Hey Europeans, Quit Bitching and Learn to Think for Yourselves

After 16 years in Europe, I've taken a lot of hits for the team (yeah, the US is still my team, sort of--c'mon it's just a metaphor), I moved to Europe long before George W so it's not about that, but of course that was taken as valid excused to step up the America-bashing by an order of magnitude.

If America is so backwards, pitiful and stupid and all that, as the numerous America-bashers claim, then why the do Europeans copy almost everything, especially the really stupid stuff?

Case in point, Ancel Keys and his homicidal acolytes.

My wife just bought a big jar of ghee at our local hippie health food store and the minimalist label informs the wary public that it contains no cholesterol.

Huzzah!

There's the lipid hypothesis, which posits an association between high blood cholesterol and heart disease.

Then there's the diet-heart hypothesis which posits an association between saturated fats and increased blood cholesterol.

What is the proper label for the dietary cholesterol kills you hypothesis?

As Gary Taubes points out in GCBC, even the homicidal Ancel Keys acolytes (reluctantly) admit there's no proof beyond a ridiculous rabbit study that eating cholesterol has anything to do with blood cholesterol.

Yet this myth about dietary cholesterol continues to work its way around the world. Now making great inroads in Central Europe, soon we may see the abolition of goulash.

I have to give the French credit for actually putting their money where their mouth is as far as presumed cultural superiority and diet goes. They've refused to adopt American strictures about diet and the result is the so-called French Paradox. Long may it live.

The problem with America is that it is hugely influential. Too influental, especially in the wrong areas. Europe is often passive and cynical in America's dying wake. America is a waning empire but it is still the most influential one around.

If snobbish Europeans truly want to show they are superior they should stop blindly adhering to idiotic American notions such as the dangers of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat instead of wildly embracing them.