We’ve a new little report, piece of scientific research, telling us that cheese and red meat are good for us. This in entire opposition to everything governments have been telling us about diet for decades now. This telling us that government is a seriously bad way of doing anything.
Sure, of course, humans are wrong, most humans are wrong a lot of the time. The problem with government being that when that wrongness gets propagated by our rulers it becomes the established fact. Meaning that we’re all affected by it, there is none of that natural variability of error which protects some and harms others. We all become subject to the error that is:
Cheese and red meat are back on the menu – as an international study suggests eating around twice as much as health officials advise.
The study of 220,000 adults found that eating three portions of dairy and one and half portions of meat a day could cut the risk of early death by one quarter.
Scientists said the findings “challenge conventional wisdom” after decades of advice to cut down on full-fat dairy and red meat.
Current NHS guidance says dairy should make up just eight per cent of a person’s daily recommended calorie intake – allowing just one yoghurt or two small slices of cheese.
And red meat consumption should be limited to 70 grams (2.5 oz) a day, it says.
We have other and more current errors in food advice of course. We’re told that we’re all consuming more sugar – we’re not. That we’re drinking more booze – we’re not. Even that we’re eating more because food is cheaper – it is and we’re not, we eat far less than our forefathers.
This isn’t just limited to this sort of health advice where the prodnoses just love to interfere of course. We’ve got the entire country feverishly working to install renewable electricity generating equipment. Even if we accept the idea of global warming it’s still true that we should be waiting to install. Waiting until it’s cheaper, which it will be as everyone else installs it and thus technology marches on. Or that constant refrain that inequality is up in recent years – it isn’t, recessions lower inequality.
The list of commonly held beliefs which are simply wrong is wide and varied. Which is why government insistence, that planning, that forcing us all to conform, is such a bad idea. Just because, more likely than not, we’ll be forced into doing the wrong thing. Something diametrically opposed to the best solution.
After all, that’s why they have to pass laws, to force us, isn’t it? Because it’s not something we would do on our own…
Government does not even try to do the sensible thing. It frequently capitulates to the demands of this that or the other pressure group, lobbyist or single-issue nutcase. Do they ever cost the stupidity? No. Do they ever look at what is done in other countries and compare? Not much. Do they ever ever decide to do nothing as the preferred option? No, because their sole aim (judging by the result) is to be seen to be doing something to get to the end of the week without a bad headline.
There are no government “studies,” only sales pitches. Members of the International Commission want only to sound authoritative. (And they pay no price for being wrong.) Me, I want to find ways to sell more cheese, or I will lose my job. So I offer testimony and lobby for their “study” to get funded. On to the “science.” The Telegraph reports that these guys found that one benefit of red meat that is the only benefit advertised on the boxes of multigrain cereal: that the time you spend chewing it costs you time to chew stuff that is even less… Read more »
On a similar note, the Lancet slipped out a modest article recently acknowledging the ‘new’ discovery that salt consumption guidelines had been laid down (by doctors, I believe) at a stupidly low level…..
They’ll probably be upping the alcohol intake guidelines any day now…. (but don’t hold your breath)
France has had a sugar tax on soda drinks for about a year, now planning a salt tax on certain foods.
There are those who think the obsessions with obesity and what we eat and drink is a UK thing, but it is pan-European. What else is the EU for but to be a centre of regulation?
After years eating excessive amounts of ‘unsuitable’ food and consuming prodigious quantities of alcohol, it appears – more by accident than design – I may have made the occasional correct call. Of course I don’t really believe that either, and no doubt one day will be made to pay for my excesses, however it pleases me that so many others have denied themselves so much in the belief they will be able to live a year or two longer in some godforsaken care home.
France has had a sugar tax on soda drinks for about a year, now planning a salt tax on certain foods.
There are those who think the obsessions with obesity and what we eat and drink is a UK thing, but it is pan-European. What else is the EU for but to be a centre of regulation?