cause a deficiency if we really do need omeag-3. If a diet of coconut oil doesn't cause inflammatory problems, then we would know that this omega-6/3 ratio is a just a useless distraction from the real issue, that people eat way too much PUFAs.
Bruce |
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I wonder how far could it go, will we be force-fed Omega-3s by the government? In Japan a new law is taking place. If your markers or waistline signal the Metabolic syndrome you are charged extra money on the health insurance and pushed into consuming high PUFA diet. From another forum:
> Sooo what's coming next - starvation camps?
You are mistaken, next is compulsory feeding with synthetic drugs like statins and supplements like fish oil. I have already received guidlines what to eat after having a high total cholesterol level tested. It includes Omega-3 fats, vegetable oils, margarines, fatty fish, soy and leafy vegetables & nuts and I was ordered to avoid any saturated fat including butter (which disappeared from the store shelves anyway), cream and fatty meat cuts as well as eggs and limit dairy before even this "metabo" law came out. They are not going to limit the refined carbohydrates and PUFAs as well as smoking which bring fortune to the drug companies in the long term. Instead they kill your liver with highly unsaturated oils and antinutrients so that it is no longer capable of producing cholesterol as a response to stress. Then they are going to keep you alive with synthetic drugs substituting for hormones which your body is no longer able to produce while keeping you brainwashed with TV commercials so you wouldn't use your own brain to consume what the body truly needs. Seems like the government ran out of reasons to keep increasing the compulsory health insurance payments so they are switching to different tactics...
> This governmental intrusion could happen in the US under 00bama/
> Clinton’s type health care plan.
>
> "The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in
> a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the
> most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today.
> ***Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their
> work***. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more
> for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday
> against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime
> minister in the country’s postwar history."
>
> Arbor
>
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/asia/13fat.html?_r=2&ei=5087&em=&en=c6f2623fbee96495&ex=1213502400&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
AMAGASAKI, Japan �?Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.
Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.
But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,�?he said.
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.
Those exceeding government limits �?33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks �?and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.
To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.
The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the country’s postwar history.
But critics say that the government guidelines �?especially the one about male waistlines �?are simply too strict and that more than half of all men will be considered overweight. The effect, they say, will be to encourage overmedication and ultimately raise health care costs.
Yoichi Ogushi, a professor at Tokai University’s School of Medicine near Tokyo and an expert on public health, said that there was “no need at all�?for the Japanese to lose weight.
“I don’t think the campaign will have any positive effect. Now if you did this in the United States, there would be benefits, since there are many Americans who weigh more than 100 kilograms,�?or about 220 pounds, Mr. Ogushi said. “But the Japanese are so slender that they can’t afford to lose weight.�?BR>
Mr. Ogushi was actually a little harder on Americans than they deserved. A survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that the average waist size for Caucasian American men was 39 inches, a full inch lower than the 40-inch threshold established by the International Diabetes Federation. American women did not fare as well, with an average waist size of 36.5 inches, about two inches above their threshold of 34.6 inches. The differences in thresholds reflected variations in height and body type from Japanese men and women.
Comparable figures for the Japanese are sketchy since waistlines have not been measured officially in the past. But private research on thousands of Japanese indicates that the average male waistline falls just below the new government limit.
That fact, widely reported in the media, has heightened the anxiety in the nation’s health clinics.
In Amagasaki, a city in western Japan, officials have moved aggressively to measure waistlines in what the government calls special checkups. The city had to measure at least 65 percent of the 40- to 74-year-olds covered by public health insurance, an “extremely difficult�?goal, acknowledged Midori Noguchi, a city official.
When his turn came, Mr. Nogiri, the flower shop owner, entered a booth where he bared his midriff, exposing a flat stomach with barely discernible love handles. A nurse wrapped a tape measure around his waist across his belly button: 33.6 inches, or 0.1 inch over the limit.
“Strikeout,�?he said, defeat spreading across his face.
The campaign started a couple of years ago when the Health Ministry began beating the drums for a medical condition that few Japanese had ever heard of �?metabolic syndrome �?a collection of factors that heighten the risk of developing vascular disease and diabetes. Those include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and high levels of blood glucose and cholesterol. In no time, the scary-sounding condition was popularly shortened to the funny-sounding metabo, and it has become the nation’s shorthand for overweight.
The mayor of one town in Mie, a prefecture near here, became so wrapped up in the anti-metabo campaign that he and six other town officials formed a weight-loss group called “The Seven Metabo Samurai.�?That campaign ended abruptly after a 47-year-old member with a 39-inch waistline died of a heart attack while jogging.
