The health implications of trans fats were recognised as early as 1958, when Dr Ancel Keys reported that he believed that hydrogenated vegetable oils with their trans fats components were responsible for the sudden and significant increase in heart disease. The response was predictable - the oil manufacturers buried the research and began the false attack on animal fats. The driving force to produce hydrogenated Vegetable Oils, so-called trans fats was simply a commercial descision for the increase in shelf-life, which hydrogenation caused. Little or no consideration was given to the health effects of this major chemical alteration of the oil molecule.
