If I were a betting man, I’d bet you had a negative perception of red meats and butter growing up.

You thought, “I’m not supposed to eat a lot of this” Or “Red meat isn’t good for you”

Or maybe you constantly heard others talk negatively about red meat and animal fats.

The reason for this? 

Your parents were brainwashed into believing animal fats are bad and red meat kills people.

In today’s memo, I’m going to uncover why the Western world despises red meat and animal fats to prove it’s all one big hoax.

You see, 7,000,000 Americans died of heart disease, making it the number one cause of death in the US from 1970-1980.

Scrambling to find an answer, America turned to the infamous ‘Low-fat’ diet aimed at lowering heart diseases. 

A diet unlike any other we’ve seen in today’s world, not like Keto, Paleo, or even Carnivore, no, this was different.

The low-fat diet during its peak had a cult-like feel to it, an ideology of sorts that seemed to create such polarization, it hypnotized millions for a few decades and many are still under this spell(sigh). 

4 key pillars made the low-fat diet a sweeping reality: 

1) The increasing social desire to not be fat 

2) The government’s continued banishment of fats 

3) The food industries' major push on new low-fat products 

4) The media’s amplification of the stance on fat. 

It turned out to look like an equation, that looks like this:

Desire to be skinny

This may sound strange but there was a time when being ‘fit’ or ‘skinny’ wasn’t favored.

The desire to be skinny only really started when the fashion trends move towards tight-fitted clothing coming out of the 1920s, which would become a precursor for the 1940s shift in the culture of the desire to be thin. 

Women were always seeking novel ways, secrets if you will, to slim down and stay skinny as you’d observe in the countless magazines and TV shows on diets, recipes, and hacks to shed some weight off in search of the ideal body. 

Concurrently with the changing desire for the ideal body type, we discovered that every gram of fat contains 9 calories as opposed to only 4 in both protein and carbs, so naturally calorie counters were already avoiding those fats.

Psychologically the name, fats, has also been coined a synonym for overweight, which for most unconscious consumers would already be associating the macro-nutrient with a bad perception. 

Eat fat, get fat, pretty simple, right? 

From my view on this phenomenon, I think the desire to be skinny was a real problem for most of America which led to such an uptake in the subsequent products and harmful diet plans provided by the food industry. A pattern of human behavior: Have desire but not willing to do the hard work to get it… give me the easy button. 

When the food industry brought in all these “healthy” low-fat/fat-free products, we bought them up and leaned on them as our crutch for weight loss, when in reality as you’ll see, it did the exact opposite for the majority of America.

Government validation + The food industry

In 1911, a little-known company called P&G launched the first artificial trans fat product (which is now banned 100 years later, and a well-known public enemy to our health), Crisco (Crystallized Cottonseed Oil), using a process called partially hydrogenated oil, a direct alternative to butter.

Crisco was the first alternative to butter owned by a company, which naturally, made an enormous push to put the product into the hands and minds of Americans. 

A successful and well-documented campaign was using propaganda called Calendars of Dinner and The Story of Crisco. The first was a free cookbook filled with 600 recipes all calling for Crisco, and the second was a case for why it’s superior to other animal fats. At the time back in the early 1900s, this was genius, there was no internet to search recipes so a book of this size was deemed an instant holy grail for moms everywhere. 

Truthfully, Crisco genuinely looked like an amazing alternative, at the time it was a fraction of the cost, easily accessible, didn’t go bad as soon, didn’t smoke while cooking with it unlike butter or lard, and made everything taste good. (Interesting article on Crisco’s early marketing)

Over the next 30-40 years margarine (a form of vegetable oil) and hydrogenated vegetable oils started to gain steam in popularity (See below) which was due to the availability compared to real butter after WW2.

With P&G continuing to push millions of dollars to promote Crisco they made a brilliant move by sneakily donating $1.5M (Equating to $24M in 2022) to the American Heart Association (AHA) to help them become a national organization to preach their message to the USA.

During the run-up to the 1960s, America started to experience a massive problem, heart diseases (HD) were going through the roof, rapidly increasing to record numbers, and something was needed to blame for this epidemic. 

In 1957 the AHA released a journal to conclude fats should be lowered in consumption as they have early reason to believe they are culprits here to blame for this epidemic, but made it very clear hydrogenated oils aren’t the ones to blame, indirectly saying it’s animal fats.

A major player in this journal was a guy named Ancel Keys, who first brought this early hypothesis of ‘fat = bad’ or better known as the Diet-Heart hypothesis. He was responsible for government bodies like the USDA, the American Medical Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the AHA for buying into the early trend of this low-fat diet. 

He published a keystone study, the Seven Countries Study, which looked at HD across 7 countries and compared their fat intake to show a positive relationship between the two. 