Still, at a city gym in Amagasaki recently, dozens of residents �?few of whom appeared overweight �?danced to the city’s anti-metabo song, which warned against trouser buttons popping and flying away, “pyun-pyun-pyun!�?BR>
“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!
Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!�?BR>
The word metabo has made it easier for health care providers to urge their patients to lose weight, said Dr. Yoshikuni Sakamoto, a physician in the employee health insurance union at Matsushita, which makes Panasonic products.
“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which definitely has a negative image,�?Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo sounds much more inclusive.�?BR>
Even before Tokyo’s directives, Matsushita had focused on its employees�?weight during annual checkups. Last summer, Akio Inoue, 30, an engineer carrying 238 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame, was told by a company doctor to lose weight or take medication for his high blood pressure. After dieting, he was down to 182 pounds, but his waistline was still more than one inch over the state-approved limit.
With the new law, Matsushita has to measure the waistlines of not only its employees but also of their families and retirees. As part of its intensifying efforts, the company has started giving its employees “metabo check�?towels that double as tape measures.
“Nobody will want to be singled out as metabo,�?Kimiko Shigeno, a company nurse, said of the campaign. “It’ll have the same effect as non-smoking campaigns where smokers are now looked at disapprovingly.�?BR>
Companies like Matsushita must measure the waistlines of at least 80 percent of their employees. Furthermore, they must get 10 percent of those deemed metabolic to lose weight by 2012, and 25 percent of them to lose weight by 2015.
NEC, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, said that if it failed to meet its targets, it could incur as much as $19 million in penalties. The company has decided to nip metabo in the bud by starting to measure the waistlines of all its employees over 30 years old and by sponsoring metabo education days for the employees�?families.
Some experts say the government’s guidelines on everything from waistlines to blood pressure are so strict that meeting, or exceeding, those targets will be impossible. They say that the government’s real goal is to shift health care costs onto the private sector.
Dr. Minoru Yamakado, an official at the Japan Society of Ningen Dock, an association of doctors who administer physical exams, said he endorsed the government’s campaign and its focus on preventive medicine.
But he said that the government’s real priority should be to reduce smoking rates, which remain among the highest among advanced nations, in large part because of Japan’s powerful tobacco lobby.
“Smoking is even one of the causes of metabolic syndrome,�?he said. “So if you’re worried about metabo, stopping people from smoking should be your top priority.�?
Despite misgivings, though, Japan is pushing ahead.
Kizashi Ohama, an official in Matsuyama, a city that has also acted aggressively against metabo, said he would leave the debate over the campaign’s merits to experts and health officials in Tokyo.
At Matsuyama’s public health clinic, Kinichiro Ichikawa, 62, said the government-approved 33.5-inch male waistline was “severe.�?He is 5-foot-4, weighs only 134 pounds and knows no one who is overweight.
“Japan shouldn’t be making such a fuss about this,�?he said before going off to have his waistline measured.
But on a shopping strip here, Kenzo Nagata, 73, a toy store owner, said he had ignored a letter summoning him to a so-called special checkup. His waistline was no one’s business but his own, he said, though he volunteered that, at 32.7 inches, it fell safely below the limit. He planned to disregard the second notice that the city was scheduled to mail to the recalcitrant.
“I’m not going,�?he said. “I don’t think that concerns me.�?/FONT> |
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That's too bad. I didn't know that Japan had health insurance like the USA. I thought they had free universal health care, as most modern democracies do. We may get to a point where people are forced to take processed vegetable and fish oils and drugs, rather than eating natural foods. It gets harder all the time to avoid PUFAs, since you are bombarded with the toxic garbage in most restaurant meals and packaged food.
Everyone cuts the fat off of meat or they cook it to death and then drain the fat off of it, which ahs many toxic effects. Most importantly, the low-fat diet causes hunger, so people crave anything to eat, and will gladly eat processed foods and oils. |
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| Very true. Now in Japan butter disappeared from stores completely, coconut oil is not available in this country and people are panicking because of the wheat shortage even if their traditional diet is based on rice here. 10 years ago you paid just 10% of all medical costs, the rest was covered by the insurance. Now they have raised it to 30% and because it became difficult raising it further they are inventing new ways of justifying further increases .... I see big commercials on DHA and EPA supplements in newspaper and TV on daily basis. More and more allergies and "common colds" here as well. |
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| | From:  gos2u | Sent: 7/30/2008 12:08 AM |
Good news about saturated fat? --- Gos |
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Good example of the anti-saturated fat propaganda:
Popcorn: Oil in a Day’s Work
The poor coconut. It may taste delicious, but an astonishing 86 percent of its oil is saturated, the kind that raises cholesterol (lard is "only" 38 percent saturated). Yet oil processors told us that roughly seven out of every ten movie theaters still pop in it (in May 1994, when the survey was originally done).
