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Bangalore-based Rashmi Vasudeva's journalism has appeared in many Indian and international publications over the past decade. A features writer with over nine years of experience heading a health and fitness supplement in a mainstream Indian newspaper, her niche areas include health, wellness, fitness, food, nutrition and Indian classical Arts.
Her articles have appeared in various publications including Mint-Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, Deccan Herald (mainstream South Indian newspaper), Smart Life (Health magazine from the Malayala Manorama Group of publications), YourStory (India's media technology platform for entrepreneurs), Avantika (a noir arts and theatre magazine), ZDF (a German public broadcasting company) and others.
In 2006, she was awarded the British Print-Chevening scholarship to pursue a short-term course in new-age journalism at the University of Westminster, U.K. With a double Masters in Globalisation and Media Studies from Aarhus Universitet (Denmark), University of Amsterdam and Swansea University in Wales, U.K., she has also dabbled in academics, travel writing and socio-cultural studies. Mother to a frisky toddler, she hums 'wheels on the bus' while working and keeps a beady eye on the aforementioned toddler's antics.
Revenge Of The Fats: Major New Study Says You Have Been Eating Wrong All This While
Dietary guidelines look like Bollywood scripts nowadays. Every few weeks, the pendulum swings wildly; new villains pop up, good guys become turncoats, and ultimately, it is all a confusing, albeit entertaining, mishmash.
Yesterday was yet another such big day. A major Lancet study of more than 135,000 people from 18 countries upturned years of advice that a low-fat diet is a healthier way to live. Turns out, it is actually not; and a high-carb diet is what we should be worrying about.
Coming on the heels of several recent studies that declared sugar to be the real villain and cholesterol being removed from the list of 'nutrients of concern', this now increasingly looks like the 'revenge of the much-demonized fats'.
The study found that individuals with a high fat intake had a 23 per cent lower risk of early death and an 18 per cent lower risk of stroke (yes!) compared to those who ate less fats. And get this -- the association of lower mortality is linked to all major types of fat -- saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids! Further, people who ate a high-carb diet (77 per cent of their daily intake) had a 28 per cent increased risk of mortality.
Pit this against current global guidelines, which recommend that 50 to 65 per cent of calories ought to come from carbs and less than 10 per cent from saturated fats and you know why everyone is talking about this study.
Amidst the flood of articles that I saw on this topic, I chose this one because the author does not stop at merely listing findings. He argues that the current guidelines (and the food pyramid) are outdated and flawed. Worse, they are ending up serving food companies rather than the people they are meant for.
Of course, the usual protests about the study being observational and the evidence not enough were made. These criticisms might well be valid but they miss the larger point, which this author points out -- that the global dietary guidelines need a major rethink. Urgently.
