Who can you trust?

I'm 50 years old, and I've been drinking milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner - and snacktime - forever. (When I was drinking Pepsi as a steady diet, that was in between meals. When I ate, I always drank milk.)

On the few times I traveled over to Europe, I was always surprised to see that I could never get milk in a restaurant. (Or if I could, it was some horrible heated stuff.)

It was finally made clear to me that the rest of the world doesn't have a National Dairy Council... or whatever Council it is that does the commercials that say Got Milk? or encourage people to drink milk because you get calcium from it.

I'm not sure how the rest of the world gets their calcium - presumably in their cheeses or broccoli or what have you. We have "fortified" orange juice, for example...not sure if Europeans do.

In any event, the thing is that everyone in the US thinks they have to drink milk to get calcium - because of the advertisement that says so - no one in Europe thinks so.

It's all advertisement.

We've also got the Beef commercials - it's "what's for dinner". That's not quite the same thing, the advertisements don't say that beef is necessary for you, just that it tastes good. But funnily enough...those commercials are paid for from the Natinal Beef Board- or whatever their name is. But the thing is... the governmetn pays for those commercials too (indirectly, through subsidies to the National Beef Board)!

We've been told for years, by "them," that eggs are bad for you...give you high cholesterol. That news hadn't made it to Europe, where apparently they've done some kind of study that shows that people who eat eggs are able to lose weight more frequently than those who don't.

http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5617814

Here's the thing - we don't know who is paying advertisers to effect our eating habits. We don't know who is paying the scientists who endorse that this food is good for you and this bad.

The solution is simple. Eat whatever you want - the foods you like - just eat them in moderation!

Some things are common sense. There's no nutrition in chocolate - it just tastes great and gives you energy! So obviously you can't subsist on chocolate for more than a day! Fruits and vegetables - bursting with vitamins. Eggs - taste good, give you protein. And so on.

So don't get all het up over the latest study. If you like certain foods - eat them. In moderation.