When it comes to fats, I call for eating a smart balance of different types rather than a complete abandonment, every three decades or so, of one type of fat.
"Everything has its pros and cons," Robert M. Reeves, president of a Washington trade group called the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils, was quoted as saying in a Washington Post article today about food manufacturers trying to get every last ounce of trans-fats out of foods like cookies and chips.
"When major food companies began widely using partially hydrogenated oils [the kind that contains trans-fats] in the 1970s, they thought they were making their products more healthful. Consumer groups and regulators applauded the industry's switch from heavily saturated fats, such as lard and palm oil," according to the Post. In other words, shortsighted food police found an ingredient to demonize -- saturated fat -- and without regard for pros and cons waged an all-out campaign against them.
It turns out that trans-fats, while not as dangerous -- in moderation -- as some would have you think, are not exactly "health foods" either.
So you'd think the activists would learn their lesson, but instead we hear this comment from self-appointed Chief of Food Police: "the short answer is that anything is better than trans fat." That's from Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, whose group is actually trying to actually ban trans-fats. More on this story in 2034...
Jeff Stier, Esq., is an associate director of the American Council on Science and Health.