Six years ago I cut back significantly on sweets and salty snack foods (which tend to have a fair amount of sugar), and after a few years of on-and-off diet/exercise kicks I finally buckled down and decided to stop going on diets and simply change my diet. Cutting back on sugars and carbs wound up having a beneficial effect (feeling better, losing weight, looking better) but I still believed that it was the result of lower fat/meat intake. Happily, I found that despite the lower fat intake, I DO have a functioning brain. Having seen your documentary and catching up on the reading you recommended has been something of a revelation.

So I am continuing to improve my health and diet, but now instead of being the beneficiary of luck, I’ve got much better control of my diet and metabolism. I’m pretty excited about working to improve my health and possibly undo any health problems that may have been creeping up on me over the years. I’ve been pretty healthy for most of my life, but currently am on blood pressure and cholesterol medication. My doctor has already cut those significantly, and in time I am hopeful that she will take me off of them completely.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying thanks, and keep fighting the good fight.

Thank you.

The older new margarine had “”"”"”0″”"” grams of trans fats per serving, but still had partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients. The NEW margerines have no hydrogenated oils, therefore a REAL 0 grams of trans fats!!

WOO!!

I love margarine!! Screw butter!

Careful there … margarine will screw you right back.

Remind me after Thursday and I’ll see if I can find it. I’m on the low-carb cruise now without my usual links to sources.

The disease rate and the death rate are two different statistics. People with heart disease are less likely to die from it now because of stents, pacemakers, defibrillators, and better emergency-room treatments. More people get heart scans and receive some kind of intervention before having a heart attack (my Dad had stents in his arteries, and probably would’ve died years earlier without them), and more people survive a heart attack if they do have one. Thus, the death rate is down.

The disease rate has gone down as well, but nearly all of that drop can be attributed to the sharp decline in smoking, which happens to be the single biggest risk factor for heart disease.

Great article. I was just directed to your website and I’ll be back. We are dedicated consumers of sweet (unsalted) butter in our family. Margarine is a sin of major proportion.

The source of the ‘deaths due to coronary heart disease chart’ is my website at http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/cholesterol_myth_2.html. The reason you can’t find it in your sources is because it is a UK chart, not a US one.

Thanks for the clarification, Barry. I believe I picked it up somewhere else, didn’t know it was U.K. I’ll see if I can find a U.S. version somewhere, since the lard and butter figures were also U.S.

“I learned two things living through this oleo adventure. The first was that it is important to have choices, and that as long as you know what is fake and what is real, you can make up your own mind as to which you prefer.

The second was that one person can make a difference, and if enough people agree, eventually those people in charge (the ones we elect) have to listen.”

Now if we can only apply this to the saturated fat fearmongers.

http://www.clevelandseniors.com/people/amykoleo.htm