The Dairy Industry - Milk, Dairy Products, And Eggs
cholesterol blood butterfat food british produce butter concerned
Ever since 1926, when the Medical Research Council's report of Dr. Corry Mann's experiment of giving an extra pint of milk to boys in a children's home showed that it improved their growth, British nutritional policy has encouraged milk drinking for children. And the British dairy industry has been geared to produce milk. There is, however, a deeply ingrained feeling that milk should be creamy if it is to be considered good. From this it is only a short step to believe that butter contains all the goodness of the milk. This, of course, is not so, and furthermore we are now concerned at the danger, particularly for adults, that too much butter is bad. Our concern about possible over-consumption of butterfat applies equally to margarine and hydrogenated vegetable fats in general. We think the dairy industry should concentrate on the products in which it has both economic and nutritional advantage, namely the non-fat part of milk.
As an economical producer of the best of proteins, accompanied by valuable supplies of vitamins and minerals in the non-fat part of milk, the dairy cow is unequalled, but she cannot compete economically in food fat; cottonseed, maize, soybean, peanut, and other oils are much cheaper to produce besides avoiding the cholesterol issue. Concentration by the dairy farmer on butterfat no longer makes good sense, and there are increasing signs that he is recognizing this fact. Jersey and Guernsey cows that produce milk of very high fat content are giving way to Friesian herds that produce more milk but with a lower fat content.
Mother's milk is the natural first food of the infant, and, judging from the usual period of lactation, it may be surmised that milk should form a major part of the diet for the first year or a little more. Further, there is much evidence that in the pre-school years and on to the age of puberty the child benefits from abundant milk, though cow's milk and human milk are not identical in composition. But at what age should we begin to be concerned about an excess of butterfat? Some authorities suggest restriction at all ages, particularly in the teens, because of the alarming amount of atherosclerosis found in the coronary arteries of young American soldiers killed in Korea.
We believe, awaiting better evidence, that the butterfat in whole milk can be consumed with impunity through the growing years. But there is no known advantage in a disproportionate consumption of butterfat at any age, so we doubt the wisdom of eating great quantities of butter even in childhood.
On the other hand, both for children and for adults, we urge the most liberal use of milk protein and of the whole non-fat part of milk. Skim milk, low fat, protein-filled milks, and plain cottage cheese should be used as much as possible, both as such and in cooking. If consumption of such items increases as we should like to see it, the dairy industry will increase and the British public will be better nourished. It is up to the industry, both at home and in the Commonwealth, to meet the challenge, not to oppose it. In our opinion, if skim milk and butter milk of good quality and flavour appeared on the British market, the producers might be astonished at the size of public demand.
Eggs
In a way, the egg started all this. For it was in the eggs fed to his experimental rabbits that Anitchkov found the cause of the surprising atherosclerosis they developed. And that was the begining of realization that cholesterol in the blood can be hard on the arteries. Egg yolks contain far more cholesterol than any other food you are likely to eat - unless you are one of the few persons who eats brains. But, as we have already pointed out, the cholesterol in your blood is what counts, and human beings, like carnivores in general and in contrast to rabbits and chickens, have a good mechanism for handling cholesterol ingested in food. Except possibly for some rare individuals who have built-in metabolic faults, we are not concerned about cholesterol in natural foods, at least in normal diets. Three or four eggs a day might be tolerable if we considered only the effect of the cholesterol contained in them.
But one egg yolk contains about five grammes of fat, and the question is what this means in terms of the promotion of cholesterol piling up in the blood and, independently, making the blood clot too easily. If the rest of the meal is reasonably "lean", five grammes of fat are not much to be concerned about. Moreover, though egg fat is certainly animal fat, the degree of saturation is usually not very great. We have to say "usually", because the kind of fat in the egg reflects the kind of fat in the hen's food. Feed suet to hens and the egg fat turns out to be almost as highly saturated - and a cause for limitation in the diet - as the suet itself. Eggs from chickens eating hemp seed, linseed, or sunflower seed should be almost as acceptable, cholesterol-wise, as most of the vegetable oils.
