Now They Want to Ban Butter - Expert Advice Gone Mad!

“Butter should be banned to protect the nation's health, according to a leading heart surgeon. Dr Shyam Kolvekar says only radical action can save growing numbers of young adults from heart attacks and clogged arteries.”

This statement was part of an article printed in the “Daily Mail” back in January of this year.

Dr. Shyam Kolvekar, a heart surgeon at University College   London Hospital, also said that by the time he sees many of his patients, it is too late. Their hearts and cardiovascular system are too damaged for repair. He wants to stop heart disease before it starts by getting people to limit saturated fat in the diet. And to get the ball rolling, he suggests "banning butter." 

Kolvekar is particularly worried that heart disease is growing rapidly in the younger population. "It's because most kids start the day with some toast and butter," he says. "Porridge is a much better alternative." 

Why the butter and not the toast? Two slices of bread contain the equivalent carbohydrates of five teaspoons of sugar. And elevated blood sugar has been directly associated with heart disease. 

Dr. Kolvekar also suggests replacing natural butter with the industrially-processed, chemically-modified yellow-coloured substance known as margarine.  Great idea, doc! In the interest of disclosure, the Daily Mail notes that, "Dr.  Kolvekar's comments were issued by KTB, a public relations company that works for Unilever, the maker of Flora margarine."

Health expert and author Dr Dwight Lundell points out that an article published in the American Heart Journal last year, showed that in an examination of 137,000 people admitted to the hospital with a heart attack, 70% of them had normal blood cholesterol levels! 

It should also be noted that the long-running Framingham Heart Study showed that after the age of 50 (when 90% of all heart attacks occur), lower cholesterol levels are clearly associated with a shorter life expectancy.

Cholesterol is not a dirty word; it is a normal mechanism within our bodies system of systems.

If we take a brief look at our Primal History we can see that we were meant to eat carbohydrates from veggies and fruits during the summer months so that we could store fat to keep us warm during the winter months. The reason why doctors tell you to fast before a cholesterol test is not because a high-fat meal will skew the test but because a high-carbohydrate one will. Carbohydrates turn into triglycerides (body fat) to insulate and nourish you when there’s no sugar left to eat. Carbohydrates simultaneously turn into these fatty acids (cholesterol), too, to patch your heart cells against leaks if you freeze and as nourishment for your heart muscle cells.

Your heart has a seasonal metabolism, it was designed to run on straight sugar (Glucose) in the summer and in the winter it was supposed to run on free fatty acids. But when did you last eat purely with the seasons?

One of cholesterol's other functions in the body is to act as a precursor to vitamin D. 

Vitamin D can also be obtained from foods. Interestingly, foods that provide this vitamin -- all of which are animal foods -- tend to be high in cholesterol.

Since cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D, inhibiting the synthesis of cholesterol will also inhibit the synthesis of vitamin D. Since sunlight is required to turn cholesterol into vitamin D, avoiding the sun will likewise undermine our ability to synthesize vitamin D. And since vitamin D-rich foods are also rich in cholesterol, low-cholesterol diets are inherently deficient in vitamin D.

Vitamin D is best known for its role in calcium metabolism and bone health, but new roles are continually being discovered for it, including roles in mental health, blood sugar regulation, the immune system, and cancer prevention. Yet standard modern advice -- take cholesterol-lowering drugs, avoid the sun, eat a low-cholesterol diet -- combined with a virtually absent recommended daily intake of vitamin D that is only a tenth of what many researchers believe to be sufficient all seems to pave the way for widespread vitamin D deficiency.

I personally eat a Paleo Style Diet, high protein, high fat, and the majority of carbohydrates from fresh fruits and vegetables. I consume organic full fat butter in large amounts, organic full fat cream in my fully caffeinated coffee every morning, I also eat red meat 4 days every week as well as Wild Salmon and Organic Eggs 2 days every week.

Some would say that is a diet fit for a heart attack! Well I went to have my cholesterol and blood pressure checked as I do every couple of years to see if my diet has any effect on my health. The results were that my blood pressure was spot on 120/76; serum cholesterol levels were all in the very healthy range.

It is well documented and researched that foods that contain cholesterol such as eggs and red meat have no affect whatsoever on serum cholesterol levels.


Even the Author of the famous blunder of research that started the whole cholesterol con was an author of this Article in the Journal of Nutrition from 1959 citing 8 different studies on cholesterol containing foods having no effect on serum cholesterol.


This research study published in the  international journal of obesity and related metabolic disorders showed that a diet rich in  Mono Unsaturated Fats, there was a better effect on serum Triglycerides than a Carbohydrate rich diet, even with energy restriction and weight loss. 


If for some stupid and highly unintelligent reason Butter becomes banned in the UK then I will become one of the first Butter Criminals!