Book Review: Real Food by Nina Planck

My grandmother's cholesterol level was a source of much eye-rolling in my family for many years: she cooked all her meat in a frying pan full of lard, she ate heaps of eggs (why wouldn't she, she had free-range hens) and so on and so forth, yet she had a very low blood cholesterol level!

On the other hand, my father did all the "right" things according to the thinking of the day: no eggs, he swapped butter for margarine, the lard container in the back of the fridge disappeared (what ever happened to that Mum?) etc etc, and yet his cholesterol level was consistently higher than was deemed "healthy". I suspect that if he didn't exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight, his doctor would have put him on cholesterol-reducing medication like millions of others around the world. Needless to say, my grandmother's low cholesterol was a source of much disgust, LOL.

Then finally, upon recently reading Nina Planck's book Real Food, the reasons for this so-called paradox were revealed: despite what the medical profession would currently have us believe, "old" foods and fats are actually good for us & the "new" foods and oils are, in fact, mostly bad!

Nina goes into much detail to explain why this is so, particularly how the many heavily-vested interests of a few U.S. food industries came to influence research results and how pharmaceutical industries rely upon us continuing to eat poorly. Cynicism about multinational companies aside, I must say how refreshing it was to read about how the traditional foods we know and (secretly) love are actually better for us than the low-fat, low-cholesterol, highly processed foods we are supposed to be eating.

I certainly can't come at low fat milk any more after reading this book, and had fortunately ditched the margarine for real butter (and not a "dairy blend") some time ago. We also don't eat much meat any more for ethical and environmental reasons, but this book most definitely made a convincing case for the health benefits of grass-fed meat over industrial meat. Nina also discusses the benefits of traditional fats such as lard and schmaltz over the modern hydrogenated oils masquerading as healthy alternatives - which is exactly why my grandmother's lard had it all over my dad's margarine in the health stakes!

She also briefly mentions the so-called French Paradox - why the French can eat such apparently rich foods and yet maintain a much healthier lifestyle than Americans. Even discounting the U.S. consumption of fast food in the equation and looking at Americans eating supposedly low-fat products, the rate of heart disease in the U.S. had actually risen since the introduction of these industrially-altered and -engineered foods. The French, on the other hand, have known for generations what real food (and fresh food!) is and enjoy it in appropriately-sized portions. Most definitely a case for Quality over Quantity.

Very much a worthy read even if you are already dedicated to whole foods - if for no other reason than it's nice to know why you were right all along :-)