"There are a lot of misconceptions about coconut oil," says Teresa Waller of United Artists, the largest chain. "Not a lot goes on the popcorn." Oh yeah? So why did the smallest servings we found (a kid-size at Cineplex Odeon or a small bag at AMC) contain 20 grams of fat, 14 of them saturated? That’s close to three-quarters of your sat fat limit for an entire day.
A large popcorn had about 80 grams of fat, more than 50 of them saturated. That’s almost three day’s worth of sat fat, or what you’d get from six Big Macs. And that’s if you skip the "butter." Even though the topping is probably butterless, its partially hydrogenated soybean oil adds both saturated and trans fat. Trans is an unsaturated fat that raises cholesterol, perhaps as much as sat fat does.
Succumb to the "butter" on your large popcorn and you’ll boost the fat to close to 130 grams (no kidding). Worse yet, the cholesterol raising fat soars to almost four day’s worth. But what’s another two Big Macs when you’re already up to six?
And here’s the real killer: the popcorn you buy could be worse. According to the lab report, the samples we collected were only 70 percent saturated coconut oil is 86 percent. (Some theaters in our sample might have used some corn oil, although they denied it.)
Canola Popcorn: Full Of It
"Now Popping with Canola Oil. Low in Saturated Fats. No Cholesterol." The sign at the Multiplex cinema in Northern Virginia is pretty impressive.
Up to a quarter of all theaters use "healthier" canola oil. Canola may be lower in saturated fat, but we gagged when we saw how much cholesterol-raising trans fat it had. Why so much?
Because the multiplex banner is wrong. Theaters are popping in partially hydrogenated canola shortening, not canola oil. Oils have no trans. Shortenings -- even liquid ones -- are usually full of it.
When popcorn is popped in canola shortening, about 30 percent of its fat is cholesterol raising (sat fat plus trans). That’s not as good as canola oil’s seven percent, but it sure beats you-know-what.
Your Serve
Who eats so much popcorn? That’s what we’d like to know. The FDA says that the average serving of popcorn is three cups. Then how come even a kid-size order has almost twice that much? How much fat, saturated fat, etc., you get is a matter for you, your calculator ... and your conscience.
Popping Good
What to do?
Bring your own air-popped popcorn. Some theaters told as that they won’t make a fuss if you don’t show it to anybody.
Ask the manager to switch to air-popped popcorn. If the theater insists on using oil, ask that it be liquid corn oil. Unlike most other oils including canola, corn doesn’t have to be hydrogenated (so it contains no trans fat).
Ask for no salt. If they’ll do it, you’ll save from 207 mg (Cineplex Odeon kids) to 378 mg (AMC large bag) and maybe even avoid some artificial colorings.
How We Got Our Numbers
We collected popcorn samples in 12 theaters from six chains in San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. We combined them into three "composites" (coconut oil, coconut oil with topping, and canola shortening), and sent the composites to an independent laboratory to be analyzed for calories, sodium, etc. Then we measured how much popcorn we were served when we ordered each size at the three largest chains. Using the lab’s analyses of our composites, we calculated how much fat, etc., you’d get in each size of each theater’s popcorn.
Keep in mind that our numbers may not reflect precisely what you get on any given day at your local theater. First, there’s the imprecise human who fills your container sometimes below the brim, sometimes overflowing. Ditto for the topping. Some theater staff are more generous (thanks a lot!). And some chains, like AMC, use different sets of containers at different theaters. So the "large" listed here may not correspond to the "large" at your local AMC theater. The number of cups listed in our chart is especially imprecise. Why? We assumed that a cup of popcorn always holds the same number of kernels. In fact, it doesn’t. Sometimes the kernels are fluffy, so fewer fit into a cup. Other times when your portion comes from the bottom of the bin, for example, the kernels are packed more closely, and more fit into a cup.
So, our numbers aren’t perfect. But they’re the best around.
SOURCE:
http://www.cspinet.org/nah/popcorn.html |
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