Low Cholesterol foods - diet necessity or diet nonsense?

Low cholesterol foods are all the rage. Virtually every newspaper, magazine, even TV ads trumpet the latest "low-fat", "low-cholesterol" or "cholesterol lowering" yoghurt , spread or even chocolate! These low cholesterol foods must be good news, mustn't it? Well yes, of course.....if you buy the "cholesterol kills you" propaganda from the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Cholesterol is an essential component of thousands of body processes, not least the majority of hormones, especially the sex hormones. Without cholesterol, these body processes would not be able to take place properly and the body would fall into disprepair (otherwise known as disease). Consequently, low cholesterol foods and foods that lower cholesterol may actually have a detrimental effect on many body processes. Blindly using chemicals (because that is what is in these "foods") to lower cholesterol disregards the actual CAUSE of the problem (for an in-depth report, see cholesterol) which will almost invariably correct itself if the cause of high cholesterol is removed.

What are low cholesterol foods?

Some low cholesterol foods are simply foods that have had their cholesterol removed. Whilst totally unnatural, these are probably the least unhealthy low cholesterol foods. Other low cholesterol foods have had their healthy, natural fats replaced with unhealthy, unnatural and downright dangerous plastics known as hydrogenated vegetable oils, which are high in trans-fats. These are highly dangerous chemicals that are implicated in many fat-related diseases.

A third group of "low cholesterol foods" (or claimed "cholesterol lowering foods") have apeared in recent years which give similar cause for concern. Many manufacturers have recently released products that are not only low in cholesterol (which is, of course utterly irrelevant) but which act chemically in the body to reduce cholesterol levels still further.

This is not good news for a body that has raised its cholesterol levels - a perfectly natural and healthy thing for it to do - the body does not increase cholesterol levels for the fun of it - the cholesterol levels are tightly controlled by the liver and the amount of cholesterol in the blood is totally unrelated to the amount of cholesterol in the diet (see cholesterol). As a consequence low cholesterol foods are a complete nonsense and may do more harm than good.

Do yourself a favour, inf out more about cholesterol, what it is, what it does and avoid low cholesterol foods completely!

B Adamson
Natural Health Information Centre
Cholesterol
Natural Health

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