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Pork Stuffed Bacon Roll

You know, a lot of people look at a latticed sheet of bacon with ground pork rolled up inside of it as an unnecessarily extreme indulgence, sure to cause an instantaneous heart attack, but I look at that slab of protein and fat as — I’ll say it — health food. Ok, bear with me, please. I just read the book Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes. I know it sounds like a crazy fad diet book due to its unfortunate title, but it’s actually an obsessively researched tome that documents the history of the nutrition debates between doctors and scientists, and how the ‘fat is bad’ hypothesis won out more for political reasons than for hard scientific and medical reasons. Citing dozens of studies and dissenting researchers from the past century of medicine as well as describing clearly the physiology and science behind their claims, Taubes asserts that the increased consumption of refined carbohydrates such as bleached white flour and high fructose corn syrup are the real culprits behind the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.

Well, that’s what most reviews of the books phrase it, but what most people seem to miss is that along with the indictment of refined carbohydrate, Taubes also suggests, like Dr. Atkins and many others before him, even if you consume way more calories than you need in the form of saturated fat and protein while eliminating most carbohydrates, you’re likely to lose weight and reduce your risk of many of the diseases often attributed to eating in just such a way. I’ve been reading a lot about the diets of many North American tribes before they were forced onto reservations – many of the ones that subsisted primarily on animal protein, fat, and virtually no carbohydrates were renowned for their fortitude, good teeth, and surprising lack of ‘diseases of civilization,’ but this all changed when they were forced to live on government rations consisting mainly of flour. I’ve also been obsessing over the lies and half-truths the pharmaceutical companies have helped promulgate about cholesterol to sell cholesterol-lowering drugs, but I’ll save that for another time.

I am coming to believe that grain and our dependence on it is much more of an evil than meat, and that animals, when raised properly, can be eaten in abundance while promoting biodiversity and ensuring the continued existence of many species. I will also leave this for another time.

Tagged: New Food and Packaging

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