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The Rise of Nanofoods
separsons writes "Researchers are altering foods at the nanoscale level, changing their tiny molecular structures to enhance certain properties. (New Scientist has a more detailed look.) For example, one group of scientists found a way to hide water within individual droplets of oil, making low-fat mayonnaise taste like the real thing. The process can make spices spicier, potato chips healthier, and make diet food taste just like full-calorie snacks. Nanotech can even help combat global malnutrition. But the process is certainly controversial, and food manufacturers are being tight-lipped about exactly what nanofoods they're working on. So can nanotech create a healthier world, or is it just frightening Franken-food?"
Ugh. Let's not scare-monger, please. If there are any specific risks or complaints about specific new products, that's fine - but there's nothing inherantly wrong or dangerous about this and lumping braod categories of things in together as "Frankenfoods" is irresponsible. We have always modified our food, this is just a more recent method than some.
What pisses me off isn't that new technologies are being incorporated, but the lack of labelling and identification.
* Olestra, remember that one? Eat a bag of chips, get "anal leakage".
* Or when McDonald's was ordered to strip transfats out of its foods, and the fries suddenly became a sea of suck.
* And then there was Foi Gras, which several jurisdictions outlawed because PETA said so.
Guys, it would be way cheaper to spend the money on education than by re-engineering our food into suckitude or to enforce some political ideology on all of us. There are some days when I just want a fucking cheeseburger, with fat oozing out of the sides, a thick slice of cheese, and smothered in a heart attack. Other days, I'll happily eat trail mix or a salad. It's my choice, not yours.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
But it's nanofood. NANO! "Nano" means better, just like "digital".
+0 Meh
I'm lucky enough to live in an area where real food is grown in the ground, pulled out, washed and sold. That means I don't have to buy food where sugar has been replaced by corn syrup (because it's just as good!), oils have been replaced with whatever is cheapest (because it's just as good), cows have been fed corn -- or worse -- instead of wheat (because it's just as good!).
Every time industry tries to improve food, it seems to make things worse.
It's one thing to try to develop high yield crops, but engineering high tech food to reduce Americans' calorie intake is insane, when you could simply put sin taxes on soda.
Here is an excellent TED talk that talks about genetically modified food and the fear it creates. He makes the point that fear of the foods is causing significantly more harm than those foods ever have. He compares it to vaccine boycotters, and how each group gets their sense of danger completely out of proportion (really, the danger of measles is much worse than the danger of the vaccine).
In the case of these foods, there isn't even a danger that it will get out into the wild and reproduce or anything like that. If they turn out bad, we can stop making them, it's as simple as that. The risk is really quite modest.
Qxe4
New toys are fun, but these guys should find a different justification. How about more nutritious cattle feed?
Like ... grass instead of corn? Done. :)
R.Mo
[quote] So can nanotech create a healthier world, or is it just frightening Franken-food?"[/quote] That depends on what's being done. You can't paint the whole thing with the broad brush of nanotech and say it's good or bad. The process you use must be made public so that the end product (and waste products) can be evaluated by the whole community as good or bad.
That's a fine principle, except that all consumers of food have a vested interest in changes to diet. You can eat organic all you want, if wind-bourne pollen from modified crops is fertilizing the neighboring organic fields, you'll wind up eating something whose health effects are not all that certain. And yes, in many cases anti-GMO folks are concerned when there isn't reason to be; but this is our food supply we're talking about, and a precautionary principle is in full effect.
Besides, self-regulating industries are prone to misrepresenting health effects when they have financial interests at stake. CF Vioxx... It's all well and good to say "let the market sort it out," but market solutions are ex post facto -- you don't know to punish a bad market actor until they've already dumped a billion barrels of oil in your gulf (and that's assuming that you, as a lowly, non-media-empowered consumer, can even break through the asymmetries of information in the first place). Regulations can be over-cautious and even misguided, and they can certainly fail; but they are much more effective than free-market actions in preventing the disaster before it happens repeatedly.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
I would agree with you if I thought that the food industry would also play by those rules - use neutral, 3rd party science to determine what was safe, effective, etc. But we know that doesn't happen.
They can magic the salt into a different shape that means more of the consumed salt hits the tongue, resulting in less salt used to achieve the same sensation of saltiness.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I'm going to guess, just for giggles, the following:
1.Any regulation of these novel techniques will be resisted on the grounds of "consumer choice"
2. Any requirement that foodstuffs incorporating these novel techniques be identified as such in any way will be resisted as "confusing" or "alarmist".
3. People will have no idea what they are buying; but their "decisions" will be held up as a vindication for consumer satisfaction with the new techniques.
Which is ironic given that something like 30% of all sugar consumed globally is from beets. Doesn't taste like poo.
That blog post is entirely useless - all it does is take the New Scientist article, sprinkle in some extra paranoid fear-mongering, mix delicately and bake on high heat for ten minutes.
