A super woman called Jessie has been taking on the Australian Heart Foundation just as I have taken on the British Heart Foundation and so has Dr John Briffa. If you want to keep up with these terrific two – they are on twitter as @jessiereimers and @drbriffa.
Jessie started this petition and got enough support to elicit a reply from “Kerry” at the Australian Heart Foundation (AHF). Jessie has blogged on this here and put her own comments alongside the nonsense that she got back from the AHF. These are the questions that I hope Jessie can go back with because we need to stop accepting nonsense with claims that it is evidence based. It’s time to start demanding that the evidence be presented – because we know that it doesn’t exist.
The letter from Kerry/the AHF is below – Kerry’s words are in blue (verbatim) and mine are in red:
Hi Jessie
Thanks for getting in touch with us so quickly. We recognise that this is a subject that people feel passionately about and clearly it is one that the Heart Foundation and yourself disagree on.
We believe it is fair and reasonable that the Heart Foundation’s position is represented on the petition page.
The Heart Foundation recommends switching from butter to margarine as one way to reduce the amount of unhealthy saturated fat in our diet.
Please provide evidence that saturated fat is unhealthy. Please also explain why all three fats (saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) are found together in all foods that contain fats. There are no exceptions whatsoever. Why would nature do this if one were bad and another good? (see my paper here)
Our recommendations are based on good quality scientific evidence.
What evidence? You have provided none thus far. Please do so.
The vast body of evidence shows that saturated fat raises bad cholesterol levels, clogs the arteries and increases the risk of heart disease. We need to reduce the amount of unhealthy saturated fat in our diet and replace it with healthier fats.
Again – what evidence? You have provided none thus far. Please do so. By “bad cholesterol levels” you are presumably making the common error of calling a Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) “bad cholesterol”. It is not even cholesterol, let alone bad. It’s a lipoprotein, which carries protein, triglyceride, cholesterol and phospholipids around the body to do vital repair work.
How can dietary fat clog arteries? Assuming that you eat your food, you don’t intravenously inject it! Please describe the process by which something that we eat can find its way out of the digestive system to clog an artery?
Please read this and then explain how it would even be possible to replace saturated fat with other fats without changing anything else. Even if this were desirable (and it isn’t) – please explain how it is possible.
We believe that the research on the health benefits of coconut oil is inconclusive, but we do know that coconut oil, milk and cream are all high in unhealthy saturated fat.
Again – how is saturated fat unhealthy? Why would saturated fat be in every real food that contains fat (meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts, seeds, avocados, olives) if it were unhealthy? You have provided no evidence thus far. Please do so.
Kerry’s reply then contains more nonsense about the AHF ‘tick’ programme for their endorsements of fake foods like chemically solidified, bleached, deodorized, emulsified, coloured, margarine and then Kerry refers people to these pages of their web site…
For more information, visit:
http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/healthy-eating/fats/Pages/butter-margarine.aspx
This page has no evidence for any of the allegations made against saturated fat – hence Jessie has every right to go back and demand evidence for the allegations made. This page also has more nonsense: “Saturated fat is the fat that raises our LDL…” Dr Malcolm Kendrick threw out this biochemistry challenge in his book The Great Cholesterol Con and it has not been answered since (2007). How can saturated fat raise LDL? What is the biochemical process by which this is even possible? Jessie – please demand that the AHF explain HOW this can happen while claiming that it DOES.
and
http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/healthy-eating/heart-foundation-tick/Pages/smart-shopping.aspx
This link is just PR nonsense for the AHF tick nonsense. Again – there is no evidence presented whatsoever for the allegations made against saturated fat.
Kind Regards,
Kerry
If I said that Kylie Minogue or Russell Crowe were seriously bad for your health, would cause heart disease, clog your arteries, raise some fictitious nonsense called bad cholesterol and that you should avoid them like the plaque they would sue the last penny out of me. Just because saturated fat doesn’t have the ability to defend itself doesn’t mean that those who attack it should get away with their their slander and libel. Jessie, Dr John and I are not the only ones defending real food and the real fats and nutrients contained therein. We all need to demand that the accusers present evidence. Please join us in demanding evidence from every attacker of real fats and real food. Just a word of warning – Don’t hold your breath while waiting for evidence to be presented!