Shortly after, more data was available looking at the original 7 plus another 15 countries which would have debunked or weakened his hypothesis, but Keys never brought this to light, leading America astray…in the name of… science?

A key finding to note as well, smoking was yet to be brought up during this journal although it does allude to ‘other factors’, but never signals out the tobacco industry. Hmm.

However, this wasn’t the turning point for America quite yet but was the start to the end for red meat, and animal fats, and the beginning of the rise of vegetable oils, and artificial sugars.

In 1961, AHA released another journal the recommendations continued to be more explicit with their push for substituting animal fats with vegetable oils, pointing out how ‘healthy’ they are in contrast (which we know now, simply is not the case). 

Another very important point here is the omission of what we now know of as artificial trans fat, which there was no mention of at the time in this journal. Looking back, this was a very scary time for Americans as it stayed as the silent killer for the next 40 years before getting banned completely from the market due to its extreme health effects.

Fast forward to 1977, America is at its peak of heart diseases at this time (See above), which has only continued to rise even after their blame and decline of animal fats and red meat, hmm interesting. 

Now the government puts together a ‘committee on nutrition and needs’ to release the dietary goals for Americans, which only further blames animal fats. 

This was the true tipping point for the low-fat craze as the government officially gave the stamp of approval for low-fat to how Americans eat using this goal book.

Around this time was also the first evidence found of the sugar industry successfully influencing our perception of food. As we see inside the Dietary Goals for Americans, there were studies pulled from a man called Dr. Mark Hegsted, who published reports going against animal fats and showing carbs are the way to a healthy life. 

We’ve since learned Mark’s work was paid off by the sugar industry, specifically, the studies used in this 1977 goal book.

In 1978–79, the American Society of Clinical Nutritionists, the AHA, and the National Cancer Institute fell in line with the sentiment by releasing their low-fat recommendations. By 1980, a scientific consensus was emerging that a low-fat diet was the way to prevent the two leading causes of death, coronary heart disease and cancer. Federal government support for low fat continued with each official government publication from the 1979 Surgeon General's Healthy People to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, first issued in 1980 and every five years thereafter (a joint effort of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the USDA). 

Thus, by the 1980s, despite protests from the food industry and skeptical scientists, federal agencies forged a consensus on dietary advice at the same time that a growing scientific consensus advocated low fat for everyone. By the end of the decade, both the controversial Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) were promoting low fat.

Here’s where things get backwards…

The sugar industry figured out this ‘low-fat’ trend could be the biggest profit-making opportunity by replacing the fats for sugar, which soon after became the infamous design of the majority of low-fat products to hit the shelves in the 1980s/1990s. 

This would go on to become known as the “Snackwell’s Effect”, whereby dieters will eat more low-calorie cookies, such as SnackWells, than they otherwise would for normal cookies, leading to a higher consumption of total calories.

Then in 1988, The AHA played right into this new low-fat trend and got bought out by the sugar industry to further the validation that eating like absolute shit was okay and accepted. 

They started their “Healthy Heart” seal of approval which companies could pay to have this on their packaging. 

By 1997, over 600 products were a part of the program with many being cereal products by large producers, some of them were: Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Fruity Marshmallow Krispies, and Low-Fat Pop-Tarts. 

This is pure propaganda that’s been instilled in many kids (and adults) which built these positive subconscious biases about these companies. Funny enough, almost none of these companies today have this label now, but we still see certain brands tooting their horn about lowering cholesterol like Cheerios.

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In 1992, the most widely spread and accepted food guideline was released to the public, the food pyramid. Now ask yourself what you think of when you think of a traditional “healthy diet” 

Does it resemble anything similar to this? 

What about when you were a kid? 

For most who have been raised in the US and Canada, you’ll be nodding your head in agreement with both these images. Which would go to prove our underlying unease with fats in our diet. 

What do we notice when we look at this: it’s a clear advocate for low-fat AND promotes breads and cereals as the MOST IMPORTANT FOODS…. WHICH BTW… ARE ALL MADE BY SOME COMPANY THAT HAS PATENTS ON A FOOD GROUP…

Shortly after, In 1996, a new statement was released by AHA which echoed the government’s position on fat by emphasizing the narrative of sugars over fats, and trans fats over saturated fats. Here is a direct excerpt from the 1996 publication by the AHA:

“3. Choose a diet low in fat, saturated fatty acids, and cholesterol. The AHA emphasizes restriction of saturated fatty acid intake because this is the strongest dietary determinant of plasma LDL cholesterol levels…(This was cited by Ancel Key)

Another factor deserving attention is the use of trans fatty acids. Trans fatty acids found primarily in hydrogenated vegetable oils tend to raise cholesterol levels relative to their non hydrogenated counterparts. This increase appears to be less than occurs with similar amounts of saturated animal fat or highly saturated vegetable oils, eg, coconut and palm kernel oils. Among the few data available, analyses using plasma or tissue levels of trans fatty acids as a measure of intake suggest that CHD risk is associated with trans fatty acids derived from animal products but not with those from hydrogenation of oils. In addition, there is no clear dose-response effect for trans fatty acid intake and CHD risk. Based on this limited information, the AHA recommends limiting trans fatty acid intake, for example, by substituting soft margarine for hard. The AHA also encourages the food industry to develop more products with reduced trans fatty acid content.”

