10 ms·

Lydon Johnson had an answer (via George Will): In 1966, the price of eggs rose to a level that President Lyndon Johnson judged, God knows how, was too high. Th

Lydon Johnson had an answer (via George Will): In 1966, the price of eggs rose to a level that President Lyndon Johnson judged, God knows how, was too high. There were two culprits – supply and demand – and Johnson’s agriculture secretary told him there was not much that could be done. LBJ, however, was a can-do fellow who directed the US surgeon general to dampen demand by warning the nation about the hazards of cholesterol in eggs.

amalgamated_inc 4y ago
[flagged]
- whoomp12342 4y ago
  abundance of anything is unhealthy so its not "wrong" but eating eggs on occasion wont contribute to high colestrol
  - jstx1 4y ago
    Eggs every day don't contribute to high cholesterol either. Dietary cholesterol in general doesn't lead to high blood cholesterol.
    - wolfprogramming 4y ago
      Most people who switch to a mostly red meat diet do see a rise in blood cholesterol. I certainly did. The real question is, does that even matter? High cholesterol is also associated with longevity. The ratio of cholesterol is more important. The ratio of waist to shoulder width is more important. Also your blood a1c is more important for bad outcomes than high cholesterol.
      - NineStarPoint 4y ago
        The secondary question is if the quantity of cholesterol in a food causes the body to have higher cholesterol, or if it’s more complex than that. Because yes, per gram eggs have many times more cholesterol than red meat. But what if it’s something else present in red meat that increases metabolization or production of cholesterol? We just don’t really understand the body well enough to say for sure.
      - kragen 4y ago
        the rise in blood cholesterol is probably because you're eating more saturated fat, not eating more cholesterol
- wolfprogramming 4y ago
  There have been several studies that have shown eggs to be healthy. There are several studies that show they are unhealthy. Bias is a real problem in nutrition science. There are zero interventional studies that show eggs to be unhealthy. In other words no one has given eggs to one group, observed another group not eat eggs and shown that eggs CAUSE a negative health outcome. Instead people have made statistical calculations on food questionnaires that are highly unreliable. Also people have fed eggs to people and measured various blood levels and made a educated guess on what the long term effects could be. If a study by Kelloggs shows eggs to be unhealthy how can it be trusted? Likewise if members of the study are animal rights activist, vegans or some other ideology that could in one way or another effect their judgement that study shouldn't be trusted. Especially if it is not a interventional study. Of which there are none that show poor health outcomes.
  - thadk 4y ago
    If you're in an area which used a lot of lead paint in the past, be aware that free range chickens can move that soil lead into their eggs: https://now.tufts.edu/2019/05/29/backyard-chickens-and-risk-lead-exposure https://now.tufts.edu/2019/05/29/backyard-chickens-and-risk-... Seems this kind of invisible contextual factor could dilute studies on "health".
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    > There have been several studies that have shown eggs to be healthy. There are several studies that show they are unhealthy. Bias is a real problem in nutrition science. Mostly because "healthy" is a bit subjective. If some study finds a correlation between egg consumption and a +1% chance of developing a rare cancer - who really cares? When you look at how rare the cancer is, when you might develop it, and the small increase in probability - you're looking at maybe a -1 day life expectancy for a life-time worth of consuming eggs. Why is living 1 less day "unhealthy" - especially compared to all the other ways one can be "unhealthy"?
    - wolfprogramming 4y ago
      It's just such a nuanced topic people have a really hard time reasoning about it. For example, Drinking Alcohol every day clearly increases your chances of developing disease. Drinking zero Alcohol actually decreases the likely hood of you living to a ripe old age. Is it that Alcohol is healthy in small doses? Probably not. Perhaps people who drink a glass of wine once or twice a month have a less stressful life than someone who never drinks. That's why nutrition studies are so hard to be done right. You have to literally watch them consume it and you need a control group and it needs to take place over years. There are books written about Bluezones that say eating meat shortens your life yet HongKong has the both the highest life expectancy and the highest per person meat consumption in the world. You really have to take every single claim and study with a big giant grain of salt and a whole lot of skepticism.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
peteradio 4y ago
Some spine on that guy. Why wouldn't you resign under that kind of directive? How can that possibly lead to a better outcome for the administration unless the outcome they wanted was for eggs to be cheaper for people who don't believe or listen to US surgeon general. I guess this was the President who took open door shits in front of staff and colleagues so I'm not sure its unexpected.
lettergram 4y ago
Wait until you find out why bread and starch is at the bottom of the food pyramid… which is still, to this day, being taught in schools.
- gen3 4y ago
  It isn't still being taught, it changed to the MyPlate model because the food pyramid was deemed misleading: https://www.myplate.gov/ https://www.myplate.gov/
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  > bread and starch is at the bottom of the food pyramid This hasn't been true for 18 years.
  - mcculley 4y ago
    This is a great example of a mesofact. It is one of those things where experience actually works against a better understanding of the world.
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      Yeah. The "food pyramid with grains on the bottom" version was around for 13 years - shorter than it's now been gone.
skeeter2020 4y ago
Is the fact that Johnson died at 64 of a heart attack somewhat ironic, or was he speaking from personal experience about the dangers of eggs (and the bacon everyone ate daily)?
- tyre 4y ago
  He was a chain smoker who had had multiple serious heart attacks before taking office. He quit cold turkey to save his own life, then lit a cigarette the minute he stepped out of the White House. Smoked until it killed him.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  I think the dietary cholesterol == bad thing is just totally wrong. Sample size of 1 but i eat about 4 eggs a day and steak almost every day but it's not processed fast food and my cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. are all _excellent_
  - sph 4y ago
    Yes and no. Cholesterol by itself ain't bad, in fact it is necessary to synthesize sex hormones and vitamin D, among other things. High sugar in blood is bad. High sugar and high fat in the bloodstream is worse. Also, recent studies seem to show that cholesterol limits are arbitrary and don't mean much in a vacuum: there seem to be a correlation between high LDL levels and longevity—i.e. people that live longer tend to have higher levels of LDL than average recommendations. Go figure. The important levels for health are: stable glucose/insulin system, lower triglycerides, lower trig/HDL ratio. Everything else is too noisy a signal, including just measuring dietary cholesterol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgS3PuSuyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgS3PuSuyg
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      ApoB levels are the most predictive of cardiovascular disease, which represents the number of atherogenic particles in your blood. You may have high LDL, but a low particle count, and therefore be fine. Sugar and metabolic disease causes your body to produce larger numbers of smaller and less effective particles.
stefan_ 4y ago
I remember when they tried the same thing with salt.
scifibestfi 4y ago
Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding. I say Coke's policies are evil because I saw inside the room. The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation - both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association. This picked up in 2011-2013 - when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration. https://nutritioninsight.com/news/cspi-report-criticizes-big-soda-philanthropy.html https://nutritioninsight.com/news/cspi-report-criticizes-big... The conversations inside these rooms was depressingly transactional: "We (Coke) will give you money. You need to paint opponents of us as racist." The effort was successful, and the message was carried in thousands of articles between 2011-2013. Coke's position was clear: soda is one of the cheapest ways to get calories - a flagrantly inaccurate statement when factoring in the health consequences. I watched as the FDA funneled money to professors at leading universities - as well as think tanks on the left and right - to create studies showing soda taxes hurt the poor. They also paid for studies that say drinking soda DIDN'T cause obesity. https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-drinks-tax/soda-tax-war-taking-shape-in-two-california-cities-idUSBRE88507M20120906 https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-drinks-tax/soda-tax-war-t... Soda companies are deeply embedded in the USDA - so much so that the agency carries discredited talking points like "there are no bad food, only bad diets." This ignores fact that sugar is highly addictive and has negative nutritional value. In the end: racial tensions flared, soda spending was kept in SNAP funding, and many of the soda taxes were defeated... https://twitter.com/calleymeans/status/1609929026889711617 https://twitter.com/calleymeans/status/1609929026889711617
- umvi 4y ago
  If this is true, shouldn't there be consequences for NAACP? Surely accepting cash to weaponize racism is (or should be) illegal?
  - tantalor 4y ago
    See: 1st Amendment to US Constitution
BurningFrog 4y ago
This piece from 2008 seems to be the original: https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/opinion-recalling-lbj-the-egg-czar-would-be-right-at-home-in-d-c-today https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/opinion-recalling-lbj-... Edit: No, this is the same text, under the name of George Will from the day before: https://nypost.com/2008/12/29/lbj-the-egg-czar-other-govt-heroes/ https://nypost.com/2008/12/29/lbj-the-egg-czar-other-govt-he... Weird...

amalgamated_inc 4y ago

[flagged]

whoomp12342 4y ago
abundance of anything is unhealthy so its not "wrong" but eating eggs on occasion wont contribute to high colestrol
- jstx1 4y ago
  Eggs every day don't contribute to high cholesterol either. Dietary cholesterol in general doesn't lead to high blood cholesterol.
  - wolfprogramming 4y ago
    Most people who switch to a mostly red meat diet do see a rise in blood cholesterol. I certainly did. The real question is, does that even matter? High cholesterol is also associated with longevity. The ratio of cholesterol is more important. The ratio of waist to shoulder width is more important. Also your blood a1c is more important for bad outcomes than high cholesterol.
    - NineStarPoint 4y ago
      The secondary question is if the quantity of cholesterol in a food causes the body to have higher cholesterol, or if it’s more complex than that. Because yes, per gram eggs have many times more cholesterol than red meat. But what if it’s something else present in red meat that increases metabolization or production of cholesterol? We just don’t really understand the body well enough to say for sure.
    - kragen 4y ago
      the rise in blood cholesterol is probably because you're eating more saturated fat, not eating more cholesterol
wolfprogramming 4y ago
There have been several studies that have shown eggs to be healthy. There are several studies that show they are unhealthy. Bias is a real problem in nutrition science. There are zero interventional studies that show eggs to be unhealthy. In other words no one has given eggs to one group, observed another group not eat eggs and shown that eggs CAUSE a negative health outcome. Instead people have made statistical calculations on food questionnaires that are highly unreliable. Also people have fed eggs to people and measured various blood levels and made a educated guess on what the long term effects could be. If a study by Kelloggs shows eggs to be unhealthy how can it be trusted? Likewise if members of the study are animal rights activist, vegans or some other ideology that could in one way or another effect their judgement that study shouldn't be trusted. Especially if it is not a interventional study. Of which there are none that show poor health outcomes.
- thadk 4y ago
  If you're in an area which used a lot of lead paint in the past, be aware that free range chickens can move that soil lead into their eggs: https://now.tufts.edu/2019/05/29/backyard-chickens-and-risk-lead-exposure https://now.tufts.edu/2019/05/29/backyard-chickens-and-risk-... Seems this kind of invisible contextual factor could dilute studies on "health".
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > There have been several studies that have shown eggs to be healthy. There are several studies that show they are unhealthy. Bias is a real problem in nutrition science. Mostly because "healthy" is a bit subjective. If some study finds a correlation between egg consumption and a +1% chance of developing a rare cancer - who really cares? When you look at how rare the cancer is, when you might develop it, and the small increase in probability - you're looking at maybe a -1 day life expectancy for a life-time worth of consuming eggs. Why is living 1 less day "unhealthy" - especially compared to all the other ways one can be "unhealthy"?
  - wolfprogramming 4y ago
    It's just such a nuanced topic people have a really hard time reasoning about it. For example, Drinking Alcohol every day clearly increases your chances of developing disease. Drinking zero Alcohol actually decreases the likely hood of you living to a ripe old age. Is it that Alcohol is healthy in small doses? Probably not. Perhaps people who drink a glass of wine once or twice a month have a less stressful life than someone who never drinks. That's why nutrition studies are so hard to be done right. You have to literally watch them consume it and you need a control group and it needs to take place over years. There are books written about Bluezones that say eating meat shortens your life yet HongKong has the both the highest life expectancy and the highest per person meat consumption in the world. You really have to take every single claim and study with a big giant grain of salt and a whole lot of skepticism.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

peteradio 4y ago

Some spine on that guy. Why wouldn't you resign under that kind of directive? How can that possibly lead to a better outcome for the administration unless the outcome they wanted was for eggs to be cheaper for people who don't believe or listen to US surgeon general. I guess this was the President who took open door shits in front of staff and colleagues so I'm not sure its unexpected.

lettergram 4y ago

Wait until you find out why bread and starch is at the bottom of the food pyramid… which is still, to this day, being taught in schools.

gen3 4y ago
It isn't still being taught, it changed to the MyPlate model because the food pyramid was deemed misleading: https://www.myplate.gov/ https://www.myplate.gov/
fknorangesite 4y ago
> bread and starch is at the bottom of the food pyramid This hasn't been true for 18 years.
- mcculley 4y ago
  This is a great example of a mesofact. It is one of those things where experience actually works against a better understanding of the world.
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    Yeah. The "food pyramid with grains on the bottom" version was around for 13 years - shorter than it's now been gone.

skeeter2020 4y ago

Is the fact that Johnson died at 64 of a heart attack somewhat ironic, or was he speaking from personal experience about the dangers of eggs (and the bacon everyone ate daily)?

tyre 4y ago
He was a chain smoker who had had multiple serious heart attacks before taking office. He quit cold turkey to save his own life, then lit a cigarette the minute he stepped out of the White House. Smoked until it killed him.
snapcaster 4y ago
I think the dietary cholesterol == bad thing is just totally wrong. Sample size of 1 but i eat about 4 eggs a day and steak almost every day but it's not processed fast food and my cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. are all _excellent_
- sph 4y ago
  Yes and no. Cholesterol by itself ain't bad, in fact it is necessary to synthesize sex hormones and vitamin D, among other things. High sugar in blood is bad. High sugar and high fat in the bloodstream is worse. Also, recent studies seem to show that cholesterol limits are arbitrary and don't mean much in a vacuum: there seem to be a correlation between high LDL levels and longevity—i.e. people that live longer tend to have higher levels of LDL than average recommendations. Go figure. The important levels for health are: stable glucose/insulin system, lower triglycerides, lower trig/HDL ratio. Everything else is too noisy a signal, including just measuring dietary cholesterol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgS3PuSuyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgS3PuSuyg
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    ApoB levels are the most predictive of cardiovascular disease, which represents the number of atherogenic particles in your blood. You may have high LDL, but a low particle count, and therefore be fine. Sugar and metabolic disease causes your body to produce larger numbers of smaller and less effective particles.

stefan_ 4y ago

I remember when they tried the same thing with salt.

scifibestfi 4y ago

Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding. I say Coke's policies are evil because I saw inside the room. The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation - both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association. This picked up in 2011-2013 - when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration. https://nutritioninsight.com/news/cspi-report-criticizes-big-soda-philanthropy.html https://nutritioninsight.com/news/cspi-report-criticizes-big... The conversations inside these rooms was depressingly transactional: "We (Coke) will give you money. You need to paint opponents of us as racist." The effort was successful, and the message was carried in thousands of articles between 2011-2013. Coke's position was clear: soda is one of the cheapest ways to get calories - a flagrantly inaccurate statement when factoring in the health consequences. I watched as the FDA funneled money to professors at leading universities - as well as think tanks on the left and right - to create studies showing soda taxes hurt the poor. They also paid for studies that say drinking soda DIDN'T cause obesity. https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-drinks-tax/soda-tax-war-taking-shape-in-two-california-cities-idUSBRE88507M20120906 https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-drinks-tax/soda-tax-war-t... Soda companies are deeply embedded in the USDA - so much so that the agency carries discredited talking points like "there are no bad food, only bad diets." This ignores fact that sugar is highly addictive and has negative nutritional value. In the end: racial tensions flared, soda spending was kept in SNAP funding, and many of the soda taxes were defeated... https://twitter.com/calleymeans/status/1609929026889711617 https://twitter.com/calleymeans/status/1609929026889711617

umvi 4y ago
If this is true, shouldn't there be consequences for NAACP? Surely accepting cash to weaponize racism is (or should be) illegal?
- tantalor 4y ago
  See: 1st Amendment to US Constitution

BurningFrog 4y ago

This piece from 2008 seems to be the original: https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/opinion-recalling-lbj-the-egg-czar-would-be-right-at-home-in-d-c-today https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/opinion-recalling-lbj-... Edit: No, this is the same text, under the name of George Will from the day before: https://nypost.com/2008/12/29/lbj-the-egg-czar-other-govt-heroes/ https://nypost.com/2008/12/29/lbj-the-egg-czar-other-govt-he... Weird...