Houston Farmers Market Weekly News

by Glen Boudreaux, Jolie Vue Farms

"The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect", reports the New York Times.

The study followed 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 for 8 years, 1/2 of whom followed a low-fat plan, the other half ate fat as they pleased. Followers of the low-fat diet had as many incidents of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and stroke as those who did not.

Dr. Jules Hirsch, physician in chief emeritus at Rockefeller University, called the study "revolutionary". Dr. Michael Thun, who directs studies for the American Cancer Society, called it the "Rolls Royce of studies" and that it is likely to be the final word on low-fat diets.

Your author's comment is this: it looks like Thomas Jefferson, a man of unusually long life for any generation, was right. Put one meat, 3 vegetables, and a fruit on your dinner plate, all in roughly equal proportions. Of course, President Jefferson was also eating from the farmer's market - his own. So he was eating fresh and local, and his meats must have been grass-based.

Celebrate life with food that is "thousands of miles fresher".

You'll find the Jefferson diet at your Houston Farmer's Market every Tuesday evening and Saturday morning.

Glen Boudreaux, Jolie Vue Farms

• have a recipe to share?

email it to us at enews@houstonfarmersmarket.org!