A short History of Culinary Fats in the British Isles

A History of Correlations

Historically and up to the 20th century, the consumption of fat in the British Isles came largely from lard (rendered fat from pork), which was quite widely available to both the rich and the poor.  Other sources of fat since the Middle Ages were tallow (rendered fat from beef and mutton), cheese, butter and cream.  Some tiny amounts of oil were pressed from hemp and from flax, two plants that were grown for their fibres and were primarily used for making rope and cloth.  These plant-derived oils were a by-product of the cultivation for fibre and were arduously pressed in manual or animal powered presses. Almost none of this type of oil was consumed as a food and it was mostly used as lamp oil or for greasing various tools.

Population in the British Isles was relatively stable for many centuries.  With the arrival of the industrial revolution came a population explosion and an exponentially increased need for food with it.  This new situation called for new sources for the 3 macronutrients needed for survival: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. 

Seed oils only started first being made on a larger scale in America, which spearheaded most large-scale industrial food production we recognise today, just about a little over 100 yrs ago.  It was primarily the oil from cottonseed that was made and used for many applications such as lamp oil and industrial lubricant, but not as a foodstuff initially.  America was the worldwide largest producer of cotton fibers for cloth at the time. Cotton seed was a byproduct of that production that was made into oil with the new extruding machines that were invested in and built during the industrial revolution.  Only once techniques such as deodorising, refining and bleaching became available, could foul-smelling and tasting seed oils be neutralised and made palatable for human consumption.  

In 1908 Procter and Gamble acquired the rights to the hydrogenation process that could turn liquid oil to a solid spreadable fat (adding convenience and giving a longer shelf life) and this way the highly harmful trans-fats were born.  Read some more history on this and on how misleading and aggressive marketing was used to get people to start eating these unhealthy fats (linked here). 

In the hundred years that followed, heart disease became the leading cause of death in the world and still is today, closely followed by cancer.

The severe food shortages during World War 2 in many parts of the world, forced people to look to new sources of calories (in WW2 there were more than 20 million deaths from starvation in addition to the 19.5 million military deaths). Innovative technological advances such as in the processing, fortification, packaging and transportation of food as well as in the mechanisation of farming were developed, particularly in the US. In an environment faced with famine and starvation, the primary focus was quantity of calories delivered combined with as low cost (and as much profit for the large industries) as possible.  Not much thought was given to optimising nutritional value and human wellbeing. 

About 50 years ago, in the 1970ies it was recognised that saturated fats contributed to heart disease and cottonseed crops in America were replaced by rapeseed (also called canola in America), which was lower in saturated fat that cottonseed.  It was in the 1970ies that rapeseed first started being cultivated in the UK as well, not exactly making it the UK "heritage" crop it is often marketed and advertised as.  

You can see that in the evolutionary history of humans seed oils only appeared in the last minute of our existence in our diets and never really existed before then.  Our bodies never had a chance to evolve to adapt to them, which is why our bodies have responses of inflammation to them.  Inflammation is the root cause to most illnesses and adverse health conditions.

Olive oil is a fruit oil, as olives grow on trees that live through the seasons for many years.  This makes them more complex, valuable organisms than the various grass-like crops used for seed oil making today. Those grasses only have life-cycles of a few months per year.  Olive trees have been cultivated in their ancestral terroirs for more than 5,000 years.  While olive trees survive in the UK climate and are frequently used as ornamental trees, they have not yet been successfully cultivated to bear fruit that can be used in a commercially viable way.  Everything changes all the time though and maybe one day we will have some Kentish or Cornish UK-made olive oil.  This may take decades or centuries.  For the moment the UK has no choice but to import olive oil from warmer climates.  Those who are blessed with the freedom to choose foods that optimise their health in our time have the choice of good olive oil, the culinary fat hailed as the healthiest in the world by medical doctors and scientists alike.

Chose multi-awarded, high-in-polyphenols, healthy extra virgin OPUS olive oil!  

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