Isn't that the truth, acer. Like coconut oil on movie popcorn was taboo and is now a must have for the health nuts. And coffee changes daily it seems. And we used to limit our day to 3 meals a day but now it should be 5. Diet soda was suppose to be good for your diet and now it actually makes you gain weight, destroys DNA, kidney function, etc etc. You just never know for sure.
So, MollyAnne (what a nice name!) are health "nuts" the same as "nazis"? I ask, because my g.d. Sunny, a H.S. senior, is a self professed "food nazi" and would cheerfully demolish your source who claimed that coconut oil is now a "must have". When coconut oil fell into disrepute in the eighties, manufacturers replace it with trans-fats, not knowing that they were equally or more dangerous, but though some of the stigma has been removed from its use, just about all health organizations warn about taking "significant amounts" of the oil. Of course, the problematic word here is "significant". How many movies do you see in a theater per week? DVDs may actually be healthy!
"Significant amount" also probably applies to the eating of fish skin, too, but I haven't seen any studies suggesting benefits of heavy metals and pesticides!
I suspect that there are two (at least) major problems with evaluating the value of foodstuffs , the tendency of food scientists to study nutrients individually rather than as a part of the food in which they are found, and the public's tendency to parrot the latest guru's claims rather than make an attempt to understand what is being discussed. Everyone, surely, knows the term "omega fatty acids" for the substances derived from fish oil, but most have absolutely no idea what an omega fatty acid is (are there alpha fatty acids, and if not why not and do we really care?), and it is so easy to find out in this age of Professor Google!
Sunny,"The Kid" is a "normal", cute, bouncy teenager, who is currently at a rave in CA. When she gets back, she will regale me with the rave scene, how people liked her new scoodie and hair color, the current status of the proposed medical marijuana clinic shutdown in LA (her card is from AZ, so she doesn't much care), and breaking up with current B.F., but we will also no doubt discuss the current meta analysis("study study") of the health value of fish oils (e.g.
Fish Oil No Lifesaver, Study Finds - ABC News, ) and start planning the humongous Thanksgiving dinner that we shall cook for everyone this year.
So yes, a lot of nutritional advice as presented by the popular press is questionable at best, but what we can tell for sure is whether we are healthy or not. I have a fairly large extended family, but the Kid and I are the only two who take sensible care about what we eat, and cook most of our own food, and we are the only two safely within our IBW and without any health issues, so we can use that as a justification for doing what we planned on doing anyway.
Cheers!