I admit it.  I love a great steak- cooked to perfection.  My definition of perfection is blood rare- and to most of you, that may just be barely thawed.  Light brown on the outside and bright red on the inside.  And, years ago, I could have that meal (with sweet potatoes, Bhasmati or Jasmine rice, and broccoli on the side) three or four nights a week.  Why not seven?   Because I traveled three days a week- and keeping kosher meant I could not have that meal in restaurants (where I eat vegetarian or fish choices).

But, I stopped that routine some 20 years ago or so.  Because I was convinced by all the reports coming out that heart attacks would ensue, high cholesterol levels (which theoretically cause the arterial plaques that clog our arteries and restrict our blood flows) would provide me with an early grave.   All these studies can be laid to the work of Dr. Ancel Keys who determined there was a definitive link between a diet laden with saturated fats and cardiovascular diseases.

Keys’ results were from his correlating data with diets from “seven countries” and their degree of disease-laden citizens.  Now, you know I have railed against folks with their correlations.  Because there is a vast difference between correlation and causation.  To top it off, it seems that Keys decided that he would not report data that did not agree with his foregone conclusions- and tweaked the data to boot.  (That’s called lying, by the way.)

Nina Techolz is an author who has been promoting her research (Ted Talks, and her book, The Big Fat Surprise) in debunking this theory by Keys.  She wasn’t the first (among the critics was the National Academies of Science).  But, her point is not new- or a sole voice. Gary Taubes, for example, wrote a long piece in Science, way back in 2001.  Moreover, as we began cutting saturated fats out of our diet, our tendency to obesity increased!  And, big pharma began offering drugs for us to lower cholesterol.  (I have already written on more than one occasion [here’s one] that we still don’t differentiate between the “real” good and the “truly” bad cholesterol- so we monitor by surrogacy- and miss the boat [sometimes, even the port] in way too many cases.)

Basically, Nina’s book brings to light the issue about our problems with data and knowledge.  We have had the ability to examine the selected data Keys provided- and determine whether it fit all the data.  As one of my eMail signatures intones, “The art of intelligence is to employ facts in a creative fashion and to adjust one’s efforts accordingly.  Acquiring data is NOT intelligent!”   Add to that that we must always analyze our data to discern if it is a correlation or a causation. That also means we can’t dismiss data that ruins our pre-supposed correlation.

Does that mean I advocate you all go back to eating steak five days a week?  (Of course, that also presupposes that you sufficient funds to enjoy such a diet.)  Absolutely not. Because I don’t know what the ion mobility results (the definitive test- so far- to determine if your “bad” cholesterol is really bad or just a surrogate marker) are for you.  And, I still believe in moderation.

But, I have added steak back to my diet.  Along with my mahi-mahi, tuna, salmon, quinoa, and noodles-and-cottage-cheese (one of my favorite meals).

Bon apetit!

Share this: