The John Birch society was into weird ideas about health since the 1960s, I had a friend in the 1980s whose parents were Amway distributors and selling supplements who were introducing my family to anti-abortion and school voucher activists.

In Ithaca though we have a population of hypochondriacs who are notoriously left wing.

Alternative ideas about the healthiness of fats have circulated a long time

https://www.amazon.com/Fats-That-Heal-Kill-Cholesterol/dp/09...

is the first one I saw against ‘seed oils’, certainly alternative ideas about the healthiness of cholesterol and saturated fats have been circulating a long time. What is different is the polarization of the post-COVID environment but the polarization is such that you find people who don’t think we are post COVID.

I stay away from animal fats. I lost 70 pounds eschewing animal fat which nothing else ever did in my 53 years. "and these are just anecdotes, so just move on" <-- the video

Heart attacks - everybody also started smoking like mad and the industrial revolution was in full swing, at the same time.

I think it was the light bulb/extra light at night. no wait, it was plastics! no, it was computers.

Hydrogenated vegetable oils are crap. Oils high in polyunsaturates aren't good either. Soybean oil is crap

Get N-3s fatty acids, get plenty of monounsaturated fats. Don't heat them if you can avoid it.

Read this, it's been around forever

https://www.amazon.com/Fats-That-Heal-Kill-Cholesterol/dp/09...

PubMed > YouTube. 2016 - "Olive Oil and the Hallmarks of Aging" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26840281/