We have been warned for decades to avoid saturated fats and to increase polyunsaturated fats to improve our health, particularly our cardiovascular health.  That means heart and arteries.  Well, first of all, there is no such thing as saturated fat.  Technically, if a fat were saturated, it would be inedible.  It would be a heavy wax similar to a candle and that’s why it would be inedible.  All fats are made up of a variety of fats.  In the early 1900s, the primary fats were animal fats; beef, pork, fowl, and no vegetable fats.  Oh, and by the way, there was no heart disease in the early 1900s.  Today, everyone has jumped on the fear of fat campaign, and guess what?  Several decades later, after this fear of fat campaign, America is fatter.  45% of the American population is obese.  34% of America is overweight.  17% of our children are obese.  This was absolutely unheard of in the early 1900s.  The so called saturated fats are healthy.  They are far more stable and resist rancidity.  Our heart, liver and kidneys function best with saturated fat in the diet.  Polyunsaturated fats means they have many opened bonds in their molecular structure so they are extremely fragile and are open to rancidity quite easily.  In fact, by the time fish oils and vegetable oils are processed, they are already rancid needing purification so we do not taste the rancidity.  Rancid oils are extremely high in free radicals that damage and prematurely age our cells.  All vegetable oils such as soy bean oil, corn oil, safflower seed oil, sunflower seed oil, and many others are responsible for more cancer, heart disease and strokes than saturated fats.  The American diet should be almost equal in content between omega-6 fatty acids as we find in vegetable oils and omega-3 fatty acids as we find in fish oils, grass fed beef and some seed oils.  The ratio should be 3:1 between omega-6 and omega-3.  The American diet is 20:30 omega-6 to omega-3.  The best fat in the world is butter.  We can also add cream, eggs and lard to our good fat list.  We are always cautioned not to eat the skin of duck, chicken and other fowl.  We are told not to eat the dark meat because it contains more saturated fat.  Actually, the predominant fats found in lard, duck fat, goose and chicken fat is called monounsaturated fatty acids.  That’s the same fat as found in olive oil.  Other than animal fats, our diet should include olive oil, sesame seed oil and coconut oil.  Again, these oils are very resistant to becoming rancid.  All three oils can be stored at room temperature for up to two years.  Even if you hand pressed vegetable oils to produce fresh oils that would resist rancidity they would still become rancid in a matter of a few days to a few weeks.  Vegetable oils, margarine, or any soft spread margarine, and vegetable shortening should be avoided.  Use the good animals fats and others mentioned above.