Anti-pasteurization pseudo-science in the Guardian

Joanna Blythman is not what one what call an evidence based thinker. After all this is an individual who walked out of the Soil Association because it was not sufficiently pro-homeopathy. So, when a piece appears by her in the Guardian with the subheading “I’m not just another muesli-belt middle-class neurotic who doesn’t understand science”, it’s probably a good idea to the LTS list and move the hell on.

But what delicious crankery it is. According to Blythman,

Our food is now made in qualitatively different ways than it was in our forebears’ time. Factory bread is made by high-speed methods with “improvers” (aka chemical additives) and enzymes artfully made invisible by using the term “processing aids”. It is denied the patient fermentation that rendered its “anti-nutrients” harmless and its proteins digestible for past generations. Almost all the milk we drink goes through the high pressure and heat of homogenisation and pasteurisation. And the result? It’s not the same as the white stuff we drank until the 60s and it may not be so digestible as a result.

Evidence for these statements is, naturally, not given. We are not told what an anti-nutrient is. Does it attack nutrients, nullifying them?

And just think of the harm done by pasteurization. Instead of performing the essential task. it makes milk less digestible. This is not simply piffle, it is dangerous. What is the Guardian thinking by publishing this lunacy?