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How a P.R. Campaign Led to Unhealthy Diets

To equate saturated fats with trans fats is incorrect and misleading. Saturated fats are not created equal. Palm and coconut oils, predominately saturated, nevertheless are healthy oils. Food processors reluctantly had abandoned their use in the late 1980s, because of scare tactics waged by competing interests and misguided individuals. As early as 1934, the U.S. Congress imposed a tax on palm and coconut oils intended for food. The act was "principally to protect domestically produced vegetable oils in their use in the production of edible products." But palm and coconut oils have advantages over hydrogenated vegetable oils from the viewpoint of both health and food processing.