Fats & Protein vs. Carbohydrates (Part 3)

[Guest guest]

THE OILING OF AMERICA (part 3)

SNANIGANS AT THE AHA

Although the AHA had committed itself to the lipid hypothesis and

the unproven theory that polyunsaturated oils afforded protection

against heart disease, concerns about hydrogenated vegetable oils

were sufficiently great to warrant the inclusion of the following

statement in the organization's 1968 diet heart statement:

" Partial hydrogenation of polyunsaturated fats results in the

formation of trans forms which are less effective than cis, cis

forms in lowering cholesterol concentrations. It should be noted

that many currently available shortening and margarines are

partially hydrogenated and may contain little polyunsaturated fat of

the natural cis, cis form. " 150,000 copies of the statement were

printed but never distributed. The shortening industry objected

strongly and a researcher named Fred Mattson of Procter and Gamble

convinced Moses, medical director of the AHA, to remove

it.13 The final recommendations for the public contained three major

points—restrict calories, substitute polyunsaturates for

saturates and reduce cholesterol in the diet.

Other organizations fell in behind the AHA in pushing vegetable oils

instead of animal fats. By the early 1970's the National Heart

Lung and Blood Institute, the AMA, the American Dietetic Association

and the National Academy of Science had all endorsed the lipid

hypotheses and the avoidance of animal fats for those Americans in

the " at risk " category. Since Kritchevsky's early

studies, many other trials had shown that serum cholesterol can be

lowered by increasing ingestion of polyunsaturates. The

physiological explanation for this is that when excess

polyunsaturates are built into the cell membranes, resulting in

reduced structural integrity or " limpness, " cholesterol is

sequestered from the blood into the cell membranes to give

them " stiffness. " The problem was that there was no proof

that lowering serum cholesterol levels could stave off CHD. That did

not prevent the American Heart Association from calling

for " modified and ordinary foods " useful for the purpose of

facilitating dietary changes to newfangled oils and away from

traditional fats. These foods, said the AHA literature, should be

made available to the consumer, " reasonably priced and easily

identified by appropriate labeling. Any existing legal and

regulatory barriers to the marketing of such foods should be

removed. "

SHENANIGANS AT THE FDA

The man who made it possible to remove any " existing legal and

regulatory barriers " was Barton Hutt, a food lawyer for the

prestigious Washington, DC law firm of Covington and Burling. Hutt

once stated that " Food law is the most wonderful field of law

that you can possibly enter. " After representing the edible oil

industry, the temporarily left his law firm to become the FDA's

general council in 1971. The regulatory barrier to foods useful to

the purpose of changing American consumption patterns was the Food,

Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, which stated that " . . . there are

certain traditional foods that everyone knows, such as bread, milk

and cheese, and that when consumers buy these foods, they should get

the foods that they are expecting. . . [and] if a food resembles a

standardized food but does not comply with the standard, that food

must be labeled as an 'imitation' " .

The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act had been signed into law partly

in response to consumer concerns about the adulteration of ordinary

foodstuffs. Chief among the products with a tradition of suffering

competition from imitation products were fats and oils. In Life on

the Mississippi, Mark Twain reports on a conversation overheard

between a New Orleans cottonseed oil purveyor and a Cincinnati

margarine drummer. New Orleans boasts of selling deodorized

cottonseed oil as olive oil in bottles with European labels. " We

turn out the whole thing—clean from the word go—in our

factory in New Orleans. . . We are doing a ripping trade, too. "

The man from Cincinnati reports that his factories are turning out

oleomargarine by the thousands of tons, an imitation that " you

can't tell from butter. " He gloats at the thought of market

domination. " You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you

won't find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any

hotel in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest

cities. . . And we can sell it so dirt cheap that the whole country

has got to take it. . . butter don't stand any show—there

ain't any chance for competition. Butter's had its

day—and from this out, butter goes to the wall. There's more

money in oleomargarine than, why, you can't imagine the business

we do. "

