Prairie View

Sunday, December 13, 2009

"Fat" Title

David's report on "bad fats" made me laugh out loud. Here's how that happened.

David chose the subject "dietary fats" as his research topic--a sub-point of the "Problems in the American Food Supply" current events issue.

At the beginning he was fairly clueless about the Omega 6 and Omega 3 hoopla, but he set about researching it, uncovering and explaining several important findings. Omega 6 and Omega 3 are different kinds of fats that need to be properly balanced in our diet. Before industrial food became common, most people ate fairly nearly equal amount of these two kinds of fat. Recently, however, Omega 6 is often eaten at a rate about 10 times that of Omega 3. This results in higher incidences of cardiovascular problems.

Cattle fattened on forage do not produce high levels of Omega 6 fats. Corn-fed cattle do. Most cattle these days are corn-fed. The moral of the story is--if you don't want high levels of problematic Omega 6, avoid corn-fed beef or "up" your intake of Omega 3 phenomenally, to make the ratio come out right. David's paper soberly explained all this to my satisfaction.

The title he gave this methodical explanation is what made me laugh: Alfalfa and Omega. He probably had as much fun writing it as I had reading it.

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