I’m sorry to hear about your mother and I wish her the best of luck.

I can appreciate the concerns you have about what you’ve been eating. Here are two articles that I suggest you read in regard to the association between fat, cholesterol, and heart disease.

Busting the Cholesterol Myths
Hey Fat Head, You’ve Been Fed a Load of Bologna

The first article is based primarily on a book called The Cholesterol Myths by Dr. Uffe Ravnskov and includes a thorough review of research.

We each have to decide for ourselves what’s best to eat, and regardless of what you choose, I encourage you to learn more and make an educated decision.

Since your dietary decisions seem to have been based more on weight loss than health, it’s important to realize that there are many other factors to consider such as the source and quality of the food, if and how it’s been processed, and how it’s been prepared. For example, oxidized polyunsaturated fats are believed to increase the risk of heart disease, and this is something that applies to most fried and processed foods. Trans fat should be a concern as well. Regardless of whether a diet is low carb or low fat, it’s still extremely important to choose high quality natural whole foods.

My point is that excessive carbohydrate consumption in general is bad and that Cheerios contributes to it. Furthermore, cheerios is a processed food that is very likely to be much less nutritious than most natural whole foods. I’d agree that there are much worse things to eat for breakfast, but there are also foods that would be much better.

I’m an active athlete and do very well on fewer than 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. So do many others. What’s important to consider here is nutritional individuality and that while some may thrive on 300 grams of carbohydrates per day, it may be far too much for others.

My intent is to help people learn how to take better care of themselves. General Mills’ intent is to sell cereal. In my opinion, these intentions are drastically different and I’m certainly not paying lobbyists to promote mine. However, it doesn’t really matter because everyone should embrace the importance of evaluating the information available to them and making their own informed decisions.

As long as big industry and it’s government friends continue to neglect welfare of the general public, I think we’ll continue to see fraudulent theories like what we see with cholesterol, saturated fat, and heart disease. However, the general public is not free of blame. We need to educate ourselves and start making more informed decisions that will discourage all of this from happening. For the most part, it seems that industry will follow what the consumer wants and government will follow what industry wants. As long as we continue buying low cholesterol and low fat food that’s full of sugar and chemicals, we’ll continue to get it!

How long do you think it will be before the fraudulent theories on fat and cholesterol come to an end once and for all? Sometimes I will feel encouraged and other times, I think we’re just as far away as ever.

The mainstream news media and press, with the help of big pharma just seem to get louder and louder whenever the truth steps in their way. The public just doesn’t understand this stuff as well as we need to.

I know Isabel and her Diet Solution Program is excellent. In regard to the amount of organic food that is available to you, just do the best you can and don’t stress yourself out about it. That would be counterproductive to your health and happiness and would defeat the purpose.

Lisa – Thanks for sharing your experience and supporting my point. It’s also encouraging to hear that you’re handling your diabetes responsibly. I know too many people who use an insulin pump and eat a lot the foods that got them into trouble in the first place.

It does infuriate me a lot also, but at the same time entertained, because I am not very exposed to pop culture. It can also make me feel trapped sometimes because of my tender age (I do not know what do sometimes), but I believe in baby steps.

So I believe in:
Step by Step, slowly but surely, we’ll get to the goal! Do not worry about failure but use it as a tool to success. Be in the present moment with positive thinking! Be brave and healthy!

I surely have learnt a lot from the the links this site provides. Like Bud’s site, embraceliving, rat race trap, and zen habits. the tree effect has just occurred to me! the tree will continue growing!

Vin and friends, I thank you all for planting seeds of good health, but it depends if the person’s mind is fertile (ego). You all have done a good job for me!

The best of things will surely come to all of you, which means us.
I realized that do not need to wish you all well but I assure all of you: you all WILL truly do well!

I have never been that proud in my life! You all get an infinite amount of my support.

ps. I am currently adapting my family to the Diet Solution Program by Isabel de los Rios since April 14, 2009. This site has been a great help because it truly agrees!

But getting truly organic food in Malaysia can be a problem, anyway I’ll keep informing myself. Probably my family is eating ≤40% organic at this time. The future will be organic anyway…

Ægil – Thank you for the compliment, I’m glad you’re enjoying the site! It looks like you’re doing some great work to promote optimal health. Keep up the great work!

The information that we get from the media in regard to health and nutrition can certainly seem entertaining to someone who is knowledgeable. However, people who are less informed are falling for this stuff and it’s very unfortunate. As such, I tend to find the political and corporate influence on modern lifestyle to be much more infuriating than entertaining.

Thank you for your wishes! I already have discussed certain aspects of the political and corporate influences that I just described and will certainly continue to do so. However, ridicule is never my motivation. I talk about these things to help people make better decisions and improve their lives.

Don – I absolutely agree! Unfortunately, that’s the nature of most marketing and our food is a particularly bad place for it. Capitalism inspires growth in many ways, but healthy nutrition is certainly not one of them. To the dismay of large corporations, nature doesn’t lend itself well to marketing, patents, or efficiency.

I’ve written a good amount about political and corporate influence, but not marketing specifically. I’ll definitely write about it in the future, but will have to read up on it more first. Thanks for expressing your interest!