The first Olympic test event at Santagiuliana Arena is being delayed because there's a giant hole in the ice. They brought out a watering can to try and patch it.
1850: Every kitchen has a hearth. Everything is cooked over fire using cast iron in animal fats. Butter, lard, tallow, dripping. These are the only cooking fats that exist.
The hearth cooking required skill. Managing fire temperature, using the right fat for the task, understanding smoke points.
Butter for low-temperature cooking. Tallow for frying. Lard for everything in between. These were standard kitchen knowledge.
1850-1900: Cast iron stoves replace open hearths. More temperature control but same fats. Still butter, lard, tallow. Home rendering of fats still common.
1900-1920: Gas and electric stoves begin appearing in wealthy homes. Temperature control becomes precise. But still using animal fats because nothing else exists for cooking.
1911: Procter & Gamble invents Crisco. The first artificial cooking fat. Made from cottonseed oil, hydrogenated, marketed as "modern" and "scientific."
The advertising campaign is massive. Free cookbooks distributed nationwide. Magazine advertisements. Radio spots. The messaging: animal fats are old-fashioned, unhealthy, inferior. Crisco is modern, pure, better.
1920s: Cookbooks start showing "butter or Crisco" as options. Recipe books published by Crisco itself are distributed free.
1930s: The Depression makes Crisco attractive - it's cheaper than butter. Economic pressure drives adoption. Once people start using it, they continue.
1940s: WWII rationing. Butter is rationed because it's needed for military rations. Crisco and other shortenings aren't rationed. Housewives forced to use substitutes.
Post-WWII: The rationing ends but the habit is established. Entire generation learned to cook with shortening. They teach their children.
1950s-1960s: The lipid hypothesis gains traction. Butter is "bad for your heart." Seed oils are "heart healthy." Medical authorities recommend switching.
1970s: Seed oils dominate. Corn oil, soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower oil. All heavily advertised as healthy. Butter sales decline.
1980: USDA Dietary Guidelines officially recommend reducing saturated fat. Replacing it with polyunsaturated oils. This becomes government policy.
1990s: Trans fats discovered to be harmful but this information is suppressed until 2000s. Meanwhile everyone's cooking in partially hydrogenated oils.
2000s: Trans fats finally banned. But by now, three generations have grown up cooking in seed oils. The knowledge of cooking in animal fats is nearly lost.
2020: Most restaurants use vegetable oil exclusively because it's cheap and staff doesn't know any other method. Home cooks use it because that's what they learned.
The transition took 110 years. From 100% animal fats to 95% seed oils in four generations.
Obesity goes up 3400% in that timeline.
The shift wasn't driven by nutrition science. It was driven by marketing, economics, and war-time rationing creating new habits.
Now we cook everything in oxidized seed oils and wonder why chronic disease is epidemic. While our great-grandmothers cooked everything in butter and were healthier.
The hearth didn't give us chronic disease. The industrial oils did.
Please don’t say “unalived.” It’s disrespectful to reality. Say the truth. Say someone was killed and/or assassinated. We need to move towards real language again. Less hiding behind childish baby language.
“Its not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
-JRR Tolkien
Thanks for the clean Earth
Charlie Kirk, a name synonymous with having the courage to speak what you believe and seek/welcome conversations with those whom you disagree with.
I’m not a political person but I am a proud American citizen and today was startling, saddening, and maddening all at the same time.. I’ve realized that I’m a bit naive to how crazy it all has become but watching a man get hunted and slayed in broad daylight because of his opinions made me disgusted and devastated.
This can’t be what we actually are or become as a country.. I believe that the good people will always outnumber the evil people but damn… today was an alarming day in our country’s history.
2 kids lost a dad.. a wife lost a husband.. and societal discourse lost a voice.
RIP @charliekirk11.. I send my prayers, thoughts, and love to his family and friends.