Saturated fats have gotten a bad rap. For 30 to 40 years, they have borne the brunt of an anti-fat campaign. This campaign was promoted by individuals in the fats and oils part of the food industry who had great influence over government agencies, consumer groups and the media.

Recommendations about fat in the diet made by government agencies such as the USDA, the FDA, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, organizations such as the American Heart Association and consumer activist groups such as Center for Science in the Public Interest invariably paint saturated fat as the one bad actor in the diet that needs to be fired from the scene.

The spokespersons from these organizations don't understand the effects of the saturated fatty acids found in the diet and they don't understand how much and where saturated fatty acids are normally found in the human body. Everything these organizations report about fat is based on what they perceive to be the effects of saturated fatty acids on serum cholesterol levels.

So when a particular fat raises the level of the body's repair substance, which is what cholesterol is, the question that really should be asked is whether this is good because the body will now get the repair substance it needs, or whether it could be bad if getting more of the repair substance triggers the need for repair. The former makes sense, the latter does not. A well-known New York pathologist, Meyer Texon, MD, noted that accusing fat and cholesterol of causing the injury that led to the atheroma is akin to accusing the white blood cells of causing infection; they are both there to help repair.