Jayne:

Exactly.  Just because something passed peer review doesn't mean it isn't carefully designed to produce the result its funders wanted.  And plenty of bunk still passes peer review.

JS

Steven:

No, you're still misreading the data.  Note which foods were rationed initially, some combination of which could have caused the drop:

"During the first year [starting in spring of 1940] the rationing included all imported foods, bread, fats, sugar, coffee, cocoa, syrup, and coffee substitute."

Continuing...

"In the second year [starting in late 1941] all kinds of meat and pork, eggs, milk and dairy products were rationed…"

Animal foods didn’t really dwindle from Norwegian kitchens until the end of 1941. Even if we ignore the fact that changes in mortality would naturally lag behind changes in diet, it’s hard to blame the 1941 drop in cardiovascular disease on something that mostly happened in 1942!"

(Note also that sugar and fruit consumption dropped by the same amount that (non-fish) meat consumption dropped later.)

Therefore, it's clear that the drop in mortality had something to do with the initial list: "all imported foods, bread, fats, sugar, coffee, cocoa, syrup, and coffee substitute" -- and, even more likely, the 20% drop in total calories consumed.  (Calorie restriction is well-known to increase lifespan.)

JS

Steven:

It's impossible to disentangle the effects of so many different occurrences, dietary and otherwise.  (To understate the matter, diet was not the only change in people's lives when World War II started.)  And, in fact, mortality took a few years to bottom out, so it's probable that these changes took a while to establish themselves in mortality patterns.

However, Denise's point stands: when the precipitous drop in mortality precedes the drop in meat consumption, it's nonsensical to claim that eating less meat caused the drop.

Besides, our ancestors have been eating red meat for at least 3.4 million years -- far longer than we've been eating fish.  After 3.4 million years, we ought to be reasonably well-adapted to the whole red meat thing...especially since human fat has very similar composition to the fat of the animals we eat.  If eating red meat is unhealthy, then so is losing weight -- because it involves eating our own fat!

JS

Steven:

Michael Gurven and Hillard Kaplan

Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW 33(2): 321–365 (JUNE 2007)

Also, vegetarians have more colon cancer than meat-eaters:

Am J Clin Nutr May 2009 vol. 89 no. 5 1620S-1626S

Cancer incidence in vegetarians: results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Oxford)

Timothy J Key, Paul N Appleby, Elizabeth A Spencer, Ruth C Travis, Andrew W Roddam, and Naomi E Allen

The incidence rate ratio for colorectal cancer in vegetarians compared with meat eaters was 1.39 (95% CI: 1.01, 1.91).

Go here for more information: Carnosine, Colons, and Cancer

The only negative effects I know of from fish are from smoked fish, which is weakly carcinogenic over the long term (as are most smoked foods AFAIK).

JS

Steven:

Since my article on hydrolyzed protein has been so popular, I might do some more on other mysterious food additives, like PGPR.  My first reaction was the same as yours: "I don't know what PGPR is -- but I'm pretty sure it doesn't need to be in chocolate."

Meat, root starches, vegetables, and fruit are the simple path to health.  As I said elsewhere, "Food doesn't have ingredients: food is an ingredient."

JS