Why even link to it? Oh right, because "separsons" is probably the same person as the "Sarah Parsons" who wrote the blog post in the first place.
Besides, self-regulating industries are prone to doing whatever the hell they want when they have financial interests at stake.
Just for clarification.
P.S. How do you do a strike on Slashdot? s,slash-s didn't work, neither did strike...
If it's the fat you're after, oil is much cheaper and more pure. Mayonnaise is just about being delicious.
Making potato chips less unhealthy is equivalent to making them healthier. No one's saying "healthy", just "healthier".
The question of using new technology to develop food is hardly a political one. Sure, the discussion has become politicized, with all manner of uninformed people weighing in, but that doesn't mean the discussion is unimportant.
There have been problems with new foods, like transgenic crops. Trust Us, We're Experts details a case where potato crops utilizing a moth gene caused anaphylaxis (resulting in death) in a not-insignificant number of people who ate them. The scientist at Monsanto who was responsible for the problem attempted to raise awareness of the issue and had his career promptly squashed by his employer. Nanotech foods are similarly new.
That's not to say that new food technologies aren't important. They absolutely are. But the issue not as black-and-white as you make it out to be. Healthy skepticism is not the same thing as a knee-jerk backlash.
You suck nanoparticles into your lungs with every breathe.
ARE YOU DEAD YET?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It's ALL Franken-food, every damn bit of it. If you don't grow it yourself it has been modified. In some cases, you can't even rely on the purity of the food you grow yourself because the seeds or starter plants have been modified.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Could you super size that for me?
Have gnu, will travel.
Epicyte created corn in 2001 that has spermicidal properties.
Lovely.... I am sure the population control advocates will demand this be given as part of food aid to developing countries.
Diet food already tastes like the real thing. All my veggies taste real.
All my whole grain foods all taste real...
Oh wait, simulated chemical created chocolate cake and high fructose corn syrup laden junk? Is that what they are trying to make taste better?
How about simply not eating that trash?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Man... I read "beer" instead of "beets"... I was so ready to go into a full-scale nuclear flame-war there!
To come back on topic, you make beets taste actually good, but for that you need a damn good chef. Could be used as a test of his competence.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The thing about digital food is, you either love it or you hate it.
+0 Meh
No. But you will be.
You will be.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why would anyone want low-fat mayonnaise? Fat is what mayonnaise is about
It always manages to surprise me when people say "The point of X is Y bad thing." If something tastes like mayo but doesn't make you fat, that's a good thing to many people. I mean, I'm assuming you don't have weight issues, but surely you can grasp the concept that other people do.
There's nothing you can do to make potato chips healthier; there's nothing healthy in potato chips to enhance.
What kind of reasoning is that? Reduce the amount of sodium, fat, cholesterol required to make them taste good and bam, it's healthier.
Mix.A.Golden.Apple.In.
and if you really feel like haute cuisine hard boil an egg and sprinkle it on the mix.
and go easy on the vinegar and use a good quality oil. and don't forget a little bit of oignon.
Anything else ?
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
This is just the next line of food additives that attempt to make food into something that it's not.
Proof, pls. kthxbai.
Nothing new here really. We've had diet food before, we'll have more of it in the future.
Really? Nothing new?
The taste might actually improve too.
So improvements in taste is nothing new?
Why don't we focus on improving our diets so that they actually include healthy foods? There's a lot of food out there that's healthy for us that doesn't taste like cardboard.
That food is also quite expensive. It either costs a lot of time, a lot of processing or a lot of space. Also, TFA implies that this nanofood-thingy might have the potency to make cheap (crap) food healthier! Why change your diet to a different kind of food when you could have the same kind, but a bit different, so that it doesn't harm you as much? As long as you like the taste, your body gets the right amount of energy and it doesn't harm you... what else could be wrong with what you eat? The fact that it's not natural doesn't make it bad. Shit additives the manufacturers are using these days makes it bad. If we can improve those additives, I don't see what's wrong with eating plastic. Again: So fking what if it's not natural?
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
I like beets.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't forget, 70% of American's think that nanotechnology is inherently morally reprehensible. And the numbers are even higher if you sample highly religious people. So either the general public has absolutely no idea what the word nanotechnology means or (and this is a scarier thought in my opinion) a significant majority of American's are against a technology are against any technology that promises to significantly enhance the human body.
Good oil and good vinegar salvages almost everything. Dash of balsamico, perhaps, and this sounds like a plan. :)
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
P.S. How do you do a strike on Slashdot? s,slash-s didn't work, neither did strike...
You are doing it wrong: You need to convince others to join you in not posting for a given time (usually until your demands are met) and it helps if you can put some pressure on any traitors in your company and/or threaten violence to traitorous outsiders.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I hate to be the kid in The Emporer's New Clothes, but beer *does* taste like shit. Or, more accurately, really sting-y, bitter piss that hurts going down, and could NEVER hold a candle, in terms of taste, to a milkshake.
