CONNECT | GROW | TRANSFORM

At this point, it’s worth asking: if polyunsaturated seed oils and plant sterols disrupt red blood cells, fuel oxidation, promote inflammation, and crystallise in plaques — then why are they still recommended as “cardioprotective”?

The demonization of saturated fat wasn't malice but a cascade: panic-fueled hypothesis, flawed cornerstone study, buried null results, and politicized policy. Vegetable oil industries lobbied (visiting scientists to yank papers), while a small cadre controlled grants and journals, stifling dissent.

When you drastically reduce your Calories In, your body does not just sit there and accept the deficit. It enacts a powerful survival response called metabolic adaptation or adaptive thermogenesis. You reduce Calories In, and your body reduces Calories Out.

Every decision you make — what to eat, whether to snack, how much to serve — draws on this limited pool of cognitive energy. Psychologists call this decision fatigue: the more choices you face, the weaker your self-control becomes. This is why dieting is so hard. You’re not only fighting hunger hormones and cravings, you’re draining a limited mental resource dozens of times a day. And when it runs out, biology takes over.

If a calorie is not a calorie — if we can’t reliably know how much of it is absorbed, how much is lost in digestion, and what its metabolic fate will be — then how would anyone know how many calories to cut?

And if a calorie is not a calorie — if we can’t reliably know how much of it is absorbed, how much is lost in digestion, and what its metabolic fate will be — then how would anyone know how many calories to cut? Are people expected to constantly battle with calorie math, obsess over every bite, track every number on an app, and then feel guilty for “going over” — even though the body never sees those calories the way the food label does?