Wasn’t trans-fat a result of the FDA’s war on real fat?
Sort of-think margarine being marketed as “good” versus butter and natural oils like olive being “bad”-it was all in the marketing techniques...
Not the FDA, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
In the early 1980s, the CSPI and other food nannies activists campaigned for McD, KFC, & BK, et al, to stop using saturated fats (beef tallow for deep fryers & lard for baking) and start using the healthy alternative: vegetable oil.
Now, the vegetable oil industry knew that vegetable oils goes rancid after a few months and makes baked goods taste stale and greasy; so manufacturers used a process known since the 1920s for shortenings and margarine called 'hydrogenation'.
Hydrogenation adds a hydrogen atom to the 'trans' side (as opposed to the normal 'cis' side) of the fat chain. Thus the term 'trans-fat'.
The Oiling of America
‘Hypocrisy’ on trans fat
Regulators to Take CSPI’s New Advice, Ignore CSPI’s Old Advice
Rise and fall of trans fat: A history of partially hydrogenated oil