Chapter 7:  The fats stories: science and history:  1. UFAs won the battle    2. Trust the government, shot in the foot almost     3. Organizations for hire, AHA     4. Fat compositions   5. Extraction of seed oils and rancidification   6.  Saturated fats are  toxic, or are they?    7 Trans fats are bad, or are they?   8. What are the regulations of trans-fats?    9. Saturated fats are good for you   10. Evidence that coconut and MCT oils stimulate neurotrophins   11. What fats are good?   

Key points

1.  How UFAs became the healthful fats

2. Government fakes a healthful diet

3. American Heart Association history including Ancel Keys

4. Types of fats in food table

5. Seed oil extraction and rancidification

6. Good and bad fats

1. UFAs won the fat battle 

    

   

By attacking saturated fatty acids, Crisco and later over nut-oil manufacturers established a preference for homemakers, food manufacturers, fast foods joint, and restaurants.  Like tobacco they have buried their critics and reframed research. A google scholar search of “rancid fats effects,” the first 8 articles, Toxicity of rancid fats, 1945; Destruction of Vitamin A by rancid fast, 1938; then 1931.  The fourth is biological effects of rancid fats and their fractions, 1960.  Fifth was published in 1939, then 1948, then 1945, and the eight is a book Compounds developed in rancid fat published in 1923.  The 9^th is in 2004 on the quality of broiler chicks by soyabean oil, and the 10^th is in 1960.  The next 10 in the search ,54, 56, 27, 54, 52, 34, 34, 2001, 90, and 68.  Were scientists in the past mistaken, or is our health been pushed under the carpet.  Welcome to tobacco capitalism.

By 1970 I didn’t buy vegetable oils, my deep fryer had lard, as too my cakes and pie crusts.  Butter and lard I knew were healthier and they taste better.  With lard becoming scares I switched to coconut oil.  Since then, the only nut oils were canola and sunflower seed, both low in PUFAs and high in MUFAs, used in blender mayonnaise

The history of UFAs goes back to olive oil several thousands of years.  “The earliest surviving olive oil amphorae date to 3500 BC (Early Minoan times), though the production of olive oil is assumed to have started before 4000 BC.” [1] Cottonseed oil, the first major seed oil, which is 70% UFAs, of which 52% is PUFAs.  Prior to that PUFAs made up under 4% of calories our 8% of fats (pig fat is 9.6% PUFA, butter is 2.6%).  The sources a waste product of cotton that was ground and fed to livestock, its price was low.  In 1857 an effective way to separate the hull for the seed permitted the extraction of cheap cottonseed oil.  In 1858 it was widely used in the US as an additive to lard and olive oil—done without listing it as an additive.  A congressional investigation exposed the practice in 1884 and legislation the resulting legislation required the label of lard compound.[2]  Olive oil continued to be diluted.

Wilhelm Normann (1870-1939) obtained a PhD in chemistry in 1900.  Thereafter he mainly investigated the properties of fats and oils.  In August of 1902 Normann obtained a German patent for a process of hydrogenation of vegetable oils.  From 1905 to 1910 he built a fat hardening facility for the Herford company in Germany.  Patent rights were bought in 1908 by the German chemist Kayser who worked for a British company which in 1909 they built a large-scale hardening plant which in its first year, 1911 produced 3,300 short tons. 

Procter and Gamble in 1909 hired Kayser, now holder of Normann’s patent from the British company and acquired the US rights to the Normann patent for the purpose of producing hydrogenated cottonseed oil (recall above that for over 50 years cotton seed oil had been added unreported to lard and butter).  In 1911 the hydrogenated oil, now hard like lard, was branded Crisco (a contraction from crisp cotton seed oil).  Hydrogenation improves flavor and extends shelf life of PUFAs.  

Starting in 1911 Crisco advertise it as heart health.  Conflicting claims were made for SFAs and hydrogenated PUFAs.  Going back to the 1800s published research exposed rancid UFAs’ health consequences.  The fight was over the fluff, not the science.  The healthy-heart claim falls under the umbrella of fluff.  As the market for manufactured foods grew tobacco science on UFAs gained ground sufficient to create the current brain virus (meme) of vessel clogging saturated fats.  The health consequences of rancid PUFAs progressed a number of tobacco claims were made; I shall comment on three of them.  These are examples of myth making to expose the way food manufacturers use science.    

