Could You Eat Meat Without Getting Fatter?

Could You Eat Meat Without Getting Fatter?

Dilip Gadkar
07/30/2010

Until recently, we had never heard of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. But a few days before the Fourth of July weekend, a reader from Mumbai sent us a Times of India article about a research paper on the health benefits of eating Chocolate published in this august Journal. (A journal that lauds eating chocolate has to be termed august). So we wrote an article titled Could You Eat Chocolate Without Feeling Guilty? A New Chinese Study Says You Should.

This week we came across another article about a paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This article was from the Hindustan Times. This research paper, however, may anger or disappoint many readers. Because the title of the Hindustan Times article reads Meat lovers gain more weight .

According to this article, this study was conducted by researchers from Imperial College, London and,

The research involved more than 100,000 men and 270,000 women from 10 European countries who took part in a study of cancer and nutrition and other lifestyle factors.
The study found that avid meat eaters gained more weight over 5 years than those who ate less meat but same amount of calories.
According to the researchers, the strongest association with weight gain was poultry, followed by processed meat and red meat.

The article concludes with:

The researchers led by Dr. Anne-Claire Vergnaud said while this is a relatively small amount of weight from an individual's point of view, gaining an average of 4 pounds in 5 years "could have an important effect from a population perspective."

We refuse to make any editorial comment about the findings of this study or the contents of this article. To each his own, we say!

Getting back to our article about the benefits of Chocolate, we recently found that not only could Chocolate lower bad cholesterol but it could potentially make people rich.

We offer the case in point of Anthony Ward, the British Hedge Fund Manager who bought about $1 billion worth of cocoa beans. Unlike most players in commodities futures, Mr. Ward took delivery of the cocoa beans. Why? Listen to Erin Burnett of CNBC explain in her videoclip Cuckoo for Cocoa.

In Erin's discussion with James Cordier, her guest "expert", light was shed on this mysterious purchase:

This is a much larger bet than most people are familiar with; if in fact he has the staying power with this size of purchase, it is going to be a huge market mover later this year.
Demand for cocoa is excellent; here in the United States it is thought that as economic worries mount, the consumption of chocolate actually goes up,
As far as the BRIC nations, demand for cocoa right now is exploding,
So time is certainly on his hands, if in fact he has the financing for this in place, all he has to do is wait for the market to come to him.

We wish Mr. Ward good luck. We would never put on this trade even if we could rent the brains and the financing to do it. Our love for chocolate is such that we could not allow for our cocoa beans to sit in warehouses. We would convert them to chocolate and eat it.

But as Erin's co-anchor Mark Haines wondered how could a single buyer amass such a large stake when there are position limits on most futures contracts in the USA? The answer, Mr. Ward bought his cocoa in London, where unlike the USA, there are apparently no position limits. An eye-opener for those blithely assume that the British are more conservative than the risk-taking, cowboy Americans?

(This article is a reprint from CinemaRasik http://www.cinemarasik.com. )

You may also access this article through our web-site http://www.lokvani.com/