Milk. The correction.
Full fat milk was the enemy of health for 50 years, and sales are now the highest they have been in 50 years. What we think is healthy has always been more complicated than what we have been told.
THE GIST ON MILK: "The Correction"
What went wrong with low fat?
In the 1970s governments decided that fat was the enemy. The NHS endorsed it and the food industry restructured around it. Low fat everything. A generation changed what it ate on that advice.
Then the science started shifting. Food companies had removed fat and replaced it with sugar. The healthier option turned out to be worse for you than the original.
What happens when the advice is wrong?
For 50 years official consensus shaped what people ate and it turned out to be wrong. Not maliciously. The science and understanding evolved.
People noticed. If the advice on fat was wrong, what else might need revisiting? Trust is finite.
Who fills the gap?
When institutions you trust turn out to be wrong, people update their relationship with official advice entirely. The vacuum gets filled by something else, right now social media nutritionists.
Some are excellent. Some, well, you get the picture. The point is that the gap exists at all, and full fat milk is the most harmless example of what happens when it does.
Do you trust official food advice?
Your take. One tap, then see how everyone else voted.
Quick answers
Why did people stop drinking full fat milk?
In the 1970s governments decided fat was the enemy, the NHS endorsed it and the food industry restructured around low fat.
What did low fat food turn out to contain?
Food companies removed fat and replaced it with sugar.
What fills the gap when institutional trust falls?
Huw says social media nutritionists, some excellent and some not.
See you on the next one.
What should the next one be? Suggest a topic for Huw to explain
The conversation
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