A fat is a fat. You need enough of the ones that you make prostaglandins from (CLA right?), otherwise they are just structural components of cells and energy substrates.

Lets be clear here. There is an association between trans fats and coronary heart disease WHEN YOU CONSUME THEM AS PART OF A HIGH CARB DIET. Right? But then again, consuming natural fats in sufficient quantities as part of a high carb diet, also contributes to CHO? Doesn't it? So why would we believe the one dat and not the other? Just because of a phobia about something that is chemically modified? Natural compounds are chemicals too, some of our most toxic substances are all natural.

I'm betting that the stress of worrying about all this crap, is more detrimental to health than eating margarine. My own advice is, eat butter if you can afford it because it tastes better. Otherwise eat margarine and don't fret over it. But stay away from the carbs.

Caveman I've been reading up on memetics ever since you and someone mentioned them here, great stuff. Have you ever considered that the controvery over transfats is just the latest virus of the mind?

Here is my take on the data.

When you eat carbs, you put your whole system in a state of constant inflammation. I have found this to be true myself, because since LCing my acne has gotten better and my asthma has basically gone away. It isn't just the weight loss, because when I eat carbs now I will break out within a day or so.

Anyway, when your system is inflamed, you are more likely to develop arterial plaques. And I would agree that transfats appear to enhance the formation of such plaques. However, what I would not agree with, is that without the underlying inflammation cause by carbs, that the transfats would be causing plaque formation on their own. That is extrapolating too far with the data that exists. There is way too much over-interpretation in the scientific community. They take some simple data and make a big convoluted story out of it, and keep building on it without ever being able to know if it is correct. So you have this hypothesis that there is a hormonal basis for the bad things that transfats supposedly do, which would be OK if it weren't for the fact that they miss the fact that it is the carbs that set everything up in the first place.

And as always, I could be wrong and generally am.

Yeah, but being bitten by a snake is a little different than putting toxic substances into food that we can't avoid.



I think that "virus of the mind" oversells the concept, presuming that the virus is bad. Honestly, I don't think we have the mental capacity to determine whether our memes are good or bad.

Take a fear of snakes, for example. Snake fear is probably genetic (not memetic), since those of us with The Snake Freakout Gene live longer on average. You've got to know quite a lot about snakes not to be startled by some squiggly thing in the water next to you.

Memes are better examined in the context of modern things. For instance The Don't-Touch-Anything-You-Don't-Have-To-In-A-Public-Bathroom Meme. Is avoiding germs good or bad for us? At the personal level, it appears this meme is strong.

I think The Transfat Fear Meme could come from the same place The Genetic Engineering Fear Meme or The Atomic Fear Meme come from. We've been totally screwed so many times before that it's really not those memes running at all. More likely, it's The Fear-Anything-New GENE. Let the suckers among us prove that something is okay first. Again, precaution seems to be selected for. I'm certainly not worried that someone eating transfat is going to outbreed me. So let them at it, I say.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/column...ano-pants_x.htm

This is a humorous and thought provoking article by Kevin Maney in USA Today. The title is: "Scared of nano-pants? Hey, you may be onto something"

He describes the various science discoveries throughout the years and wonders why some were embraced (X-ray machines in shoe stores) and many are not these days. (khaki pants treated with nanotechnology)

The article is fun and puts things into perspective.