Thanks Eric,
I look forward to reading the references and looking through your site. I
think we can agree that we both believe that fats are critical to health. I
don't think you'll be disappointed by Simopoulos- she is to nutrition what
Kasparov is to chess. It's all mainstream- so if you can't convince your
friends and family to go paleo, then at least get them onto this. I've
actually bought 7 copies so far.
One thing I would like to point out is that trans-fat (I do prefer
frankenfat) measurements underestimate their biological disruption.
Consider a typical Australian margarine with 7% frankenfats. That's 7% of
the free fatty acids after breakdown. But the fats there are triglycerides-
each one having 3 fatty acid tails. So that means around 20% of the
triglycerides will have one or more frankenfat tails, with .034 % having all
3 tails as frankenfats.
After digestion and metabolism they are reassembled as phospholipids for
entry to the cell membrane. Phospholipids have 2 fatty tails, so around 14%
will have one frankenfat and 0.5% will have 2 frankenfat tails. (the exact
maths give a close result).
So, there you go. 7% trans fat equates to 14% disruption.
Ben Balzer

Hi, Ben. Thanks for your note.

I've been through Udo's book, after being introduced to the
subject by Robert Erdmann's excellent book: Fats that Can
Save Your Life. His was another truly excellent eye opener
-- short, easily read, and perspective-changing.

I've gone through two or three others, as well, including
Johanna Budwig's short, hard-to-read, but wonderfully
informative book. I've made it my business to understand
the chemistry behind these things, given their critical
function in carrying out life processes.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I've ordered it, and
I'll take a look at it. However, I can tell you that the
industrial-society diseases described in the book's
description can be laid *squarely* at the door of the
trans fats, cross-linked fatty acids, bond-shifted fatty
acids, and other adulterated fatty acids that result
from *high-heat processing* of EFAs. I'll inspect the
book, but I've found a lot of authors unclear on the
difference between natural fats and what results from
processing them.

You might also want to take a look at my web site
http://www.treelight.com/health
where I've posted a number of articles about essential
fatty acids and their role in health and various diseases
of modern civilization. Some of those articles dwell
on the singular fact that omega-3, 6, and 9 fatty
acids have only *one* configuration in nature, but can
adopt any of a hundred strange new forms when subjected
to high levels of heat. (Again, Erdmann is the easiest
short read on the subject.) Those new forms are metabolically
inactive or, worse, active in the wrong ways.

Now, only one end of that fat has to be joined into a
phospate group to become part of the cell wall -- and that
end is unaffected by heat processing. The result of
the processing then, is quite literally a metabolic
poison -- something that has never before existed, that
millions of years of evolution have not prepared your body
to identify or reject and which, when built into your cell
walls, either fails to function or functions in the wrong
way.

Now *that* has a lot of explanatory power. It can explain
insulin resistance, allergies, cancers, and quite a few
other maladies of modern civilization, that occur by
virtue of carcinogens and allergens being a) present in the
environment and b) admitted into the biological organism,
where they don't belong.

I'll be looking for the science that can explain how
natural Omega-6 oils can make us "more vulnerable to heart
disease, cancer, obesity, autoimmmune diseases,..." (from
the Book Description at Amazon), but frankly I don't
expect to be impressed. Aboriginal tribesmen who eat a
high meat diet don't seem to suffer from those things, and
I'm not sure that their Omega-3 intake is all that high.

However, I'm willing to be convinced, and I will write a
note to that effect if the book you mentioned succeeds
in doing so. Unless the author makes allowances for the
high levels of trans fats in industrial diets, though,
it's hard to see how they can make that case.