OPINION:
Low-fat milk vs. refined or “whole” grains (“School lunch rules OK refined grains, low-fat chocolate milk,” Web, Dec. 6)? Here we have a distinction without a difference, and that is the point. You just keep the public confused and you can keep the big bucks rolling in. It is laughable that the American Heart Association and the Center for Science in the Public Interest are splitting hairs over whole vs. processed grains. What do they think of the processed (chocolate) milk? Few people know that the USDA food pyramid is nutritionally deficient.
The only way you are going to get an unprocessed grain is to kneel down in a wheat field and take a bite out of what you are walking on, and I do not recommend doing this. All food is processed unless you eat an animal raw or start munching on grass. The whole-vs.-processed designation is just one more ploy to maintain the status quo, which is an obesogenic, chronic-disease-causing food supply based on a cheap staple practically no one can tolerate (grains).
If the USDA, AHA or the CSPI actually spent time promoting essential macro nutrients, fat and protein, you might see some kind of improvement in public health. Instead we have been treated to decades of epidemiological fraud which continues to this day. Chronic disease is rampant in the U.S. population, and it is due to the food supply. Obesity rates in the armed services vary anywhere from 61 percent to 69 percent, and it is a good guess that a large fraction of this population is pre-diabetic. The whole-grain, USDA-approved fad diet, never seen before in human history, is still pushed on the population. If you value your family’s health you will be much better off just sticking to real food, processed or not, and letting the essential macro nutrients (fat and protein) form the basis for what you eat.
SAMUEL BURKEEN
Reston
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