The big fat lie about cholesterol

Though I’m not generally big on banning stuff, there’s one substance I would prohibit without a moment’s hesitation — probably on pain of death if that’s what it took because clearly, where vanquishing monstrous evil is concerned, no sanction is too extreme.

I’m talking, of course, about the devil’s semen: semi-skimmed milk. And about its unholier cousin — aka the devil’s urine — skimmed milk. Seriously, almost nothing can conspire to ruin my day more effectively than when I order up a flat white and the barista doesn’t know that only weird faddists with no taste take their coffee made with anything but full fat. Apart from maybe when someone tries to add some skimmed or semi-skimmed to my tea. ‘If I want a dash of cold water, I can always add it from the tap,’ I want to say to these loons, but of course never do because I’m far too polite.

Seriously, though. What is it with you skimmed/semi-skimmed people? If it’s about the taste then you’re just wrong and stupid. But if it’s about your health, then you’re more wrong and stupid still. You realise, don’t you, that it’s all over? That whole ‘fat/dietary cholesterol is bad for you’ thing. They’ve discovered it’s a myth. The story has even made it to the cover of Time magazine. ‘Eat butter,’ it says. Because now you can.

Actually, you’ve been able to do so with impunity for quite some time. As early as 1977 Dr George Mann, in the New England Journal of Medicine, described the cholesterol myth as ‘the greatest scam in the history of medicine’. In 1997, a massive trial of 350,000 men at high risk of heart disease found that drastically cutting down their cholesterol and saturated fat consumption did not improve their survival prospects.