Great note, Ben. Responding to Ken's valuable reminder,
I finally got the title right -- or at least better.
I am now looking forward to reading Simopoulos' book.
Your analysis of the danger is quite interesting.

BTW: Thanks for reminding me that the term I was looking
for was "phospholipids". I believe my earlier message I
used a completely erroneous term. Thanks for overlooking it.

In my modified version of the PaleoPlan, I allow rice and
potatoes in reasonable amounts as side dishes -- although
I find myself moving away from them rather easily, after
only a week. The effect of that modification is to
eliminate *refined* carbohydrates from my diet -- bread,
cake, cookies, tortillas, muffins, bagels, etc.

Thinking about it, that strategy has accomplished several
important goals that would help to account for losing
4lbs in a week, with pretty much no desire to eat them.
(Usually, when you cut out things, you wind up craving
them more strongly than ever. But on this diet, I don't
miss what I've cut out at *all*.)

To get back to the point, cutting out refined carbs has
had the effect of:
  1) Completely avoiding the partially hydrogenated poisons
     that are present in most of the refined-carb "food"
     products.

  2) Made me fill up on vegetables instead of bread and
     things -- high-fiber foods that have regulated blood
     sugar very, very nicely, thank you very much.

  3) Put the meals into the 40-30-30 "Zone" range. (In
     theory, you can eat any kind of carbs. But when you
     do the math, you wind up needing to balance that
     candy bar with a pound of bologna -- so eliminating
     refined carbs is the only practical way to stay in
     "the zone".

Ben Balzer wrote:
>
> 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.