13 Apr Ignore all science. Eggs are healthy.
PropAGanda
The Financial-Legal-Military-Industrial-Meat-Medical-Pharmaceutical-Media Complex.
Last week’s article in The Australian took great pains to assure fretting egg-eaters everywhere that their favourite weekend brunches have been given the scientific green light to enjoy in unlimited quantities.
Journalist Peta Bee sets off to debunk recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A March 2019 study of 30,000 people eating 3 or 4 eggs a week was found to increase the chance of dying from a heart attack or a stroke. It also found people who ate an average of two eggs a day had a 27 per cent higher risk of a heart attack or other cardiovascular episodes.
You’d think on this admission it would be a matter of case closed, however Peta Bee sets off on a mission to stitch and sew together any authoritarian spin she can find to build a case up against the pretty cut and dry facts that hen eggs are rich in cholesterol too much cholesterol raises risks of heart attacks and strokes.
Derailing these damning findings require the assembly of a motley crew of boffins, ‘experts’ and authoritarians. Dieticians, Sports Nutritionists, Scientist and Students: The Avengers have assembled and the Australian egg board can heave a collective sigh of relief.
Not all heroes wear capes, right? First on the scene and swooping in to the rescue is Helen Bond, a Dietician for the British Dietetic Association, to allay our fair citizens fears of the harms of eating chicken ovulations, offering a rainbow of reassurances.
She trumpets the supercharged ability of eggs as ‘a nutrient-packed bullet shot of goodness’. An interesting analogy we will get back to. Digging a little further on her website, we discover that Dietician Helen Bond wears a few different hats: “She currently provides assistance to several top name food companies, Public Relations (PR) consultancies and marketing agencies”
Helen Bond – BSc.(Hons) SRD, MBDA
Consultant Dietitian and Public Relations Adviser .
In other words, she can spin a good yarn. Tellingly, Bond doesn’t specify which companies she is working for. She utilises an age old skill that the meat, dairy and egg industry have used since the beginning of time: she creates confusion. According to Bond, it’s not dietary cholesterol that affects blood cholesterol, but saturated fat. In making this revelation she has no hesitation in throwing other animal products under the bus, pointing the finger at butter and fatty meats. She also muddies the waters of the US study by suggesting it is far too simplistic and doesn’t show ‘cause and effect’. Creating confusion is a popular strategy employed by ‘authoritarians’ to effectively wear out the will of the reader and give up on their quest to make informed choices.
The entirely irresponsible sub heading “You can eat as many as you like” provides an oasis of reassurance for the fact-weary egg-eater. Under this heading, we discover that University of Sydney nutrition scientists reporting in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people on a high egg or low egg diet made no difference to cardiovascular risk.
Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the research extends on a previous study that found similar results over a period of three months.
Led by Dr Nick Fuller from the University’s Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating Disorders at the Charles Perkins Centre, the research was conducted with the University of Sydney’s Sydney Medical School and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
However, upon further investigation on their website, we unearthed this little nugget: “The research was supported with a grant from Australian Eggs; they had no role in the research design, conduct, analyses or writing of the manuscript.”
Nah they just paid for it.
Next up we have another darling of the British Dietetic Association, one Azmina Govindi, a balm for egg-loving ears, telling us ‘eggs don’t need to be rationed’. Azmina is a media spokesperson to the British Dietetic Association introduced right smack in the middle of the article, her opening remarks placed alongside another study by a journal called “Heart”. This study has produced lofty claims of daily egg consumption being associated with lower risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. Heart Journal also runs a comprehensive website and hosts a correspondence section wherein two doctors, Dr David Spence and Dr David Jenkins, both from the Stroke Prevention and Atherosclerosis Research Centre, have comprehensively rebutted these claims
In a piece entitled “Cardiovascular benefit of egg consumption is most unlikely”
Spence and Jenkins explain that: “The conclusion of the recent report that egg consumption reduced cardiovascular risk1 is most unlikely to be valid. It has been clear for many years that dietary cholesterol increases coronary risk, and a single 65 g egg contains 237 mg of cholesterol, more than the 200 mg daily limit that is still wisely recommended in a number of guidelines.”
The fact of the matter is that eggs have been proven time and again to be cholesterol “bullet shots”, and with 14 out of 15 of the biggest causes of death in the Western World being diet related, eggs will constantly have to keep their expensive marketing campaigns going. A winning tactic is maintaining a hazy confusion amongst the general public who want to make healthful choices but prefer not to sacrifice their tastebuds. Throwing shade on scientific studies condemning eggs is a popular strategy, and given the power of the Financial-Legal-Military-Industrial-Meat-Medical-Pharmaceutical-Media Complex., the egg industry is never short of a plethora of associated business partners only too keen to be an authoritarian mouth piece, and keep customers buying through sheer confusion.
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