“If It Isn’t Fun.” – A Fairy Tale of Fats
This is an anonymous editorial attributed by some to British medical nutritionist Hugh Sinclair. It is published by permission from The Lancet, Vol 1, page 635, 1956.
Once upon a time there was a very poor country where nobody had enough to eat, and the average expectation of life was twenty-four years. There was also a very rich country where everybody had plenty to eat and where the average expectation of life was sixty-four years. In the very rich country people used to save up milk and butter and cream and eggs and send them to the very poor country where they were distributed, especially to the children who otherwise would have none. In this way, the expectation of life in the very poor country was raised from twenty-four to twenty-seven years. Meanwhile, the expectation of life in the very rich country was rising too. It went up from sixty-four to sixty-seven years, and everyone who did not die of cancer of the lung from smoking too many cigarettes, died of coronary thrombosis.
Then someone discovered that coronary thrombosis was due to eating and drinking too much milk and butter and cream and eggs in the very rich country. So they sent all these materials to the very poor country, so that the expectation of life in the very poor country might be raised high enough for them to start dying of coronary thrombosis so that they, too, could stop eating and drinking milk and butter and cream and eggs.