Cholesterol Decriminalized (or "Jake &!@#ing told you so")

"You shouldn't eat so many eggs. They have...
[dramatic music plays]
CHOLESTEROL!!!!!"















I've heard this so many times I'm on the brink of an aneurysm.

Many years ago (probably around the time Ronald Reagan declared ice cream a "nutritious and wholesome food"), based upon God-knows-what, the nutrition gods proclaimed that cholesterol was bad. Eating cholesterol-rich foods would lead to high levels of cholesterol in one's body, and we needed to eat lots of "heart-healthy grains" to flush it all out.
That's right folks, ram entire loaves of bread (NOT meat, for the love of God) into your ingestion chambers and you'll be healthy as a horse.
Personally, I'd rather eat the horse.

Funny story though--it seems that this was all bullshit. Funnier still, I've been telling people this for some time now.

Me being right about stuff... Who would have thought?

But why should we believe you?

Because I'm always right! But if that's not good enough for you then maybe because the American Heart Association says so.
The AHA has announced that "cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption."
In simpler terms: don't worry about how much cholesterol you're eating.

So what does this mean for us?

For starters it means I'll eat as many eggs as I damn well please (not that I wouldn't have anyway).
Secondly, maybe you should change your eating habits. The document also advises against overconsumption of sugars and refined grains, which are pretty much the backbone of the modern American diet.

It also means that maybe we should question the "common sense" beliefs we hold about nutrition and diet. Until recently, the "fact" that cholesterol intake should be minimized at peril of cardiac explosion was one of those "everybody knows it" bits of information. If something so widely believed to be true turns out to be a load of moose droppings, what else could we be wrong about?

But wait--if the AHA was wrong for decades about cholesterol, how do I know they're right now?

You don't.
That's kind of the point, really. Didn't you read my last paragraph?
We tend to believe everything that's said to us or dumped onto our Facebook feeds without fact-checking it.

The science behind our dietary wives' tales is often pretty shoddy and occasionally non-existent altogether. I'd advise those who are interested in this sort of thing to read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, which delves much deeper into this subject.

OK, but why did you feel the need to write a whole post on this?

Firstly, because despite the AHA changing their tune a while ago, people still try to argue that cholesterol is the devil without any reason whatsoever other than "Everyone knows that. It's common sense."
Secondly, because I think our species needs to back off the grain consumption and perhaps if people know that one of the "bad things" found in meat and eggs is actually benign, maybe they'll reconsider their habits.
Thirdly, and most importantly:

BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT.

AGAIN.

GIVE ME YOUR MONEY.