Some day, and not too long from now, either, it is probable you will be able to get eggs guaranteed to be low in saturated fat, rich in highly unsaturated fat. In the meantime the usual egg is not forbidden but an average of one a day should be enough, and two eggs and bacon for breakfast should be reserved for the 14-stone Rugby player or stevedore who needs 4,500 calories a day. If your blood cholesterol is really high (over 250 milligrammes per 100 millilitres), four eggs a week should be the limit. Six or even seven whole eggs a week are recommended if you can eat them and still keep your cholesterol under 220 milligrammes per 100 millitres. These egg counts are for all forms, not merely those you eat as such. Your egg limit will be determined by your blood analysis; you may be able to eat a dozen a week if you manage the rest of the diet properly and if you have a fortunate constitution.
Eggs are so useful in cooking, so full of good protein and vitamins, that we want you to have all you can eat with safety. Egg whites, of course, contain no fat and are full of first-class protein; eat all of them you want. It is too bad we cannot buy eggs with little yolks and big whites, but maybe the poultry breeders can do something about this too.
User Comments
8 months ago
Christopher Palmer
An interesting article that provokes some interesting thoughts.
In all this cholesterol controversy I have to admit I do find it difficult to sense where the truth lies. There aspects of your article that instinct directs me to agree with and other aspects about which I'm inclined to be more sceptical.
One aspect of your discussion that does sit well with some of the things I have come to regard as significant is the role of economics in influencing what we eat, the quality of what we eat, health outcomes, and in turn how deficiencies in those health outcomes are addressed. There is a sense in which our place in the conundrum constitutes a 'node' each side of which there exists a 'network'. Upstream of us we have the activities connected with agriculture and process influencing the type and quality (by quality I lean towards a sense of nutritional attributes) of the foods we consume while downstream of us there is the network that deals with consequence, advising us what is correct to eat, measures our serum cholesterol, and prescribes we take licensed drugs, to lower our blood pressure or lower our cholesterol count, for the rest of our lives. So, if we consider ourselves as the consumer and place ourself, conceptually, at the node for a moment then there are influences and choices made outside of our own control by others that can have a bearing upon our well-being. Economics plays a big part in both the upstream network and in the downstream network.
It is refreshing to see someone recognise the economics of production in agriculture and its' bearing upon practice. In this I refer to the 'economics of nature', ie. the assimilation of energy and nutrients in an agricultural product, and not to the branch of economics concerned with money. I think 'yeild' and the efficiency of process that gives rise to that yield does act a selective pressure determining an evolutionary trajectory in agricultural practice and choice of 'crops'. Not forgetting that farmers are in it for the money then money itself, the comparative opportunities for profit, is a factor that influences choice, determines how, say, cattle and chickens are fed, and influences nutritional attributes of the food that is offered for sale. Off the back of these influences I feel there have been long term changes to the content and nutritional attributes of the diet for which the longer process of our physiological evolution has left us less than optimally prepared. This facet is reflected in aspects of our health. Where the downstream side of the network is concerned it is all about money. Consequences arising from pressures, influences, and alterations to the upstream side simply become an opportunity for profit for those whose position and economic niche sits on the downstream side. The need to address western diseases is an opportunity to make a living, where healthcare is concerned, medical insurance, employment in the NHS, or the manufacture of statin drugs is concerned preoccupation leis not with 'need' which could involve the need for education to counter effect and cause rooted upstream, but simply with the 'need' to make money. 'Low-input' solutions are disregarded in favour of profitably expedient solutions.
I navigated to your article while researching grounds, or otherwise, for cholesterol scepticism. I lean towards cholesterol scepticism for the simple reason that if nature gave me cholesterol it did so for a reason. The more I look it to things the more aware I become that nature gave me cholesterol for several reasons. On those grounds alone I think that aggressive cholesterol policies are not justified. But there is more. ..
Aggressive cholesterol management has become big business: highly profitable, very big business. This explains to me why the cholesterol faithful remain cholesterol faithful and why their faith is promoted at 'decibels' way above the noises made by the cholesterol sceptic camp. Aggressive cholesterol management with statins is highly imprecise. How?
Only a portion of the cholesterol we need is provided by diet; we synthesise the lions share, mostly in the liver. Cholesterol synthesis is a process stemming from one branch of the mevalonate pathway. The Mevalonate pathway has several branches that result in the synthesis of several important biochemical of which cholesterol is just one. Statins are not sufficiently selective to only act upon the 'cholesterol branch', oh no, Statins interfere at an early step in the biochemical chain that equates to the 'trunk', and in so doing they impede synthesis, not only of cholesterol, but also impede the synthesis of a half-dozen or so other vital biochemicals. This lack of selectivity goes a long way to explain statin drugs side-effects. I find them highly sobering.
Statin side effects are predictable; the pharmas, those employed by them in R&D, and those contracted to do work for big pharma connected with R&D and trials, ought to be aware of them, but somehow they are not distracted by the prevalence and predictability of these debilitating side effects that include memory loss and myopathy. Why? Because the ability to pay a mortgage and put food on the table ranks higher than the need to establish the truth. We each find it easy to produce results that are consistent with the needs and ambitions of our paymasters.
I'm beginning to think that cholesterol was wrongly convicted. When Anitchkov fed cholesterol to rabbits I think he likely fed them food contaminated with oxidised cholesterol. Back in 1908, or thereabouts, I think it likely he would have lacked the wherewithal to establish the difference between cholesterol and oxycholesterol and did not have strong grounds upon which to be alerted to the potential importance inherent in the distinction. More recent animal studies now reveal that consequences arising from ramping up dietary cholesterol and/or dietary oxycholesterol are quite distinct outcomes. Cholesterol, I believe was convicted upon evidence that ought to have indicted oxycholesterol. It was an unfortunate mistake, but one after which the influence of money had a significant role lending selective pressure to the process of evolution as applies to the evolution and advance of knowledge and to the trajectory of the evolution of economic activity.
Nature goes to some lengths adopting several processes and protocols to limit the extent that cholesterol may become oxidised to oxycholesterol. If cholesterol is generally helpful and oxycholesterol is demonstrably harmful then you would expect it to. The thing is, some of the processes we apply to our food before we eat it can undo natures best efforts to impede oxidation of cholesterol. There is cholesterol to be found in eggs and there is cholesterol to be found in milk. However, there is reason why you would find proportionately more oxidised cholesterol in powdered egg and in powdered milk.
Your article has provoked in me some additional curiosity. I had heard mention of Korean and Vietnam war veterans in relation to atherosclerosis and cholesterol before. Now that your article reminded me I did just wonder if the operational considerations associated with those encounters rendered powdered egg and powdered milk more convenient and/or more readily available than fresh eggs and fresh milk, and I wonder also if the answer to the question could have some bearing upon the 'cholesterol truth'. I concede it is just one curiosity to what is a multifaceted conundrum, but interesting nonetheless.
The other thing I'm not is 'fat-phobic'. Just to return to economics connected with the assimilation of energy and nutrients I think, during the long course of evolution, a move towards, and increasing and evolving proficiencies connected with, the improved balance of energetics made possible by the need and our willingness to better utilise animal sources fro a meal influenced evolution of our physiology, permitting our guts to shrink, our posture to trend to full bipedalism, our brains to swell in size, and as significantly, for cognitive aspects of that brain to become more efficient and adaptable. In a time long before agriculture our ancestors and progenitors would have found the energy density of animal fats an 'economically expedient' addition to the diet whereas we now find, it would seem, vegetable fats rendered possible (and 'economically expedient' for business in the monetary sense) by agriculture and process physiologically inexpedient because they are a relatively recent and 'novel' (by type, attributes, and quantity) inclusion to the diet to which the absence of pre-eminence in evolution leaves us, to some extent in the very least, mal-adapted.
I find it all fascinating and absorbing