Food Law Prof Blog

Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, and Heart Disease --not connected

This is a video of a presentation to British Medical Association last November.  The presenter is a physician, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick.  He presents data about saturated fat, blood cholesterol, and heart disease and makes a very credible and compelling argument that eating saturated fat does not cause heart disease and that high blood cholesterol does not predict heart disease.There are 5 parts to Dr. Kendrick's presentation. If the embedded video doesn't work, here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPYaVcXo1I 

What the World Eats -- Hungry Planet Photo Essay and book

The book, Hungry Planet, shows photos of families around the world with the food they eat.  (I remember a similar presentation of people's stuff.)  Time/CNN has a photo essay on their website with photos from the book.  It's pretty interesting.  Our expensive western diet comes in colorful packages, while the less expensive third world diets evidently require cooking skills that I would still find challenging! 

Take a look!  Time/CNN photo essay

Hungry Planet book (Ten Speed Press)

Book: Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink

The next book on my to-read list is Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink (Cornell, Marketing).  The book describes the findings of scientific studies on the external cues that affect how we choose to eat.  The findings will mesh well, I think, with public health experts' ideas about environmental effects on health, such as Kelly Brownell's (Yale, Psychology) Toxic Environment work, as well as Jon Hanson's (Harvard Law) work on behaviorialism -- the notion that how we behave is a result much more of external cues than of any inherent disposition.