Friday, September 06, 2013

Cholesterol Is Not A Necessary Nutrient, Even Though The Government Set A Daily Requirement For It

No sooner had I posted about the lack of need to consume cholesterol, than I read:
"These RDIs [Reference Daily Intakes] -- as they are popularly interpreted -- have to my experience long been biased on the high side for some nutrients to the point where they encourage the consumption of animal-based foods.
...
The "daily value" for cholesterol is set at 300 mg/day. Cholesterol's inclusion in this list implies that it is needed as a nutrient. It is not! Our bodies, on their own, produce all the cholesterol we need. Dietary cholesterol comes only from animal-based foods, and a far healthier recommendation would be zero!"
- Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition
I had to revisit the Daily Values to see for myself. There it is, cholesterol is listed at 300 mg.

The National Institutes of Health say:
"Daily Values were developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help consumers determine the level of various nutrients in a standard serving of food in relation to their approximate requirement for it."
But there's no physiological requirement for dietary cholesterol! How did this come to pass? Campbell says that government committees tasked with developing RDIs and AIs and DVs (committees on which Campbell himself has stood) are often populated by members with industry ties, e.g. ...
"In 2002, the director of the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences [who develop RDIs] was a major dairy industry consultant, and the majority (6 out of 11) of the members of a companion policy committee (the USDA "Food Pyramid" Committee) also had well-hidden dairy industry ties. Dairy groups even helped to fund the report itself. At this rate, before long, the government may start recommending a milk faucet in your kitchen next to the one for water."
Why does that little blue circle say Dairy instead of, say, Water?

We don't live in a democracy, we live in a corporate oligarchy.
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