TY - JOUR
T1 - A source of our wealth, yet adverse to our health? Butter and the diet-heart link in New Zealand to c.1990
AU - Steel, Frances
PY - 2005
Y1 - 2005
N2 - 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 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.
AB - 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 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.
U2 - 10.1093/shm/hki048
DO - 10.1093/shm/hki048
M3 - Article
SN - 0951-631X
VL - 18
SP - 475
EP - 493
JO - Social History of Medicine
JF - Social History of Medicine
IS - 3
ER -