The AHA remained small until the 1940s when it was selected for support by Procter & Gamble, via their PR firm, from a list of applicant charities. Procter & Gamble gave $1.5 million from its radio show, Truth or Consequences, allowing the organization to go national.^[8] Procter & Gamble turned cottonseeds from a waste product of cotton production into something that could be sold as a supposedly "heart-healthy" alternative to its competition - animal fats, which were mostly saturated. Procter & Gamble were the inventors of the fake trans-fat margarine called Crisco (Crystallized Cottonseed Oil), which was touted by the AHA as healthier than butter.

Each with a heart health emblem and 40% of calories from sugar

          With its climb to national recognition and as an authority the public turns to, there is a lack of awareness of its funding from pharma and food manufacturers.  The AHA publishes 13 medical journals.  In 1994, the Chronic le of Philanthropy released result of their survey: “The study showed that the American Heart Association was ranked as the fifth "most popular charity/non-profit in America" of over 100 charities researched with 95 percent of Americans over the age of 12 choosing Love and Like A lot description category.[3]  For over 3 decades that AHA has been the leading heart advisory organization.  The AHA sells their heart healthy logo to companies to put on their products as heart safe and recommended; products such as sugar-coated cereals and grape juice.  At $6,000 yearly for the logo, with discount for multiple products, health claims were and are sold as long as they were low in saturated fats and cholesterol.[4] 

Thus, the heart association has endorsed General Mills' Cocoa Puffs cereal, a cup of which contains 120 calories, 14 grams of sugar and no fiber, and the company's Cookie Crisp cereal, with 120 calories and 13 grams of sugar per cup. Both products derive more than 40 percent of their calories from sugar -- hardly a nourishing start to the day, even if they are low in fat.... There are many other health-related claims, none of which require the prior approval of the Food and Drug Association, including these:[5]

The AHA selling themselves as the experts, yes experts in marketing and fund raising; the logo sales (above) started in 1995.

Many careful studies have found that replacing saturated fats with cis unsaturated fats in the diet reduces risk of cardiovascular diseases,^[50][51] diabetes, or death.^[52] These studies prompted many medical organizations and public health departments, including the World Health Organization,^[53][54] to officially issue that advice. Some countries with such recommendations include: United Kingdom, United States. India, Canada, Australia, Singapore. [6]

This is not the only slime under the bromide minerals; two more are the essential omega 3 (2:6) and trans fats, #9, #10.  Expert consensus is not in our corporatist system reliable.  Relying on the media, government, and physicians has created through social shaping the western-diet health disaster. 

2.  Trust in government, shot in the foot almost:  I shall try to limit my frustration over the harm done by promoting the unhealthy fat as healthy and the healthy fat as artery clogging, but such is the track record of unmanaged capitalism; its tobacco ethics creating tobacco science.  It has a personal ring:  everyone I know has been over the healthful sugar limit of 36 grams daily for men and 24 grams for women (World Health Organization recommendation). The paleo barrier is about 5% of total calories—the US average is over 20% (2:1)--all type and sources.  With age and its diminished autophagy (RRA), we have the major health disaster for seniors and those over 50 years. Fructose damages the MTD, add to this the rancid PUFAs in cell membranes including MTD membranes, and we have a major CC for MTDD (Section 3 is on MTD). 

I was consuming about 20% of calories from sugar all sources as a child, and continued at about 15% until 2014.  The reading of journals and textbooks failed to alert me, and my 2002 review and summary of the Wikipedia fructose article for my website lacked mentioning the evidence presented by John Yudkin, Thomas Cleave and others.  In 2013 a friend wanted to know what I thought of Prof. Robert Lustig’s case against sugar, the 2009 University of California lecture that had gone viral.[7]  I reviewed the evidence presented and sugar dropped over the following year to under 5% of calories.  I then shifted my focus from drugs to diet on healthfully.org and in 2016 I went on a low carb diet (averaging about 15% of calories).  In 2017 I added skipping breakfast and a 22-hour water fast once or twice a month. 

As for fats in my diet, I had always avoided seed (vegetable) oils because of the rancid issue in journal articles going back to 1968.  Lard and butter were the fats that I purchased starting when I was married in 1968.  However, there was a gap in my diet where I went very low fat based on expert consensus.  I was influenced by the diet of Robert Fischer a friend who was exceptional fit.  Been between 1992 to 2014 fats were about 20% of calories.  Since 2016 the carb calories were replaced by saturated fats (butter and coconut oil).  

On the plus side my purchase of manufactured foods puts me in the bottom 10%, with the Raisin Bran making up half of the total for 15 years; then I found out that it was 17% sugar by weight in 2014.  As for restaurants I am in the bottom 5% since about 1980 when I developed hyposmia (loss of about 80% of response to odors). 

Today I know of only one long-term friend, Bob P. who is both lean and free of conditions.  Of all those men I know over the age of 60 and for 3 years or more (over 100 in the gated senior community and about 20 in metro San Diego) there are 7 who are lean, and one has dementia, another Parkinson’s disease, and a third sarcopenia.  Just one lady is thin in over a 100 I know.  L.F. at the age of 90 (2019) was thin, power walks, can run, and healthy[8] and out of 20 on the coast, just one, Bob P’s wife was lean and healthy.  We have a health disaster; consequently, the following experts’ opinions and the corporations framing the healthful topic are the cause for humans being the sickest of mammals.   

Yes, the guidelines suck, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association 2019 Guidelines recommend that dietary saturated fats be replaced with MUFAs and PUFAs.  At the highest levels, going back to Nixon’s Department of Agriculture and both parties, the plan was corporate farms producing grains and supplying the food manufacturers with cheap oil, HFC, and grains.  The McGovern (a Democrat) Committee created the low-fat guidelines as heart healthy, and prior the AHA added to their board Ancel Keys a leading nutritional scientist and proponent of the lipid hypothesis—this focused attention away from sugar and tobacco.  The McGovern Commission investigating the high rate of heart attacks, missed tobacco, for which excess death for a pack a day smoker exceeds all excess cancer deaths. 

The Commission didn’t miss sugar.  A study showed that current (1970) sugar consumption was 40% above the threshold for t2d.  The Commission’s recommendation was for a 40% reduction in sugar published in the Dietary Guide published in 1977, along with low saturated fats and cholesterol.  The Sugar Association trumped the evidence through influence and tobacco science.  The 40% lower sugar was ignored by the media, but not the lipid hypothesis which received wide media coverage.. The 40% stayed in the Commission’s Dietary Goals 1980 edition.  The FDA’s First Edition, 1980, of Dietary Guidelines report, its small commission was led by Prof. Mark Hegsted, whose entire career was in Fred Stare’s department at Harvard. The FDA Dietary Guidelines stated “too much sugar does not seem to cause diabetes.”[9]

Ancel Keys is not the only KOL who was placed on key position.  Harvard Professor Fred Stare (1910-2002) the leading researcher for the Sugar Association.  He had a close association with the Sugar Association from 1942 with the founding of Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.  From his auto biography, Adventures in Nutrition: (1991):  

He obtained a grant of $1,026,000 from General Foods for the "expansion of the School’s Nutrition Research Laboratories" and that in the 44-year period as a nutritionist he raised a total of $29,630,347.^[7] For instance, Kellogg's funded $2 million to set up the Nutrition Foundation at Harvard. The foundation was independent of the university and published a journal Nutrition Reviews that Stare edited for 25 years.  Stare also co-founded and served as chairman of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Science and Health.[10]

Politics and universities aiding businesses is killing us. 

In June 2020 I lost to cancer a buddy, age 64, whose fitness and diet was like mine prior to 2014, a western diet.  At the age of 60 he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer.  In June of 2020 he died from the cancer.  As Staffan Lindeberg the Swedish Professor of family medicine University of Lind, who studied the Kitavans (1:1. 1:2, 1:3) and in his lecture on YouTube said “normal is not good enough.”  The lean Swedes have much worse figures for biomarkers, and Staffan is one of those lean Swedes, and a leading promoter of the paleodiet.  Staffan died of prostate cancer at the age of 66 in 2016.  As I say: We don’t know what is lurking inside. 

I missed the bullet (so far) by chance, some reasons:  I was on long-term aspirin for chronic bad back starting in 1992.  Dr wright proscribe 8, 325 mgs daily, as per Merck Manual and standard treatment.  Aspirin lowers blood sugar and in very high dose (over 5 grams daily) can reverse t2d.  I averaged over a half gram a day from 1992 until 2018.  Then restarted in 2020.  I am a sports-fitness addict, (since 1975).  As policy to I dieted  whenever I gained 5 pounds since 1969 when first I gained excess weight.  Exceptions were in 1969, 1998, and 2003 when I put on 10 to 20 pounds in 3to 5 months.  I cut back calories by 1/3^rd and lost those pounds in a couple of months, before the complex weight-regulatory system resets.  I have been taking sufficient testosterone lotion to returned me to a high youthful level and since 2004.  I take DHEA sublingually since 2002—both are natural and thus supplements.  At 79 years in 2022, I am still drug free, but my risks are above the LSPs.  In 2016 I started taking antioxidants (vitamin C & E, and CoQ10.  I have been taking through nutritional yeast niacin since 1981.  As a utilitarian this book is about your health.   Details on the supplements and diet (6:2).  These 2 chapter on fats here are what Naomi Klein in Disaster Capitalism describes as a corporatist state running on neoconservatism (renamed neoliberalism), what I call their honor system.  On a global scale the banksters has made us the sickest of mammals.  Don’t blame us victims. 

3.   Organizations for hire, AHA:  Follow the dollar and the KOL system, and we get every major national private organization saying the opposite of science: 

The effect of saturated fat on heart disease has been extensively studied.^[25] There are strong, consistent, and graded relationships between saturated fat intake, blood cholesterol levels, and the epidemic of cardiovascular disease.^[8] The relationships are accepted as causal. Many health authorities such as the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics,^[28] the British Dietetic Association,^[29] American Heart Association,^[8] the World Heart Federation,^[30] the British National Health Service,^[31] among others,^[32][33] advise that saturated fat is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The World Health Organization in May 2015 recommends switching from saturated to unsaturated fats. . . . Recommendations to reduce or limit dietary intake of saturated fats are made by the World Health Organization,^[56] American Heart Association,^[8] Health Canada,^[57] the US Department of Health and Human Services,^[58] the UK National Health Service,^[59] the Australian Department of Health and Aging,^[60] the Singapore Ministry of Health,^[61] the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,^[62] the New Zealand Ministry of Health,^[63] and Hong Kong's Department of Health.[11]

This crapolla we have was through Ancel, who was in the pay of the food industry and soy farmers, and probably others.  He was the leading figure promote the low fat and low cholesterol diet for over 30 years.  He was a vitriolic critic of John Yudkin, as industry went after the leading nutritionist of the UK for fingering Sugar as Pure White and Deadly.[12]

The hypothesis that saturated fat has a detrimental effect on human health gained prominence in the 1950s as a result of the work of Ancel Keys, a US nutritional scientist.^[16] At that time in the USA, the incidence of heart disease was rapidly increasing, for reasons that were not clear.^[16] Keys postulated a correlation between circulating cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease, and initiated a study of Minnesota businessmen (the first prospective study of CVD).^[17]

Keys presented his diet-lipid-heart disease hypothesis at a 1955 expert meeting of the World Health Organization in Geneva.^[18] In response to criticism at the conference, he set out to conduct the years-long Seven Countries Study.[13]  Ancel Keys joined the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association (AHA) and successfully promulgated his idea such that in 1961, with the result that the AHA became the first group anywhere in the world to advise cutting back on saturated fat (and dietary cholesterol) to prevent heart disease.^[20] This historic recommendation was reported on the cover of Time Magazine in that same year[14]

There are thousands of articles supporting much more than the lipid hypothesis.  For example, SFAs cause IR, and PUFAs don’t. “Saturated and certain monounsaturated fats have been implicated in causing insulin resistance, whereas polyunsaturated and omega-3 fatty acids largely do not appear to have adverse effects on insulin action.” [15]  I have sat through a CME class and heard the lecturer say “We all know it is true that we can manage type 2 diabetes with a low-fat diet.  I have in my clinic [in Clairemont, CA] reversed diabetes with that diet.” [16]  Welcome to the world of capitalism, profits trump science.  

The wholesome sound vegetable oil isn’t from vegetables, but seeds and legume (Glycine max, soybean native of East Asia).  For those who are into natural, free of chemical residues, and unmodified, the extraction of oils raises serious health concerns, made all the more alarming by the FDA’s reliance upon the manufacturers’ testing as proof of healthfulness and wholesomeness.  The lack of court cases for violation of regulations is another example of which side the governments are on.  I steer clear of the highly processed seed oils.  The main seeds used contain under 3% oil, and the byproduct is mainly used for animal feed.  An example is the production of corn oil: 

Almost all corn oil is expeller-pressed, then solvent-extracted using  hexane or  2-methylpentane (isohexane).  The solvent is evaporated from the corn oil, recovered, and re-used.  After extraction, the corn oil is then refined by degumming and/or alkali treatment, both of which remove phosphatides.  Alkali treatment also neutralizes free fatty acids and removes color (bleaching). Final steps in refining include winterization (the removal of waxes), and deodorization by steam distillation of the oil at 232–260 °C (450–500 °F) under a high vacuum.[22]  

Canola oil is made at a processing facility by slightly heating and then crushing the seed. Almost all commercial canola oil is then refined using hexane.  Finally, the Canola oil is refined using water precipitation and acid, "bleaching" with clay, and deodorizing using steam distillation.^[22]  About 43% of a seed is oil; the remainder is a rapeseed meal that is used as animal feed.  About 23 kg (51 lb.) of rapeseed makes 10 L (2.64 US gal) of canola oil.[23]

All the major seed oil undergoes similar processes. 

          Canola oil is unique among the major cooking oils in that it is 61% Oleic acid, a monosaturated oil, similar to olive oil which is 70% oleic acid, and it is about 1/5^th the price of the popular virgin olive oils.  Olive oil is 15 % PUFAs; canola is 21% PUFAs.[24]  Yield explains in part the use of these oil.  Palm oil has the highest yield per hectare per year 4.0, canola & coconut 1.4, soybean 0.6, sunflower 0.6.[25]  The biproduct from corn and some others in the extraction process is converted to animal feed.  “In 2012 PO [palm oil] accounted for 32% of global fats and oils production and it has overtaken soybean oil as the most important vegetable oil in the world.” [26]

Seed oils except for corn are high in oil content:  “sunflower seed (28%), soybean dry (56%), and canola dry (43%),[27] corn (02.8%).. [The oils with significant production that are high in PUFAs:] sunflower 69% or 4%,[28] soybean 58%, corn 55%, and just 21% for canola…  World product in millions of metric tons 2006-07:  palm 41.3, soybean 41.2, rapeseed 18.2, sunflower 9.9, cottonseed 5.0 peanut 4.8, coconut[29] 3.5, olive 2.8.” [30]   In 2018-19 the production of olive oil increased to 3,207 million tons. 

The in vivo rancidification of PUFAs as well as in cooking poses a serious health risk—see rancidification (2:6, 5 & 6).  The evidence of PUFA oxidation has been established firmly by the 1960, with some articles going back decades before.  A warning was issued in 1969 that influenced research based on heated PUFA in conditions that paralleled the use of a restaurant deep fryer.[31]   In 1973 a major study of the products of deep frying simulating commercial conditions (74 hours at 185 degrees centigrade) using 5 common commercial oils:  corn oil, hydrogenated cotton seed oil, trilinolein and triolein (two long chain fatty triglycerides with multiple double bonds), and tristearin (triglyceride of stearic—high in SAFs.  “A total of 211 compounds were identified.” [later stated they are called non-volatile compounds] [32]  Missed in the article is that the used oils are saved, picked up, reprocessed, again used in restaurants; they are cheaper.  Those oils weren’t tested because they were a mixture of all types of oils.  “In addition, both volatile and non-volatile may affect human health” (supra). This health warning is supported by the animal studies.

“Rancidification can produce potentially toxic compounds associated with long-term harmful health effects concerning advanced aging, neurological disorders, heart disease, and cancer.” [33]  “Under such conditions [of commercial frying] both thermal and oxidative decomposition of the oil may take place.  Such unavoidable chemical reactions cause formation of both volatile and nonvolatile decomposition products…. Various symptoms of toxicity, including irritation of the digestive tract, organ enlargement, growth depression, and even death have been observed when highly abused (oxidized and heated) fats were fed to laboratory animals.” [34] 

Lipid peroxidation refers to the oxidative degradation of  lipids.  It is the process in which free radicals "steal" electrons from the lipids in cell membranes, resulting in cell damage.  It most often affects polyunsaturated fatty acids, because they contain multiple double bonds in between which lie methylene bridges (-CH₂-) that possess especially reactive hydrogens.  If not terminated fast enough, there will be damage to the cell membrane.[35] 

For over 90 years the warning flag has been waved in journals, but not in our media, the USDA,, FDA, and NIH.  I knew of this when I was in graduate school in 1968.  Industries frame the topic thus, quality article after article in journals fails to find an association of saturated fats with CVD, yet the myth has been swallowed by physicians, dieticians, public, government, and guidelines.  The official government message is part of why: 

In 2006, canola oil was given a qualified health claim by the United States Food and Drug Administration for lowering the risk of coronary heart disease, resulting from its significant content of unsaturated fats; the allowed claim for food labels states:^[43]

"Limited and not conclusive scientific evidence suggests that eating about 1 ½ tablespoons (19 grams) of canola oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to the unsaturated fat content in canola oil. To achieve this possible benefit, canola oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories you eat in a day.[36]

So, why does Wikipedia fail to present the evidence to the contrary of the FDA’s heart hypothesis that UFAs lower CVD after acknowledging the oxidation of PUFAs?   

Lipid peroxidation is the oxidative degradation of lipids. It is the process in which free radicals "steal" electrons from the lipids in cell membranes, resulting in cell damage. This process proceeds by a free radical chain reaction mechanism. It most often affects polyunsaturated fatty acids, because they contain multiple double bonds in between which lie methylene bridges (-CH₂-) that possess especially reactive hydrogen atoms….  If not terminated fast enough, there will be damage to the cell membrane, which consists mainly of lipids.[37]

Again, we have guilt by association of the palmitic acid made by the liver is blamed for NAFLD and excessive large LD in the hepatocytes.  Skipped is the conversion of excess glucose and fructose to fats for storage, caused by a feedback system regulating the production of ATP.  Evolution didn’t select palmitic acid as the preferred fat for milk and storage in the liver for to harm humans and mammals.  NAFLD is caused IR and dysregulation of WRS. 

But could there be some toxic chemicals created in the process for those on the western diet and/or in the food sources of the highly processed SFAs, in particular the palm oils?   That is what has been hauled out as a modus operandi for the toxicity.  One point to make is the theory is above the details.  Every process will have turned on genes, processes for synthesis which will differ from other processes, and so on.  To name them ignores the gene forest they dwell in and places a negative mark on evolution which favors saturated fats.  I have laid the foundation with LSPs, HSPs, fructose, rancid UFAs, MTDD, and CAWD.  Genes and processes aren’t going to overthrow the foundation, but could add a chapter, such as for carbon monoxide from smoking or statins lowering the production of ATP significantly.  “Trans fats are used in shortenings for deep-frying in restaurants, as they can be used for longer than most conventional oils before becoming rancid. In the early 21st century, non-hydrogenated vegetable oils that have lifespans exceeding that of the frying shortenings became available. 

