The heart on the porridge box was put there in 1997, at Quaker's request. Since then oats have been beyond argument.
Here's what's under the heart.
- 27g of carbs per 40g (starch, which is glucose queuing)
- Up to 2.2g of phytic acid per 100g (binds iron, zinc, calcium and magnesium so you absorb less of them)
- 8 per cent (how much zinc people actually absorbed from a bowl of it)
- Almost no phytase (the enzyme that breaks phytate down, and the kilning kills what little there is)
- GI of 79 for instant (white bread, but wholesome)
- 10 to 15g of sugar in a flavoured sachet (the plain oats had 0.6g)
- 0.1mg of choline (the egg had 147mg)
- Glyphosate (sprayed on the living plant before harvest, so the field dies on schedule)
Oats are sold as a mineral source. The phytic acid is quietly taking those minerals back on the way past. Malt the oats and zinc absorption climbs from 11.8 per cent to 18.3, so nobody malts them, because it costs money.
The glyphosate is deliberate. The crop won't ripen evenly, so you kill it and then it does. EWG tested 61 oat products in 2019 and found glyphosate in most, including every oat-based baby food.
Quaker filed the petition. The FDA said yes. Oats became the first food in America allowed to sell heart health on the packet.
They asked for the halo themselves. Nobody asked about the herbicide."
Nobody said a word for twenty years.
Cereal for breakfast, from a box with a cartoon tiger on it. Perfectly normal. Part of a balanced breakfast, it said so on the side.
Sandwich, crisps, fizzy drink, five days a week at a desk. Nobody rang anybody.
Chocolate bar at eleven. Another at three. Colleagues watched this happen daily and said nothing, because they were doing it too.
Takeaway on the Friday. Second takeaway on the Saturday. My mother, who now worries about my kidneys, once brought the second one to the door herself.
Pints on a Thursday, kebab at midnight, chips out of paper on the walk home in the rain. Not one intervention. Not a leaflet. Not a raised eyebrow from a single medical professional in the country.
Biscuits at every meeting I have ever attended, provided by the employer, as a kindness.
Twenty years of that and the general public looked on with total serenity.
Then I ate a ribeye with butter on it and declined the side salad.
Now there's concern. Now it's "but is that sustainable." Now somebody's aunt is a nurse and would like a word. Now I'm getting "everything in moderation" from a man who has had a Twix for lunch since 2009.
Two decades of the actual damage and the room stayed silent throughout.
Turn down a bread roll and suddenly every single one of them is a cardiologist."
No comments:
Post a Comment