Jan 67 min read

Ancel Keys and His Big Fat Lie that Led to America's Obesity Epidemic

Updated: Apr 10

By: Matthew Fantazzi

We have all come believe that fat is bad for you, and while we may not know the difference between saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated, trans-fat, fat free, and which one, if any are good for us, after finding articles that make the case for every side of the argument there is. I'm not going to bore you with the biochemistry that proves what is what, although I'll link some studies that go into that if you're curious. I'm going to focus why this myth has become so engrained in the American mind, and the history that established this lie as the foundation of American nutrition and the much-maligned food pyramid. As always, I will link some of the sources I use as the basis for this post and leave you with some actionable information for you to incorporate into your life today. I have a handful of nutrition experts I've come to find have a good grasp on things, some of whom will be included, foremost on the topic of fat as it fits into nutrition is Dr. Cate Shannahan, author of two books I highly recommend, "Deep Nutrition" and "The Fat Burn Fix", which I will link below. Let's dive into the lie, why, and how it prepared the Standard American Diet that's eating away at America's health.

In 1955 President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack, this alarmed the American public, our war hero president was taken down by something, that previously had not been a huge issue. Naturally, Americas top minds set to find out what caused this near fatal moment for our President. This would include the American Heart Association, who prior to 1950 was a small group of cardiologists that were specialists, rarely called on and got little publicity. In 1948 that all changed as the winners of a radio contest put on by Proctor & Gamble, an industrial chemical company that awarded the AHA with a $1.4M award that has made them the largest non-profit in the country to this day. It should be noted that P&G was the creator of Crisco in the 1930's, the first line of what we know today as seed oils. Enter Ancel Keys, a physiologist from the University of Minnesota who is noteworthy for several developments including the K-rations used by the military in WWII, which was seen as a key to the ally's victory. In the wake of Eisenhower's heart attack, he came along with the diet heart hypothesis, in which he used a study that he claimed showed the countries with the highest fat consumption had the highest level of heart disease. However, it conveniently excluded countries that showed evidence to the contrary, as shown by a statisticians review of the data used. This of course, not until many years after Keys was lauded with the time magazine cover, and countless accolades and awards for solving the great mystery of what was leading to the explosion of heart disease. It should also be noted Keys was funded by the sugar industry and failed to account the impact of sugar on the heart, something we know now is major factor in obesity and heart disease. Another factor that Keys paid little attention to, President Eisenhower smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a day, which have a major effect on the heart and cardiovascular system, this was before the campaign against cigarettes and tobacco began. This study and those that followed it also led to the demonization of cholesterol which is another pharma myth perpetrated to generate the trillion-dollar statin market. In short cholesterol is necessary and how what the body synthesizes all hormones from, and your brain is made up of 25% cholesterol, and it is key to many brain functions. I will be going through the pharma lies around statins and cholesterol in an upcoming post, if you can't wait there will be some links below.

This led to the AHA to recommend hydrogenated vegetable oils as a healthy substitute for saturated fat, oils like P&G's Crisco which contained polyunsaturated fats. This was backed by study's that were falsified to show margarine was healthier than butter, which it was later found that they had used the results of the margarine group to represent the group that had been eating butter, inverting the results promoting the cheaper toxic margarine. But why would anyone want to do this? Well, the answer is rather simple, these hydrogenated vegetable oils are incredibly cheap and versatile when it comes to food production. They can be used to make just about anything and if you start reading your labels you will find that they are in just about anything that comes in a package. Oils like canola, safflower, sunflower, grapeseed, rice bean, soybean, corn, and cotton seed, or what we know today as seed oils, coined the evil eight by The Seed Oil Rebellion, a fantastic website with short videos on seed oils and why they're harmful. These toxic oils become the backbone of the standard American diet of processed food and have been a $100B innovation for the big food companies. These oils are incredibly toxic and lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, mitochondrial and cell membrane damage, and some argue can be pointed to as the cause for nearly all modern illness. I will link some videos that go into the science behind these points if you're interested, claims which I believe have serious merit and are the reason why seed oils are one of the few things I do make a strong effort to avoid in my diet. The healthy alternatives are olive, coconut, avocado, butter, ghee, and beef tallow, or the simple six.

In short, these oils contain polyunsaturated fats, where your animal meats have saturated fats, essentially what this means is that the saturated fats can more easily be used to rebuild cells, tissues, and organs. When they are less available than the polyunsaturated fats then the body will make do with those but using them for too long is like building your house on a foundation of sand. This leads to cellular dysfunction, mitochondrial damage, cell membrane damage, and metabolic damage that cascades out into a number of chronic conditions.

This idea around fat and cholesterol has been foundational in modern nutrition science and like most treatment methods in modern medicine, they are not understanding the true cause of the problem, so the solutions leave patents struggling for answers. The food pyramid is another construction not based on any science, but economic interests of industry giants. Grains, the foundation of the pyramid were simply the most profitable food group, not the most nutritious. Government and big business work hand in hand to make it the most profitable, things like subsidies and regulations that favor production and sale of these industry leaders' top products. This is an important point because it illustrates that these were not mistakes, rather lies, intentional deception that led to the obesity epidemic and contributed to American's estimated $4 Trillion a year on health care. So yes, there is a huge incentive for these two industries to work together to keep you sick.

Not surprisingly, the current crop of advice put out by the government backed scientists isn't going to help anyone. Here is a portion of the food compass from Tufts University that was developed to replace the fraud that was the food pyramid. This new model of assessing nutritional value somehow claims that honey nut cheerios, loaded with seed oils yet claims to be "heart healthy", and lucky charms are healthier than ground beef. A statement so preposterous I feel it needs no explanation but here is a quick video refuting the claim that red meat is unhealthy anyway.

This so-called food compass received the full-throated endorsement from government health officials and organizations like the 2020 expert committee for Dietary Guidelines, a group in which 19 of the 20 members, had a conflict of interest with either the food or pharmaceutical industries. Highlighting just one example of where the two industries interests overlap and how they work with the checkbook scientists to perpetuate the problems they created and then use our tax dollars to fund efforts to find a solution.

Unfortunately, there isn't much hope for accountability even less for reform in this realm of the medical and scientific community. This is where the Health Yourself ethos comes from, the only option is to abandon the old model of sick-care and come in with a fresh look at dieting, nutrition, and healthcare. One that focuses on prevention, promoting healthy habits, treating body systems when healthy, before it becomes serious, and utilizing the answers mother nature has always provided. I always try to provide solutions you can apply immediately to your life, today's solution comes from the Seed Oil Rebellion, a website listing the evil 8 oils to avoid and the simple six oils to substitute, along with short concise videos laying out the science to back it up. I encourage you to explore the interviews and presentations below for a more comprehensive breakdown of why eliminating seed oils is my one absolute dietary restriction. I hope this helps bring a little clarity to the fatty fog of falsehoods foisted upon us by the pharma/food fraudsters. As always if this was helpful, please share with your loved ones, and if you have any questions reach out to me at healthyourslfak@gmail.com.