In 1966, the U.S. Department of Agriculture documents on fats and oils talked about how unstable the unsaturated fats and oils were. There was no criticism of the saturated fats. That criticism of saturated fat was to come later to this agency when it came under the influence of the domestic edible fats and oils industry, and when it developed the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. These Dietary Guidelines became very anti-saturated fat and remain so to this day. Nevertheless, as we will learn later in my talk, there has started some reversal of the anti-saturated fat stance in the works in this agency in 1998.

In the early 1970s, although a number of researchers were voicing concerns about the trans fats, the edible oil industry and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were engaging in a revolving-door exchange that would (i) promote the increasing consumption of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (ii) would condemn the saturated fats, and (iii) hide the trans issue. As an example of this "oily" exchange, in 1971 the FDA's general counsel became president of the edible oil trade association, and he in turn was replaced at the FDA by a food lawyer who had represented the edible oil industry.

From that point on, the truth about any real effects of the dietary fats had to play catch-up. The American edible oil industry sponsored "information" to educate the public, and the natural dairy and animal fats industries were inept at countering any of that misinformation. Not being domestically grown in the U.S., coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil were not around to defend themselves at that time. The government agencies responsible for disseminating information ignored those protesting "lone voices," and by the mid-1980s, American food manufacturers and consumers had made major changes in their fats and oils usage -- away from the safe saturated fats and headlong into the problematic trans fats.

Enig and Fallon (1998/1999) have reviewed the above history in "The Oiling of America" published in the Australian magazine Nexus. The magazine has placed this review on the internet and it can be viewed or downloaded from the Nexus website. The internet addresses for the websites are http://www.peg.apc.org/~nexus/OilingAmerica.1.html and http://www.peg.apc.org/~nexus/OilingAmerica.2.html.

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