Free Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig

contained more than 35 percent. She also discovered that many baked goods and processed foods contained considerably more fat from partially hydrogenated vegetables oils than was indicated on the label. This finding was confirmed by Canadian government researchers many years later, in 1993.
    Mary’s groundbreaking final results were published in 1983 in the Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society. Her analyses allowed University of Maryland researchers to confirm earlier estimates that the average American consumed at least 12 grams of trans fat per day—directly contradicting ISEO assertions that most Ameircans consumed no more than 6 to 8 grams per day. People who delibrately avoided animal fats typically consumed far more than 12 grams of trans fat per day, while vulnerable teenagers who ate a lot of processed snack foods typically took in 30 grams or more of trans fats a day.
    Mary and her colleagues at the University of Maryland, opposed by the ISEO representatives, continued their debate in a form of cat-and-mouse game running through several scientific journals. The ISEO representatives peppered the literature with articles that downplayed the dangers of trans fats, used their influence to discourage opposing points of view from appearing in print, and responded to the few alarmist articles that did squeak through with “definitive rebuttals.” For example, Hunter continued to object to assertions that average consumption of trans fat in partially hydrogenated margarines and shortenings could be more than 6 to 8 grams per day—a concern that puzzled Mary, since the ISEO also claimed that trans fatty acids posed no threat to public health.
    As the debate continued through the 1980s, Mary testified before several expert panels. Early in 1985, for example, for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), she reported on a series of University of Maryland studies indicating that trans fats might promote heart disease. Her testimony was omitted from the final report, although her work was listed in the bibliography, giving the impression that her research supported the assertions by other witnesses that trans fats were safe.
    In other testimony, Mary pointed out that claims of trans fats’ safety were based on flawed data. She argued that the percentages of trans fats should be included on food nutrition labels and cited the lack of information on trans fats in national food databases. Finally, she urged that Congress mandate correction of the databases and reevaluate dietary recommendations based on erroneous data.
    Nevertheless, orthodox medical agencies remained united in promoting margarine and vegetable oils over animal foods containing cholesterol and animal fats. They maintained this position even though the official literature contained only a handful of experiments indicating that dietary cholesterol plays a major role in determining blood cholesterol levels. And many of these studies drew conclusions from flawed methodology that produced erroneous results.
    In 1984, scientists who disputed the lipid hypothesis were invited to speak briefly at the NHLBI-sponsored National Cholesterol Consensus Conference, but their views were not included in the panel’s report for the simple reason that NHLBI staff generated the report even before the conference convened. Dr. Beverly Teter of the University of Maryland’s lipid group discovered this disquieting fact when she picked up someone else’s papers by mistake just before the conference opened and found that they contained the report already written, with just a few numbers left blank.
    In 1987, the National Academy of Sciences published a booklet containing a whitewash of the trans fat problem and a pejorative description of palm oil—a natural fat high in beneficial saturates and monounsaturates that, like coconut oil and butter, has nourished healthy populations for thousands of years, and, also like coconut oil and butter,