Thanks Tbone,

It is interesting to see what the Mediterranean diet can mean. It sounds like high saturated fats is a common thread. To his credit, Willett is warning about carbohydrates, at least some of them. That's a powerful boost to the low carb cause. He also seems to suggest that fats, generally, are often a better bet than carbohydrates. The diet in Crete when it was studied by Ancel Keys apparently had low levels of saturated fat. This, and the Lyons Heart Study, probably explains much of the reason why Willett is concerned about saturated fat. Relative to North America, Crete had high consumption of fish, fruit/vegetables and legumes. It also had high consumption of breads. Crete had one of the longest life spans at the time of the study. I think it still does. So there is something wrong. Your explanation about the scarcity of food after the war makes sense. The diet captured at that time could have just been a blip on the radar. The Lyons Heart Study Diet was low in saturated fats and trans fats -however, as Mary Enig points out, nobody was really separating out trans fats in the US diet when they made comparisons years ago. That could have been our problem. Wine consumption, that Willett heartily endorses, could be another factor in the health of the Mediterranean region - bypassing all fat consumption, if it is taking platelets out of the blood. There are a lot of factors to consider and it doesn't appear this work has really been done yet, so the result is informed guessing. Willett points out that the Chinese traditionally had a high consumption of carbohydrates and maintained good health. He credits this to an active life-style. However, other evidence shows the Chinese diet varies considerably from place to place and pig fat was a major food in some regions. The local health food stores here are now promoting coconut oil as a health food, and of course, Mercola is promoting it in a major way on his website. You'd think that some of the mainstream nutritionists would stop for a moment and say "What's going on here?" The public deserves a straight story on saturated fats before a new food pyramid experiment is started. Willett should also clarify what he means by healthy unsaturated fats. Mary Enig's description of the typically refined vegetable oil leaves much to be desired. It is hard to believe it could be healthy for us.