Grass On Government Sponsored Lipophobes

And then there’s the edible oil industry. They were quite happy to use the lipophobes’ message to promote their industrial products – corn oil, soybean oil, cotton seed oil, and derived products like margarine and Crisco – at the expense of their principle competition – natural products like lard, butter, and tallow. Their manufactured products were low in saturated fat and cholesterol. The natural animal products were not. This became the focus of their promotional campaigns. The statement of these differences was, of course, true. The health assertions, it turns out, were not. But they weren’t about to let the facts get in the way of a great sales strategy, so in addition to their own product marketing efforts they provided funding to various vegetarian-advocacy groups, disguised as “public health interest groups,” whose messages usually failed to mention either their benefactors or their principle beliefs. More and more heavily processed, plant-based “food” items are introduced every year, all of which tout their “healthfulness” because they’re low in the cholesterol and saturated fat that “has been linked with heart disease.” Yes, they’ve been “linked,” but what does that mean? It’s as truthful a statement as “won’t turn pink in the can!” Our current conventional wisdom is the result of this unhappy mix of ideology, dogma, and politics. 
http://grassbasedhealth.blogspot.com/2010/06/grass-and-cancer.html


The current "conventional wisdom" was empowered by the relative weakness in the science of diet and health. Combine government, weak science, and folks with good intentions and you get the sad tale above. Unfortunately, there's no chance we'll get a conclusive scientific answer any time soon due to the expense and time that would be required to create it.