Tonight at the Rose Cafe, Jonathan Robins, a historian who  specializes in the history of fats, talked about the technology of fat production, environmental concerns related to its production, and health concerns that have changed the types of fat we consume over the past 150 years.

In the late 1980s, palm oil was labelled as a bad fat because it is saturated and was associated with heart disease, and many companies switched to using trans fats in their products. However, not long after, in the 1990s, the recommendations changed. It was discovered that trans fats, which are artificially produced by hydrogenating liquid unsaturated fats to get the consistency desired for many baked goods, were actually more harmful than the palm oil they replaced.  There has been a transition back to palm oil in recent years. This is just one example of how opinions on nutrition have changed over time. New discoveries are made that invalidate previous findings and shift nutritional recommendations.

I asked Dr. Robins to talk about the best fat from an ecological standpoint, since, given the changing views on the nutrition of fats, he was not able to recommend the healthiest fat. This question also has no clear answer. For example, palm oil is made in Malaysia and one acre of oil palms can produce the equivalent amount of oil to 10 acres of coconut palm trees in South America. Oil palm growers argue that because oil palms are so efficient at making oil, they are better for the environment because less land has to be clear cut. But the question arises –  is all land equal? Is clearcutting one acre of Malaysian land really better than clearcutting 10 acres of South American land?  Many Malaysian rainforest sit on top of peat bogs, known to store large amounts of carbon, which complicates the comparison.

Fat is much more complicated than a number on a nutrition label and governments, health researchers, and environmentalists all have competing opinions on which fats we should be consuming.