In article >, "Nancy Young" > wrote:
[snip]
>A good friend of mine would be dead now if he didn't have
>his heart attack while in the hospital with pains. Seems he's
>one of those people whose body manufactures too much
>cholesterol and it almost killed him at 45. This is a fitness
>buff.

G'day Nance,

Nearly all my male contemporaries who are now dead, died of a heart
attack at around 40 to 45 years old. The females died of "stomach"
cancer in their late 50s/early 60s. As for those of us who are still
alive (and we are still the majority I am pleased to say :-) we will
probably die of cancer or stroke in the next 10 to 20 years -- but
that's assuming we will still have the privilege of dying "naturally"!

Addendum: I may have mentioned this before, but back in the early
1900s a sample of so-called table margarine won first prize in the
butter section of an agricultural show down in SE Queensland!

Indeed, Oz table margarine was practically indistinguishable from
butter years ago. The only "test" I knew was to slice a cold block:
margarine tended to crack horizontally as you cut down; butter came
off as a smooth slab. ("Cooking margarine" was very different.)

The politically powerful dairy industry back in the Good Old Days
insisted that our "peanut butter" be renamed to remove the "butter"
(hence "peanut paste"). I don't know if they were also the reason
margarine formulation changed dramatically some decades ago, or
whether it was just that margarine manufacturers saw an opportunity in
providing a more spreadable product than butter at the time. Whatever
the reason, modern margarine here in Oz is now a very poor relative of
butter when it comes to putting some grease on bread or whatever!
To put it mildly, it's now inedible YUK! (Well, IMO anyway. :-)
[Also, the old table/cooking margarine distinction has long gone.]

I might add that an industrial chemist I know who works for one of the
major manufacturers once told me that margarine is made from whatever
oil is cheapest at the time. (I suspect most is made from palm oil
here.) Also, economics here in Oz has meant quite a reduction in
pre-manufacture quality control; though I'm not sure whether this is
also reflected in the final product -- maybe they just dump more!

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID