When it comes to eating habits, I thought some things might change this year - but they didn't. Proof again that it's a mad, mad world. Eating prawns. We keep scoffing these insects of the sea as though there are no problems attached. It's surprising, because the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative has made great strides in our awareness about other marine life. But when it comes to these particular crustaceans, we just can't leave them alone. The facts simply don't deter us.The fact that conventional prawn farming is destroying coastal wetlands, and that wild prawn capture entails a by-catch which often greatly outweighs the prawns themselves, and includes sea birds and turtles, seems not to sink in. In December, office party seafood platters and Christmas Day braais lift that sea-bird and turtle by-catch even higher.Demonising cholesterol. Despite the so-called science which initially linked raised cholesterol to heart disease being found embarrassingly wanting, we can't leave the fairytale behind. It's incredible, given that once you take a proper look at the research, it's clear that the theory is bollocks. Sadly, we're now too brainwashed to believe this.I thought that once the US finally admitted, in its official 2015 dietary advice, that the relationship between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol was scant, that the house of cards would fall more quickly. Nah.Big Pharma has too much to lose if it stops pushing cholesterol-lowering statins. They're not just playing for time so they can come up with another reason to medicate the entire human race; they also need enough run-up to do a slower, more convincing, about-turn so they can pretend they were facing that direction all along. In the meanwhile, eat butter, stop the drugs, and order Dr Malcolm Kendrick's The Great Cholesterol Con to read.Soya as health food. Yes, soya has been eaten for centuries in the East, but mostly in fermented form (as in properly brewed soy sauce, tofu, natto and such) and not in bulk quantities. The marketing machine has convinced the West that soy bread, sausages, yoghurt and milk are somehow health or super-foods (it couldn't play the "tastes good" hand, so I guess health promises were its only hope).That's not to say that soy in moderate amounts is anything to get hysterical about, but what's worrying is the quantity we're consuming. Babies fed soy formula is the real problem, as it constitutes almost their entire diet, and because soy's bitterness is masked in many formula brands by adding up to four times the amount of sugar per 100g as is present in dairy formulas or breast milk. Not so super...