In article >, Blair P.
Houghton wrote:
>Bobo Bonobo® > wrote:
>>Cocoa butter, which is highly saturated, has been shown to have a good
>>effect on lipoproteins. citation below:
>>
>> Dark chocolate consumption increases HDL cholesterol concentration
>>and chocolate fatty acids may inhibit lipid peroxidation in healthy
>>humans.
>> Mursu J, Voutilainen S, Nurmi T, Rissanen TH, Virtanen JK,
>>Kaikkonen J, Nyyssönen K, Salonen JT.
>> Free Radic Biol Med. 2004 Nov 1;37(9):1351-9
>
>Cocoa butter is white chocolate. Dark chocolate minimizes
>cocoa butter and maximizes nonfat cocoa solids.
>
>>Also, "Stearic acid, found in cocoa butter...
>
>And soap...
>
>>has a neutral effect on
>>the plasma lipid profile." citation below:
>
>Hully gee! A /neutral effect/!
>
>>Effects of antioxidants and fatty acids on low-density-lipoprotein
>>oxidation
>>CJ Fuller and I Jialal
>>American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 60, 1010S-1013S
>>
>>Stearic acid is a fully saturated fatty acid.
>>The short chain saturated fats are also fine.
>>All trans fats are very bad, but saturated fats are far more
>>complicated than you described.
>
>The evidence seems to be that saturated fats were sullied
>by association with trans fats. As trans fats come from
>artificially saturating unsaturated fats, and the FDA for
>a long time didn't require labelling foods with trans-fat
>content.

What happened decades ago was that saturated fats were found to be worse
than unsaturated ones.

Next, partial hydrogenation became popular. Partial hydrogenation
involves making a polyunsaturated fat "more saturated", but usually
mostly still unsaturated - while achieving the fat being semisolid or
semiliquid at room temperature. Trans fats are a major part of this.

The opposite of "trans" is "cis". Unsaturated fats with their double
bonds having the "cis" arrangement tend to be liquid at room temperature.

So, we got the various vegetable shortenings, and margarine being
supposedly healthier than butter. I remember back in the 1970's seeing
how a vegetable shortening container boasted about being "highly
unsaturated".

And after that, there was getting to be some disappointment in the
healthfulness of unsaturated fats and questioning of unhealthfulness of
saturated fats. But following that was identification of trans fats as
being especially unhealthful despite being unsaturated.

Before trans fats were counted separately, they were counted as
unsaturated, not saturated.

- Don Klipstein )