Yes, it was unconscious punning. I use nautical terms a lot for someone without much experience

To me, Ancel Keys was a careerist, first and foremost. How does someone get famous as a scientist? By discovering something new. What if you aren't uncovering something new? Make it up.

Here was reams of data because of all the upheaval in Europe during WWII, and he had so much fame and connections already because of the K ration thing & such. He built this huge tower of false data, dragging along a lot of other people whose careers needed the CYA and who bolstered him for their own selfish reasons.

And I maintain it was an attractive theory to a lot of people, especially in the USA, for bizarre emotional reasons that support veganism today. Red meat, butter, and other "rich foods" has an indulgent patina, a expensive aura of hedonism; with the US long Puritan, anti-life, tradition, it "just made sense" to people that eating "virtuously" would be good for a person.

Medicine doesn't taste good, so food shouldn't either!