For a long time fat = bad, and saturated fat was the Antichrist, so butter was the poster child of a Bad food.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/is-bu...

That movement was so bad, now it is really hard to find any products that doesn't contain vegetable fats. Vegetable fats in fast food cooking often contains trans fats which are much worse for you. Even McDonalds and similar used to have animal fats in their products, but now its just vegetable fats everywhere.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-16-fo-688-st...

https://www.retailwire.com/discussion/mcdonalds-getting-frie...

It isn't even just the trans fats in vegetable oils it is the amount of polyunsaturated fats (omega 3 & 6) which are present in amounts that are basically impossible to find in the wild and don't react well when heated up.

"During the last three decades, 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE), a major α,β-unsaturated aldehyde product of n-6 fatty acid oxidation, has been shown to be involved in a great number of pathologies such as metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and cancers." Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3824598/

"Overall, beef fats produce less HNE and total secondary lipid oxidation products under thermal treatment, compared to pork and chicken fats as well as most vegetable oils." Source: https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/191191

Single stomach animals such as humans, pigs and chicken store whatever fat they consume somewhat in the same form whereas ruminants like cows do not, hence the fact that pork and chicken fats oxidise easier as they are nowadays fed a not very ancestral diet.

Some omega 6 amounts in oils (sourced from Fineli https://fineli.fi/fineli/en/index): - Sunflower seed oil n-6 polyunsaturated fats 62.3g - Canola oil n-6 PUFA 22.1g - Olive oil n-6 PUFA 10.4g

And if you’ve never deep fried French fries in beef tallow, you’re really missing out on an amazing life experience.

Don't quote me on this but I think the real Belgian* way of cooking fries is in horse fat.

* in the US you call them French fries but it should really be named Belgian fries since they originate from there

* in the parts of Europe that know their fries, French fries, Flemish fries and just fries are each different species!

Oh yea, it was the cholesterol bogeyman.

It's interesting to see the snap back over the last 10-15 as fat has become more acceptable again as sugar is now the enemy. The one food that seems to be holding strong is yogurt where nonfat yogurt is still king.

The turning point for me came when I started drinking whole milk again and realized that I consumed fewer calories with whole milk and felt more full.

I think the problem with public recommendations is not that they are wrong or right but the fact that most people do not follow them. They follow basically what the large food concerns put in the food shelves. Which is typically highly processed food with a lot of sugar, fat and salt.

A lot of people actually do follow them. If you check https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/nutrient_... (from https://www.fns.usda.gov/nutrient-content-us-food-supply-190...) you can see saturated fat consumption going down as recommended, chicken consumption going up, even things like sugar has gone down recently. These obviously vary between country, but here in Finland people at large do seem to follow the guidelines especially considering school and work canteens, retirement homes and so on.

As they have held wildly different positions over time, they have surely been wrong and indoctrinating children on those wrong policies for decades. It's somehow assumed that they're either getting it right this time (if you voted for this group) or they'll get it right next time (if you're voting for the next group).