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A source of our wealth, yet adverse to our health? Butter and the diet-heart link in New Zealand to c.1990

Steel, Frances

Description

The medical link between dietary saturated fat, serum cholesterol, and arteriosclerosis redefined meanings for butter in New Zealand, from a celebrated dietary staple to a potentially harmful substance to be closely monitored in the diet. The introduction of a nutritionally endorsed butter substitute, polyunsaturated margarine, heightened this shift. This article addresses the ways in which such links are taken up and negotiated outside the medical sphere. It examines the responses of...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorSteel, Frances
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-13T22:55:42Z
dc.identifier.issn0951-631X
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/82638
dc.description.abstractThe medical link between dietary saturated fat, serum cholesterol, and arteriosclerosis redefined meanings for butter in New Zealand, from a celebrated dietary staple to a potentially harmful substance to be closely monitored in the diet. The introduction of a nutritionally endorsed butter substitute, polyunsaturated margarine, heightened this shift. This article addresses the ways in which such links are taken up and negotiated outside the medical sphere. It examines the responses of government, nutritional organizations, the dairy industry, commercial interests, women responsible for feeding coronary heart disease sufferers, and everyday butter consumers. The article concludes that rearticulating meanings for butter along medicalized lines was a highly fraught undertaking, particularly in a country in which dairying was of central economic importance and underpinned national iconography.
dc.publisherOxford University Press
dc.sourceSocial History of Medicine
dc.subjectKeywords: Butter; Coronary heart disease; Dairy industry; New Zealand; Nutritional science; Polyunsaturated margarine; Primary and secondary prevention; Saturated fat
dc.titleA source of our wealth, yet adverse to our health? Butter and the diet-heart link in New Zealand to c.1990
dc.typeJournal article
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.description.refereedYes
local.identifier.citationvolume18
dc.date.issued2005
local.identifier.absfor111199 - Nutrition and Dietetics not elsewhere classified
local.identifier.absfor149903 - Heterodox Economics
local.identifier.ariespublicationMigratedxPub10875
local.type.statusPublished Version
local.contributor.affiliationSteel, Frances, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU
local.description.embargo2037-12-31
local.bibliographicCitation.issue3
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage475
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage93
local.identifier.doi10.1093/shm/hki048
dc.date.updated2015-12-11T11:11:52Z
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-29144475446
CollectionsANU Research Publications

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