To read more on this subject, go to Weston A. Price Foundation for Wise Traditions

The Finnish study mentioned above found that women who consumed fried meat had higher rates of breast cancer. While the media may blame the increased cancer on meat, the culprit is more likely to be the fats used for frying—rancid commercial liquid vegetable oils or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Another Finnish study found that children who consumed lots of vegetable oils were more prone to allergies (Allergy 2001;56:425-428). Another study found that mice fed excessive corn oil had increased caloric intake and obesity (Nutrition 2001 Feb;17(2)117-20). Researchers in Australia discovered that consumption of vegetable oils is associated with increased rates of asthma (Thorax Vol 56, p 589). Researchers have also found that high vegetable oil consumption is associated with increased rates of macular degeneration, the leading cause of irreversible blindness in adults (Arch Ophthalmol Aug 200; 119:1191-1199). These are just several of hundreds of studies indicating that modern vegetable oils are bad news indeed—they’ll make you prone to allergies, asthma and overweight, and possibly give you cancer and make you blind as well.

ANOTHER CRACK IN THE DIKE

The soy industry is working overtime in damage control efforts as more and more studies confirm what has been known in scientific circles for over 60 years—that soy can be toxic except when prepared properly and consumed in small amounts. This news is finally leaking into the mainstream press. “Are Women Overdoing Soy?” was the title of a short article in the November, 2001 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal. The article quotes Regina G. Ziegler, PhD, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute, who notes that a 1996 study that concluded that soy may reduce the risk of breast cancer was based on Asian women who ate just one serving of soy per day. Ziegler expressed concern that women are consuming large amounts of soy in the form of soy ice creams, burgers, powders and energy bars. “We have no idea what soy can do to the body in large doses,” says Ziegler. The article notes that since 1996, soy’s cancer-fighting ability has come into doubt and that new research suggests that soy in high doses may promote, rather than prevent, breast cancer. Similar concerns have been expressed in the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter (May, 2000) where Barry Goldin, PhD, a specialist in plant estrogens, points out that soy may raise the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Ziegler recommends that women have no more than one serving of soy per day and to stay away from soy supplements that contain high levels of isoflavones. She should have added that soy in Asia is usually consumed as a fermented food in a diet that is highly supportive of the thyroid gland, and never as a replacement for quality animal foods.

HORMONAL EFFECTS

Symptoms of endocrine disruption continue to emerge. Wise Traditions readers are aware of the large number of girls showing signs of early puberty, such as breast development and pubic hair, before the age of 8. Another sign is the declining ratio of boys to girls in live births and the increase in birth defects among male children, especially in areas where there is a high usage of hormone-disrupting pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Now we learn that boys are entering puberty at earlier and earlier ages, particularly African-American boys (Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, September, 2001). The study found that 21 percent of African-American boys had developed pubic hair before their tenth birthday. Researchers speculate that exposure to environmental chemicals that mimic estrogens—everything from pesticides to hair-care products—is the cause. The isoflavones in soy also mimic estrogens and in studies with animals, consumption of high levels of isoflavones often manifests in very early development in males. The coloring up of tropical birds, a process governed by hormones, occurs much earlier than expected when the birds are fed soy. In humans, soy infant feeding seems to have two distinct results—sexual development that is either precocious or inhibited.

A TASTE FOR FAT

How long can medical orthodoxy prop up the lipid hypothesis in the face of contradictory evidence? First comes the realization that mother’s milk is rich in fat; then all those less-than-definitive studies; then the French, Spanish, American, Russian and African paradoxes. Now comes another. Scientists have discovered that the human tongue has receptors for fat. Test subjects showed a response in the blood when they tasted potatoes mashed with butter but no response when they tasted mashed potatoes without fat, or mashed potatoes with fat substitutes. The biochemical response was elevated triglycerides, which investigators say is a bad thing. But if the human tongue has a taste for fat, that must mean humans need fat. Perhaps the fat taste buds steer people toward foods that contain essential fatty acids, say puzzled investigators. But even natural non-fatty foods contain some essential fatty acids—even potatoes. The most logical conclusion is that the human body knows better than thousands of politically correct nutritionists that humans need high-fat foods, so much so that it is possessed of a highly sensitive instrument for determining which foods contain lots of fats. So precise is the human taste for fat that it can distinguish real fat from imitation fat substitutes like Olestra. And that’s what really worries the food processing industry (Washington Post, 9/4/01).