If you think you need to avoid "trans fat" and instead eat soybean oil,
get ready for to pick out a plot soon. Low fat dairy is horrible
stuff, not only in terms of homogenization, but due to additives such
as carrageenan. I only eat whole, organic, non-pasteurized dairy
(without additivies), and pleny of raw milk cheese.
Epidemiology is useless if underlying assumptions are incorrect, and
any epidemiologist will tell you this. They are told to measure the
effects of "saturated fat" or "trans fat," and yet there is no way to
do this for humans at present (due to the complexity of diets, the need
for many years of studyd, etc.). There isn't even one standard
definition of these phrases. Exactly what molecules are classifed as
"trans fats?" Nobody knows - it's about as antithetical to the
scientfic method as one could conjure up. In many epidemiological
studies, beef tallow and lard are classified as "saturated fat" foods,
yet they are less than 50% saturated. Asians on coconut oil diets (92%
saturated) have almost no cancer, diabetes, and heart disease (just
look at the WHO statistics - it's truly amazing) and yet "saturated
fat" gets blamed. Gary Taubes pointed out several years ago that
"saturated fat" was only considered bad in the CHD context because it
"raised cholesterol," yet there are saturated fatty acids that lower
cholesterol (especially one found in large amounts in beef). I agree
that common beef cuts, cooked while exposed to air, are at least
somewhat unhealthy (and clearly is in large amounts on a daily basis)
yet it is because of the combination of the high iron content, the high
unsaturated fatty acid content, the high oxidized cholesterol content,
and large amounts of stearic acid (which helps the iron get absorbed,
where it enhances dangerous free radical reactions) that it's
unhealthy, not because of saturated fatty acids. Coconut oil has the
saturated fatty acid, stearic, yet it's healthy because there's only
trace amounts of iron and unsaturated fattfy acids, and no cholesterol
to get oxidized. Dr. Richard Stein of the AHA recently stated directly
that only oxidized cholesterol is a dangerous.
Turning to "trans fat:" first, I want to know exactly which molecules
we are talking about. These are known - they are simple and can be
written out using basic chemistry nomeclature. Those who want to claim
that "trans fat" are "unhealthy" are obliged, if their claims are to be
taken seriously in the context of science, to identify what substance
is under discussion.
Secondly, if we are talking about molecules with double-bonds, and a
food product with little or no antioxidant protection (at least once
it's inside a person's body), then the obvious damage that can come
from the likely lipid peroxidation that will occur should be ruled out.
Otherwise, there is no reason to talk of "trans fat" - one should
simply say "lipid peroxidation," and if you read the biochemical
scientific literature, you will see that this is the phrase that is
usually used, and that this is the process that is so often implicated
as the root cause of one or another "chronic disease."
Thirdly, the industrial hydrogenation process needs to be ruled out as
the cause of the problem, rather than the fatty acids themselves.
Lastly, long term studies would then need to be done, because the
"chronic diseases" that "trans fat" supposedly cause will obviously not
occur within a few months.
Because these basic steps should have been taken a long time ago, it is
likely that they will not be done any time soon (as is the case with so
much else in "nutritional science"😉 and therefore, the reasonable
person would look at what the evidence as a whole suggests at this
point in time (and that concerns dangerous free radical reactions -
substrates, such as unsaturated fatty acids, and enhancers, such as
iron, are major problems and easy to avoid - if you cook for yourself).