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But part of the question genuinely is, "were those animal fats less healthy than the high-trans-fat alternatives they were replaced with?" Our collective under

But part of the question genuinely is, "were those animal fats less healthy than the high-trans-fat alternatives they were replaced with?" Our collective understanding of what various kinds of dietary fats do to our bodies has changed several times over the last several decades, and some people have simply refused to update their understanding, while others have a financial motivation to ignore certain updates.

smileysteve 3y ago
I have found it extremely difficult to convince parents in their late 70s, and/or small town restaurants to stop purchasing margarine with partially hydrogenated oils. Similar with whole milk versus 2%. and same with, "no, we don't need bread or white rice with this meal"
WorldMaker 3y ago
I do think we are finally seeing some good macronutrient research on things like animal fats versus trans-fats. It's definitely slow. I think a factor in updating our collective understanding that is both tied to "people simply refuse" and "financial motivation" is that we have outdated metrics that desperately need a shakeup and there are too many vested interests in them and too many decades of momentum. The hydrogenated (high-trans-fat) margarine has fewer calories than full fat butter. Numbers are "easy" and people follow the metrics you give them. Food calories are a metric of heat particles (Phlogiston) that burn away when you incinerate food in a furnace. It's obviously biased against many understandings of macronutrients: we used to make candles directly from animal fats, we all know how easily they burn, high calories shouldn't be surprising. The fact that trans-fats take much more effort to burn may be a sign that we should trust them less, because fats probably should burn easily. If a metric is giving us funny biased-looking results, maybe we should reevaluate the metric? A lot of diets are based on calorie counting and several of those diets are run by big for-profit companies. If their systems actually worked they likely wouldn't remain profitable, would they?

smileysteve 3y ago

I have found it extremely difficult to convince parents in their late 70s, and/or small town restaurants to stop purchasing margarine with partially hydrogenated oils. Similar with whole milk versus 2%. and same with, "no, we don't need bread or white rice with this meal"

WorldMaker 3y ago

I do think we are finally seeing some good macronutrient research on things like animal fats versus trans-fats. It's definitely slow. I think a factor in updating our collective understanding that is both tied to "people simply refuse" and "financial motivation" is that we have outdated metrics that desperately need a shakeup and there are too many vested interests in them and too many decades of momentum. The hydrogenated (high-trans-fat) margarine has fewer calories than full fat butter. Numbers are "easy" and people follow the metrics you give them. Food calories are a metric of heat particles (Phlogiston) that burn away when you incinerate food in a furnace. It's obviously biased against many understandings of macronutrients: we used to make candles directly from animal fats, we all know how easily they burn, high calories shouldn't be surprising. The fact that trans-fats take much more effort to burn may be a sign that we should trust them less, because fats probably should burn easily. If a metric is giving us funny biased-looking results, maybe we should reevaluate the metric? A lot of diets are based on calorie counting and several of those diets are run by big for-profit companies. If their systems actually worked they likely wouldn't remain profitable, would they?