"Many more people by gluttony are slain, than in battle or in fight, or with other pain." Dialogues of Creatures (c. 1535)

On May 20 1991, the mighty US Food and Drug Administration moved against the ominous household name food manufacturers in the US.

The multibillion dollar food giants were told to remove from their products such deceptive labeling as "cholestrol-free", "contains polyunsaturates", or the cute little heart insignias somehow suggesting, albeit subtly, that these foods are good for the heart.

The fact is, in colloquial Americana, "there ain't no fat that ain't no good." sounds simple? Well, if it did, then the multibillion dollar US food industry wouldn't be lamenting today at the US FDA's sudden and decisive move. so let us examine the facts behind the controversy about the man's love affair with fat.

Man survived the rigors of evolution by choosing fat as his staple diet to store energy for the lean months. The taste buds developed with a liking for fat, however continued their demand long after the need to store fat in the body became obsolete. And that started the great battle of the bulge across the midriff.

Over the period man's vision of beauty remained entwined with our ability to afford it. Renoir's bosomy multi-pleated mid-riffs and King Henry VIII's gluttony have now metamorphosized into images of lean bodies as hallmark of health because today we know the connection between dietary fats and the dread diseases.

And there is no need to prove our wealth with accumulation of fat around us.

As the fat started to go out of vogue, fat vendors embarked on different strategies, proving that some fats are better than others. The first discovery told us that saturated fat is bad. People switched to liquid fats (the so called unsaturated fat such as oils).

Then came the doctrine of mono and poly unsaturated oils, mono being less fluid than polyunsaturates and thus being more harmful.

Then came the cholestrol philosophy followed by the differentiation of high density and low density cholestrol and fats; enough to confuse the consumer.

Cholestrol-free but full of oil food s became good for heart; polyunsaturated oils even became panacea for heart disease so on until May 20, 1991 when the US FDA thought that enough is enough; no more fooling the consumers.

The moral of this story is simple: Fat is bad-in all shapes or forms, with or without cholestrol, with or without mono or polyunsaturates period.

Optimal health and longevity come from realizing that we are not living in the stone age; we do not need to store fat since, food is abundant all around us.

What fat we take in our diet deposit all over our body including our arteries, specially those that provide nutrition to the heart itself (the coronary arteries).

Whether the fat in our food solidifies in our dinner plate or not, it almost invariably deposits in our arteries. The modern life style of stress , unbalanced diets and lack of exercise only exacerbate the blocking of arteries.

So, while your grandma may insist that you plunge in with the greasy spoon, just remember it's all going to land somewhere in your body. Unfortunately, it will only bring you close to the ground.

[12 September 1990 The Daily Dawn]