In the tradition of Mark Twain's riverboat hucksters,

Barton Hutt guided the FDA through the legal and congressional hoops

to the establishment of the FDA " Imitation " policy in 1973,

which attempted to provide for " advances in food technology "

and give " manufacturers relief from the dilemma of either

complying with an outdated standard or having to label their new

products as `imitation'. . .[since ]. . . such products are

not necessarily inferior to the traditional foods for which they may

be substituted. " Hutt considered the word " imitation " to

be over simplified and inaccurate— " potentially misleading to

consumers. " The new regulations defined " inferiority " as

any reduction in content of an essential nutrient that is present at

a level of two percent or more of the US Recommended Daily Allowance

(RDA). The new imitation policy meant that imitation sour cream,

made with vegetable oil and fillers like guar gum and carrageenan,

need not be labelled imitation as long as artificial vitamins were

added to bring macro nutrient levels up to the same amounts as those

in real sour cream. Coffee creamers, imitation egg mixes, processed

cheeses and imitation whipped cream no longer required the imitation

label, but could be sold as real and beneficial foods, low in

cholesterol and rich in polyunsaturates.

These new regulations were adopted without the consent of Congress,

continuing the trend instituted under Nixon in which the White House

would use the FDA to promote certain social agendas through

government food policies. They had the effect of increasing the

lobbying clout of special interest groups, such as the edible oil

industry, and short circuiting public participation in the

regulatory process. They allowed food processing innovations

regarded as " technological improvements " by manufacturers to

enter the market place without the onus of economic fraud that might

be engendered by greater consumer awareness and congressional

supervision. They ushered in the era of ersatz foodstuffs,

convenient counterfeit products—weary, stale, flat and immensely

profitable.

SHENANIGANS IN CONGRESS

Congress did not voice any objection to this usurpation of its

powers, but entered the contest on the side of the lipid hypothesis.

The Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, chaired by

McGovern during the years 1973 to 1977, actively promoted the

use of vegetable oils. " Dietary Goals for the United States, "

published by the committee, cited U.S. Department of Agriculture

data on fat consumption, and stated categorically that " the

overconsumption of fat, generally, and saturated fat in

particular. . . have been related to six of the ten leading causes

of death. . . " in the United States. The report urged the

American populace to reduce overall fat intake and to substitute

polyunsaturates for saturated fat from animal sources—margarine

and corn oil for butter, lard and tallow. Opposing testimony

included a moving letter—buried in the voluminous report—by

Dr. Fred Kummerow of the University of Illinois, urging a return to

traditional whole foods and warning against the use of soft drinks.

In the early 1970's, Kummerow had shown that trans fatty acids

caused increased rates of heart disease in pigs. A private endowment

allowed him to continue his research—government funding agencies

such as National Institutes of Health refused to give him further

grants.

One unpublished study that was known to McGovern Committee members

but not mentioned in its final report compared calves fed saturated

fat from tallow and lard with those fed unsaturated fat from soybean

oil. The calves fed tallow and lard did indeed show higher plasma

cholesterol levels than the soybean oil-fed calves, and fat

streaking was found in their aortas. Atherosclerosis was also

enhanced. But the calves fed soybean oil showed a decline in calcium

and magnesium levels in the blood, possibly due to inefficient

absorption. They utilized vitamins and minerals inefficiently,

showed poor growth, poor bone development and had abnormal hearts.

More cholesterol per unit of dry matter was found in the aorta,

liver, muscle, fat and coronary arteries, a finding which led the

investigators to the conclusion the lower blood cholesterol levels

in the soybean-oil fed calves may have been the result of

cholesterol being transferred from the blood to other tissues. The

calves in the soybean oil group also collapsed when they were forced

to move around and they were unaware of their surroundings for short

periods. They also had rickets and diarrhea.

The McGovern Committee report continued dietary trends already in

progress—the increased use of vegetables oils, especially in the

form of partially hydrogenated margarines and shortenings. In 1976,

the FDA established GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status for

hydrogenated soybean oil. A report prepared by the Life Sciences

Research Office of the Federation of American Scientists for

Experimental Biology (LSRO-FASEB) concluded that " There is no

evidence in the available information on hydrogenated soybean oil

that demonstrates or suggests reasonable ground to suspect a hazard

to the public when it is used as a direct or indirect food

ingredient at levels that are now current or that might reasonably

be expected in the future. "