Awesome Hybrid Fruits & McStatins?
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
So today I was simply planning on writing about one of my new favorite grocery store finds – hybrid fruits. I will get to those in a moment, but something was brought to my attention this morning that was so earth-shatteringly (is that even a word?) stupid I was at a loss for words.
Nate Tipilady, the guy you see beating up EC with the Graston tools on EC’s website, sent me this article from sciencedaily.com. The article essentially states that scientists have determined that taking a daily statin will off-set the cardiovascular disease risk increase associated with fast-food consumption. Due to this false assumption, they recommend that statins should be given away for free at fast food restaurants like condiments!
After reading the entire article I was prepared to write an absolutely scathing retort to all of the bullshit spewed in it. Fortunately Stephan over at wholehealthsource did it for me, and essentially took the words right out of my mouth. I highly encourage you to read the article and then read Stephan’s response, as he sheds some light onto the false statements, and points out that it is so ridiculous, he hopes that the authors are just being facetious. I for one surely hope so.
- Note - Stephan is actually responding to the editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology that the article was based on, not the article itself.
Below are my two favorite points that he makes about the editorial.
- “They assume the risk of heart attack conveyed by eating fast food is due to its total and trans fat content, which is simplistic. To support that supposition, they cite one study: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (2). This is one of the best diet-health observational studies conducted to date. The authors of the editorial appear not to have read the study carefully, because it found no association between total or saturated fat intake and heart attack risk, when adjusted for confounding variables. The number they quoted (relative risk = 1.23) was before adjustment for fiber intake (relative risk = 1.02 after adjustment), and in any case, it was not statistically significant even before adjustment. How did that get past peer review? Answer: reviewers aren’t critical of hypotheses they like.
- Statins mostly work in middle-aged men, and reduce the risk of heart attack by about one quarter. The authors excluded several recent unsupportive trials from their analysis. Dr. Michel de Lorgeril reviewed these trials recently (3). For these reasons, adding a statin to fast food would probably have a negligible effect on the heart attack risk of the general population.”
Anywho, back to the original blog for today, the amazing and delicious hybrid fruits.
I had seen some of these fruits in the supermarket before, but had never tried one. A few weeks ago when camping with my long-time friends on the beautiful Saco river one of them was eating a pluot, and said it was absolutely fantastic.
A pluot is a pretty complicated fruit hybrid that has many varities created over generations of cross-breeding. The pluot is not to be confused with the plumcot, which is a simple plum and apricot hybrid and is a 50-50 split between the two.
A pluot is a cross between a plumcot and another plum, and so can be anywhere from 60-40 to 75-25 plum to apricot. This second cross-breeding allows for a lot of different varieties and makes the fruit sweeter than a plumcot.
Either way they looked juicy and sweet and really intrigued my wife and I. So of course when we returned home we bought and tried some, and I must say, they are absolutely awesome. They combine the best parts of a plum and an apricot, are sweet but not overlyso, high in fiber, potassium and antioxidants.
A week or so later we came across a variety that was called a Mango Tango pluot. This was a pluot that was supposed to have a slight mango taste to it. While the mango taste was rather mild, the pluot itself was incredibly juicy and delicious.
The next time you are in the grocery store, do yourself a favor and pick up some pluots to keep your fruit intake varied and interesting. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
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Posted on August 13th, 2010 by Brian St. Pierre
4 Comments
August 18th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Hi Brian,
I regularly read your blog along with Eric Cressey’s blog. I’m a personal trainer in Des Moines, IA and love learning about anything related to training and overall health. Just wanted to say because of you I recently tried the plumcot. Wow! Good stuff. I also have been in quite a few heated discussions because the more I read on your blog and do additional research, the more I bring up such topics that may be controversial to the mainstream mentality.(dairy, sprouted grains, saturated fat) Your blogs have definitely been worth reading. I’ve learned a great deal. Thanks for sharing all your great info!
September 3rd, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[...] can’t say that I have ever seen any hybrid fruits in the UK. Certainly not where I shop anyway. They do look incredibly fascinating though so if [...]
November 30th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Took me time to learn all of the comments, however I really enjoyed the article. Good job…
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