toll on the health of its consumers.
Fat in the American Diet in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries
The typical American diet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries contained
much more fat than most people eat today. Fat intake varied from 32 to 44
percent for the average American. At times, saturated fat constituted 36 percent
of total calories consumed. Fats used for cooking were rendered from lard, beef,
poultry, pork, coconut, and butter. Interestingly, heart disease was a rarity in
those days, even though we are now told that these types of natural fats clog the
arteries.
Fat in the American Diet in the 20th Century
In 1911 Procter & Gamble launched Crisco, a hydrogenated vegetable oil that
changed the cooking habits of virtually every American household. It was more
economical to produce than butter, and no expense was spared to market it to the
masses (Fig. 2.4). By 1938 Crisco was a household staple, and the consumption
of refined vegetable oils in this country had tripled. Margarine consumption
quadrupled between 1900 and 1950, and butter consumption plummeted.
However, by the 1950s, the American Heart Association reported that the
United States was in the midst of an epidemic of coronary heart disease. The
cause was then unknown. Many theories were suggested to explain this surge,
including heavy sugar consumption, hydrogenated vegetable oils, and the flawed
saturated-fat/cholesterol theory (more to come on that in the next section). It
soon became clear that the switch from natural fats to hydrogenated
polyunsaturated vegetable oils, coupled with rapidly escalating sugar
consumption, had caused heart disease to become a full-blown epidemic by the
mid-20th century.
Figure 2.4: An Ad Used to Market Crisco