In that same report, it was also encouraged to eat moderate amounts of sugars as pointed out in bullet 5:

5. Choose a diet moderate in sugar. The AHA encourages the consumption of complex carbohydrates in the form of grains, vegetables, and legumes. Sugar intake has not been directly related to risk for cardiovascular disease, but diets high in refined carbohydrates are often high in calories and low in complex carbohydrates, fibre, and essential vitamins and minerals.”

The outcome of the mess that’s been made to blame fats

The ideology of a low-fat diet took the Western world by storm. 

This has resulted in people getting fatter and having more incidences of heart disease, cancer, and obesity than ever before in history but we’re so bought into the idea they dismissed the evidence of what’s really fattening humans up, killing humans, and causing us to become weak. 

This low-fat diet in many ways is still extremely prevalent in the western paradigm on red meat, animal fats, and what’s considered ‘healthy’. This is shown by the ever-increasing consumption of caloric sweeteners and non-animal fats paired with the increasing cases of the top diseases killing westerns today (See below). 

However, for those who have pulled their head of the ground, it’s obvious red meat and animal fats aren’t the crooks they were made out to be in the last 60+ years, In the next memo, we’re going pull back the curtain on the real data on red meat, fats in the body, how we’re actually a much strong, more resilient human because of these superfoods.

For context, heart disease was the number #1 killer in 1990, and still remains the top cause today. Type 2 Diabetes was number 12 in 1990, now number 6. Hypertensive Heart disease was 23, now 15. All correlated with the current Western diet. What’s not shown on here is the Obesity %, which also has just been climbing steadily as shown below.

To finish this theoretical puzzle and leave you with something to chew on:

There seemed to be/still a direct attack on the consumption and perception of red meat & animal fats.

So… why is this?

I think there are two sides to the story:

1. The scientists who got the spotlight on these topics were genuinely trying to solve the problem to the best of their abilities for the data and technology they had available to them. Ancel, I give you the benefit of the doubt. 
2. However, could it be that someone isn’t attacking red meat as much as they are using it as a vehicle of blame to cover up the real killers, smoking, sugar, vegetable oils, and artificial trans fat? Aside from the facts of the timeline of historic events, check out the profits of these companies, Coca Cola, Philip Morris, Mondelez, vs Tyson Foods. Take a look at the massive amounts of profit both the sugar and tobacco companies have compared to a meat producer (who is still extremely optimized for profit over health). 

Who’s going to be able to lobby harder? 

Who needs to lobby harder? 

The guys that are actually killing millions of people each year or the guys providing food? (Even though I don’t agree at all with the values and farming methods from Tyson)

The sugar Industry attempting to play god in food politics…

As I alluded to earlier, there is evidence that proves the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) received funds, back in the 1960s, by the sugar industry to downplay the effects sugar has on heart diseases and shift the blame towards fat and cholesterol. The key player in the research for this initial paper was Dr. Mark Hegsted.

After the initial break of news, there’s been a spotlight on hundreds more studies funded by the industry by players like Coca-cola, Herseys, etc. to create some dramatic results in favor of sugar. Marion Nestle, a nutritionist, and author of the book ‘Food Politics’ points out that, 156 of the 168 industry-funded studies that result in favorable results for the backers. The only difference about now vs. back in the 1950s/60s/70s is they are now required to disclose funding sources and the fact that it's this accessible to the world for anyone to see, not just the media who makes it into the headlines for narrative building.

• https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/02/candy-nutrition-studies/
• https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/
• https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/well/eat/scientist-who-discredited-meat-guidelines-didnt-report-past-food-industry-ties.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

In conclusion

What do you make of this? Does this change your perception of red meat and animal fats? There are so many lessons in this historic series of events. 

• Humans are easily influenced (more recently, C19)
• Humans tend to use the belief of the masses to make decisions
• Humans tend to be greedy, even if that means killing millions of others
• Humans make mistakes
• Humans tend to not question their beliefs
• The list goes on…

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I hope you’ll take a few of them away after reading this. 

That’s all for now.

Go enjoy a 12 oz Ribeye.

& Send this to a friend to help de-program them.