This is a crazy story.

During the 1800s, cotton seeds were a pain. The cotton gin combed the cotton harvests to yield fiber while leaving behind tons of seeds. Farmers tried to mill these seeds, but they resulted in a dark, smelly oil. 

That was until a chemist discovered how to bleach and deodorize them.

Procter and Gamble jumped on this. They combined the bleaching and deodorizing with a new process, hydrogenation, which turned the smelly, dark, liquid cottonseed oil into an odorless, neutral solid that resembled lard. But cheaper! 

In 1911 they released Crisco, crystallized cottonseed oil, and a (necessary) brilliant marketing campaign.

People associated cottonseed oil with soap, industrial use, and roofing tar, not food. So, P&G piggybacked on "vegetables" healthy reputation with slogans like "absolutely all vegetable!" 

Vegetable oils became "healthy fats."

Unfortunately, it took over 100 years to finally pull the plug, as "The Crisco Process" (hydrogenation) resulted in trans fats that clogs arteries. They were finally banned in the US in 2015, 104 years later.

Prior to the ban, food companies funded research to debunk this, but even they couldn't manipulate the data enough to make it look safe.

Crisco was forced to change the recipe (soy, canola, and palm oil combo), cutting the amount of trans fat to less than 0.5 grams/serving (the amount that allows them to label it as "0 trans fat"). 

Unfortunately, I think this is just Part I of the story.

Part II is the final realization that all these other vegetable seed oils are bad news, playing a significant role in the diseases of civilization.

🎙️ What did I do?!:

One thing I want to clarify (that perhaps gets lost in the interview) is that I'm not against cardio, calorie restriction, or fasting. I'm against overdoing these. They can be effective tools when applied with the right strategy to achieve certain goals.

For example, I'm in the midst of a 6-Week Fat Loss Sprint, where there is calorie restriction. But it's short term. It's a tool to quickly lose fat without adversely impacting metabolism (rather, quite the opposite, a tool to improve metabolic health in the long run). We run this Challenge as a Coaching Program to make sure everyone does it the right way because, done the wrong way, can cause more harm than good. Been there. Done that.

💯 How to guarantee a life of misery:

 This is a lesson in counter-party risk. It's why you'll hear the sage advice: "Not your keys, not your coins."

As always, it's an absolute pleasure and an honor getting to spend some time with you, hope you have a great weekend!

Kevin

P.S.

I had a meeting in room 404.

I joked that I couldn't find it. No one got it.

This is why I have a tough time making friends.