Public Health Timeline

Here is a timeline, as best as I can recall without doing any pesky research, of public health advice from the Media:

1950: Meat, starch and dairy will keep you healthy.

1962: Make your kids drink juice. It has vitamins.

1965: Mercury is good for your teeth. Fill your cavities with it.

1969: Eat wheat germ to be groovy.

1973: Bread is a wonder food. Replace all meals with bread.

1975: Older adults should take an aspirin a day if they don’t want to die of a heart attack.

1978: Juice is all sugar. Keep it from kids or they will get diabetes as their teeth fall out.

1983: Bread will kill you. Eliminate it from your diet.

1984: Cholesterol clogs and kills.

1985: Eggs have cholesterol and should be avoided at all costs.

1986: Tofu is good for you. Look – Asians eat it and they live forever.

1987: Flossing is more important than brushing.

1990: Meat, starch and dairy will immediately kill you.

1991: Moderate daily alcohol consumption will prevent heart disease and add years to your life.

Later in 1991: Alcohol is poison; avoid at all costs.

Still later in 1991: The secret to longevity is daily alcohol consumption.

1992: Eat only meat and fat. Carbs are from Satan.

1993: Coffee will burn a hole in your stomach

1994: Coffee is a super antioxidant. Drink more of it.

1995: The cholesterol in eggs won’t hurt you. Eat an egg a day.

1996: What is wheat germ? Whatever it is, we don’t sell it here.

1997: Mercury fillings are insane. Remove them at once.

2000: Drink 50 cups of water a day, you idiot.

2002: Some cholesterol is bad, some is good. No one can possibly know which is which.

2003: Most people get plenty of vitamin D from the sun.

2004: Coconut oil is good for you. Only eat products that contain coconut oil.

2005: Tofu is evil. Something about hormones and GMOs.

2006: Coconut oil will kill you – don’t even look at it. Too late.

2007: You can exist on a diet of pure coconut oil.

2008: Everyone on the planet is dying of vitamin D deficiency.

2009: Get a mammogram

2010: Stay away from mammograms

2011: Maybe get a mammogram

2012: Forget what we said about water. Just drink… some.

2013: There is no clinical benefit to flossing.

2014: We were just kidding about cholesterol; it doesn’t hurt you.

2015: Coffee dehydrates you.

2016 and a half: Coffee doesn’t dehydrate you.

2017: Eat crickets. Eat fermented crickets raised on organic turmeric and drizzled in mushroom extract.

2018: Older adults who take an aspirin a day will immediately die.

Those are the ones that come to mind. But I haven’t yet looked at today’s headlines; is alcohol bad or good again?

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