On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:50:17 -0700, you wrote:

>>Which is why virtually every medical authority has argued against the
>>otherwise obvious shift from low-fat to low-carb.
>
>Any and all who argue against the evils of carbs would deny it and, thank
>God, there ARE a few exceptions to the rule, but you're dead-on.  Few will
>bite the hands that feed them.  I see nothing shy of a conspiracy of X Files
>proportion.

Samuel Clemens reports overhearing this conversation in the 1870's (in
his non-fiction book "Life on the Mississippi":
================================

Speaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic which I
heard--which I overheard--on board the Cincinnati boat. I awoke out of
a fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my ears. I
listened--two men were talking; subject, apparently, the great
inundation. I looked out through the open transom. The two men were
eating a late breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody else
around. They closed up the inundation with a few words--having used
it, evidently, as a mere ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--
then they dropped into business. It soon transpired that they were
drummers--one belonging in Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk
men, energetic of movement and speech; the dollar their god, how to
get it their religion. 

'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the
ostensible butter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade,
'it's from our house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test
on it you want to. Take your own time--no hurry-- make it thorough.
There now--what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering
sight--it's oleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine.
You can't tell it from butter; by George, an EXPERT can't. It's from
our house. We supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a
pound of butter on one of them. We are crawling right along--JUMPING
right along is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes,
and the hotel trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon,
when you can't find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any
hotel in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest
cities. Why, we are turning out oleomargarine NOW by the thousands of
tons. And we can sell it so dirt-cheap that the whole country has GOT
to take it--can't get around it you see. Butter don't stand any
show--there ain't any chance for competition. Butter's had its
DAY--and from this out, butter goes to the wall. There's more money in
oleomargarine than--why, you can't imagine the business we do. I've
stopped in every town from Cincinnati to Natchez; and I've sent home
big orders from every one of them.' 

And so-forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid
strain. Then New Orleans piped up and said-- 

Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the
only one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil
out of cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart.' 

'Yes, that's so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business
for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and
Italy, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it
for genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy
broke up the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a
rattling impost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise;
had to hang up and quit.' 

'Oh, it DID, did it? You wait here a minute.' 

Goes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and
takes out the corks--says: 

'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the
labels. One of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this
country. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed
olive-oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People that
want to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to
Europe and back-- it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick
worth six of that. We turn out the whole thing--clean from the word
go--in our factory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything.
Well, no, not labels: been buying them abroad--get them dirt-cheap
there. You see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or
whatever it is, in a gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell,
or a flavor, or something--get that out, and you're all
right--perfectly easy then to turn the oil into any kind of oil you
want to, and there ain't anybody that can detect the true from the
false. Well, we know how to get that one little particle out--and
we're the only firm that does. And we turn out an olive-oil that is
just simply perfect--undetectable! We are doing a ripping trade,
too--as I could easily show you by my order-book for this trip. Maybe
you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll cotton-seed his
salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a dead-certain
thing.' 

Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrels
exchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnati
said-- 

'But you have to have custom-house marks, don't you? How do you manage
that?' 

I did not catch the answer.