I couldn’t find any quality evidence that palmitic acid or the other natural, common SFAs are toxic, viz., explanation using the biological mechanism show that saturated fats are toxic.  This doesn’t stop the KOLs from repeating over and over again that trans and saturated fats are toxic.  For example, the article on frying in Wikipedia, which acknowledges the harmful compounds formed by deep frying fails to mention this happening to UFA.  It goes on to lay out the lipid myth:  Eating deep-fried foods has also been linked to higher cholesterol levels, obesity, heart attacks, and diabetes.” [2]  The article section on health lays out the lipid myth of deep fry foods being “linked to higher cholesterol levels, obesity, heart attacks, and diabetes” [3] There is nothing on rancid PUFAs and UFAs.  How does trans if saturated become rancid, or saturated fats.  What of the double bonds on the carbon chain?  The food industry has taken its lessons from the propaganda lessons of nations and tobacco.  They have made us the sickest of mammals; is this by God’s design?  Or is it a trap for the evil capitalists?  

8.  What are the regulations of trans fatty acids?  Official response has been prohibiting trans-fats by several western coutries, but not the US.  “According to the FDA, the average American consumes 5.8 grams of trans-fat per day (2.6% of energy intake). This is government figure is low because trans fatty acids the FDA only counts triglycerides.  “Trans-fats in the form of monoglycerides and diglycerides are not considered fats by the FDA, though upon absorption from digestive track they yield trans-fats.” [12]  Another gap in calculation is that trans-fat levels of less than 0.5 grams per serving are listed as 0 grams of trans-fat on the food label.  As a consequence, many foods labels list a small portion, often one ounce and 14 grams; thereby staying under the 0.5-gram reporting requirement.  Given the outsourcing of food analysis to private corporations, we have the fox hiring the guard of the hen house.  The lack of court cases for fraudulent labeling reinforces my skepticism.

There are more major holes in the requirement:  “There is no requirement to list trans-fats on institutional food packaging; thus, bulk purchasers such as schools, hospitals, [restaurants], jails, and cafeterias are unable to evaluate the trans-fat content of commercial food items.” [13]   Because of the lower price of UFAs and thus hydrogenation creating trans-fat, their resistance to becoming rancid (longer shelf life), their ability upon cooking to capture the flavor of the food, and thereby result in a product that noticeable tastes better, I can only expect that the honor system (without meaningful policy or penalties, or media coverage) that the major reduction in trans-fats is limited to Crisco and margarines.  Since partial hydrogenation can cause up to 30% trans fats, a simple solution to an dubious risk is to sick with real foods, not manufactured foods, and prefer the natural butter and coconut oils—as I do. 

9.  Saturated fats are good for you: notes taken from Dr. Miller’s lecturer.  Donald Miller, professor of Surgery at the Cardiothoracic Division of the University of Washington, July 17, 2011, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRe9z32NZHY.  These statements by Dr. Miller are supported in the journal literature which he references.  Dr. Miller also listed on a slide the importance benefits from saturated fats:  The slides in Dr. Donald Miller’s Lecture:

Cell membranes:  Require 50% or more saturated fatty acids to be waterproof and function properly.

Heart:  Prefers saturated long-chain 16-carbon palmitic and 18-C stearic (over carbohydrates) for energy

Bone: needs saturated fats to assimilate calcium effectively

Liver:  Protects from adverse effects of alcohol and medications like acetaminophen

Lung: Lung surfactant, which prevent asthma and other breathing disorders, is composed entirely of 16-C palmitic acid

Hormones:  Function as signaling messengers for hormone production

Immune system:  Saturated fats play an important role here.  They prime white-blood cells to destroy invading bacteria, viruses and fungi, and to fight tumors.  Medium Chain 12-C lauric acid and 14-C mystic acid (in butter) kill bacteria and candida in the gut

Signal satiety:  Promotes satiation through slowing digestion

General health:  Eating saturated fats lowers the consumption of unhealthy polyunsaturated fats which due to high content of omega-6 fat acids reduce the positive immune system effect of omega-3 fatty acids. [incorrect though widely supported by journal articles.  It is the furan fatty acids that quench the ROS from MTD that in a chain reaction oxidize the UFAs in cell membranes and elsewhere]

Reduces age related chronic conditions which are a result of the monosaccharides obtained through digestion of carbohydrates which damage proteins through the process of glycation. Eating less fats entails replacing them with carbohydrates as a source of energy.  The high carbohydrate Western diet has brought about the sharp rise in obesity, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and type-2 diabetes all of which are strongly statistically associated with an assortment of chronic and fatal conditions.[14]  

Getting ahead of the upcoming sections, an article by Mark Mattson[15] (he is also on YouTube), sums up the finding all of which are supported by journal articles:

Key Points

• Brain evolution, including higher cortical functions of humans (imagination, creativity and language), was driven by the necessity of sustaining high levels of performance in a food-deprived (fasted) state [promotes high performance of searching for food, viz, survival]

• Intermittent metabolic switching (IMS) [Randel switch] occurs when eating and exercise patterns result in periodic depletion of liver glycogen stores and the associated production of ketones from fatty acids. IMS occurs rarely or not at all in individuals who eat three or more meals per day [with carbs] and who are fairly sedentary

• The ketone β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) is transported into the brain and into neuronal mitochondria, where it is used to generate acetyl CoA and ATP. BHB also acts as a signalling molecule in neurons that can induce the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and thereby promote synaptic plasticity and cellular stress resistance

• During fasting and extended exercise, adaptive cellular stress-response signalling pathways are activated and autophagy is stimulated, whereas overall protein synthesis is reduced. Upon refeeding, rest and sleep, protein synthesis is upregulated and mitochondrial biogenesis occurs, enabling neurogenesis and synaptogenesis

• IMS [intermittent metabolic switching] can enhance cognition and motor performance and protects neurons against dysfunction and degeneration in animal models of stroke, epilepsy, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease

• Intermittent fasting can improve indicators of metabolic and cardiovascular health in humans by mechanisms involving reductions in oxidative damage and inflammation. However, it remains to be determined whether and how intermittent fasting impacts the brains of healthy humans and those affected with a neurological disorder. [16]

Mattson’s key points above are consistent with the program worked out by Jason Fung in treating obesity and t2d and supported by the research in Fung’s books.  I came to the same conclusions in the research of the relevant literature starting in 2014. 

Due to its high levels of saturated fat, the World Health Organization, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, United States Food and Drug Administration, American Heart Association, American Dietetic Association, British National Health Service, British Nutrition Foundation, and Dietitians of Canada advise that coconut oil consumption should be limited or avoided.  It has various applications. Because of its high saturated fat content, it is slow to oxidize and, thus, resistant to rancidification, lasting up to six months at 24 °C (75 °F) without spoiling.  Many health organizations advise against the consumption of coconut oil due to its high levels of saturated fat, including the United States Food and Drug Administration,[ World Health Organization, he United States Department of Health and Human Services, American Dietetic Association,[ American Heart Association, British National Health Service, British Nutrition Foundation,[and Dietitians of Canada.

Marketing of coconut oil has created the inaccurate belief that it is a "healthy food". Instead, studies have found that coconut oil consumption has health effects similar to those of other unhealthy fats, including butter, beef fat and palm oil.  Coconut oil contains a high amount of lauric acid, a saturated fat that raises total blood cholesterol levels by increasing both the amount of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. [20]

This is expert opinion; what Wikipedia relies upon.  the case for the advantage of saturated fats not becoming rancid like UFAs has been made above (3:4, 4 & 5). The case for of 3-hydroxybutrate which induces the active of BDNFs (brain derived neurotrophic factors) follows here.

Beta-hydroxybutyric acid

The article below on d-β-Hydroxybutyrate (a ketone body) goes on to show the healthful functions not just in the brain but also the heart, and its mechanism is through protecting the mitochondria—yes, prevents MTDD.

Our previous work in heart showed that ketone bodies, normal metabolites, can correct defects in mitochondrial energy generation. The ability of ketone bodies to protect neurons in culture suggests that defects in mitochondrial energy generation contribute to the pathophysiology of both brain diseases. These findings further suggest that ketone bodies may play a therapeutic role in these most common forms of human neurodegeneration.... Elevation of blood ketones, the brain's only alternative to glucose as an energy source, has been used for 50 years as a treatment for refractory epilepsy.[21]