About the article “A short history of saturated fat: the making and unmaking of a scientific consensus”. The author is a journalist, not a scholar. She is an advocate for this issue for a number of years, not a minimally unbiased researcher in the field. This isn’t a pier-reviewed study. So citing this as a review that makes clear that “the research seems clear: saturated fats have no effect on heart attacks, strokes or cardiovascular mortality, or total mortality” is quite misleading.
Short version – the term “fats” stands for an entire complex family of compounds with widely varying properties – not just “saturated” and “unsaturated”.
There is also an underside here as artificially modified hydrogenated fats (or “trans” fats) are shear evil. Those artificial fats were highly profitable – cheap and shelf-stable even in warmer American states. Also those fats are sheer dietary evil. Now largely banned, there was a prolonged fight for profit over health.
My simplified take is that you want any consumed fats to be liquid at body temperature, and easily emulsify with water. Anything else you likely do not want in your blood vessels. Easy to imagine those sticky solid fats plating out and clogging arteries.
About the article “A short history of saturated fat: the making and unmaking of a scientific consensus”. The author is a journalist, not a scholar. She is an advocate for this issue for a number of years, not a minimally unbiased researcher in the field. This isn’t a pier-reviewed study. So citing this as a review that makes clear that “the research seems clear: saturated fats have no effect on heart attacks, strokes or cardiovascular mortality, or total mortality” is quite misleading.
What makes you think it wasn’t peer reviewed?
For reading on the zoo of chemicals called “fats”:
“Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol”.
https://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Fats-Understanding-Cholesterol/dp/0967812607
This is not a light read.
Author:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_G._Enig
Short version – the term “fats” stands for an entire complex family of compounds with widely varying properties – not just “saturated” and “unsaturated”.
There is also an underside here as artificially modified hydrogenated fats (or “trans” fats) are shear evil. Those artificial fats were highly profitable – cheap and shelf-stable even in warmer American states. Also those fats are sheer dietary evil. Now largely banned, there was a prolonged fight for profit over health.
My simplified take is that you want any consumed fats to be liquid at body temperature, and easily emulsify with water. Anything else you likely do not want in your blood vessels. Easy to imagine those sticky solid fats plating out and clogging arteries.
I don’t think that the fat that you eat generally ends up as-is in your bloodstream.