People. Drink. Beer. To. Get. High.
The taste? A cover to make it socially acceptable. "Ah, yeah, man, this beer is made by this ultra-special microbrew, man, it's got that really subtle, *refined* taste, that's why it's okay to take a psychoactive substance that would otherwise get banned."
I've tasted many, many kinds of beer, and have never enjoyed the process of drinking a single one.
The effects on my mind are a different, and more pleasant story.
But cut the bullshit, folks.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Okay, here's three quick points:
(Posted with "It's All Text". Just say no to TEXTAREAs)
How about you accept that tastes are different? Sweet crap like sodas and milkshakes trigger my gag reflex. Bitterness is an acquired taste, that much is sure, and I have damn well acquired it. Just because you don't like beer, which I completely accept, doesn't mean that there isn't a whole universe of different, interesting tastes in various kinds of beer. From "subtle, refined" to "what the fuck just hit my taste buds? it hurts, but in a most pleasant way".
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Seconded. BUT (big but), freshness is key.
Beets straight off the in-law's farm, when cooked properly melt in your mouth and taste like they're buttered (when nothing has been added). Just season with a little salt and maybe drizzle a little balsamic vinegar (if that's to your taste). Even people who "hate" beets will rave about them.
Old beets taste like boiled stumps and are equivalently difficult to eat.
Same thing goes for a lot of veggies though. Fresh is best. I just had some fresh asparagus (just picked), and it was the best I had ever tasted. Delicate flavor, extremely tender. I can't wait for corn season. The early season corn cooks up to perfection in less than 2 minutes, is sweet, flavorful and not the least bit starchy (unlike corn from the grocery store which even if it has been hydro-cooled has often become extremely starchy). If corn is grown locally you should try purchasing it straight off the farm if possible (here most have stands that sell corn picked that day). My experience with local stores (even the ones that pretend to be more of a "farmer's market") is that they take too much time to get the produce on the shelves. They may have received it fresh picked earlier that day, but it won't be on the shelves for a day or two.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I doth agree with thine alternate strategie! And I doth hold in the same regard, these so-called "birth-control" devices! Why, marital intercourse needn't be made less-procreative! Rather, one simply must be less lustful!
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Unhealthy? As compared to your healthy milk shakes?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The question is kind of self-answering for those who know anything about nano (food or materials it doesn't matter). According to the industry itself there are two things that are important to realise when you're discussing nano-materials: 1. they are ffing small. So small in fact that they'd have no problem whatsoever getting past the blood-brain barrier (talk about a health risk). 2. the properties of nano-materials are different from those of their "normal" counterparts. Nano-iron does not behave the same way regular iron does. Not physically and not chemically. That's one of the main things as to why it's so attractive to research this stuff and why it has such a huge potential for innovation. To put this in scientific lingo "Materials manufactured or engineered at this level have unique properties and behave differently from conventional matter. This stems from two factors; their increased relative surface area and new quantum effects. Their greater surface area to volume ratio leads to increased chemical reactivity and resistance, whilst at nano scale quantum effects lead to unique optical, electrical and magnetic behaviours." If you realise the two above then you also realise two things: 1. self-regulation can't ever work. Due to the simple fact that testing for side-effects costs a lot of money with the potential to not only affect profit margins but to render them negative all together (if the side-effects are really bad and the product is cancelled). It doesn't need more explaining then this. It's leaded gasoline/cigarettes/agent orange/asbestos/CFC's (--- take your pick) all over again. 2. politics, as usual, are way behind on legislating (imo consciously so). It'll take at least another decade (if not two, three or ten) and several bad press scenarios before they really start to act upon the potential dangers this technology entails.
Who was so stupid, he forgot to deceive himself, before any other?
Well, that's one way to combat the obesity pandemic...
It's called an 'acquired taste'. It's what happens when we get older and grow out of baby food: your tastes change to appreciate stronger and more sophisticated flavours. Some people never grow up and spend their adult lives eating children's foods such as milkshake.
Huh, I don't know what kind of beers you've tried (you claim to have tried a lot, but I am suspect) but I really disagree on the theory that beer actually tastes like crap and we just drink it to get a *high.* Now, I will make this clear, this is personal preference/opinion, so I don't have any scientific evidence to back anything up but here's been my experience.
The first time I tasted a beer I drank a Budweiser at a friends house. Honestly, I didn't see the appeal to the drink (and most people can understand why I am sure). I mean, the flavors were smooth enough that I wouldn't describe it as stingy or anything like that, but it just tasted like liquefied bread and my response was something in terms of, "WTF is all the fuss about?"
However, a couple years later, one of my friends came back from Belgium and brought home some darker beers. I hadn't been drinking a lot at this point (actually, I only drank once since the Budweiser), so there was no acquired taste thing going on here. When I drank that beer, for the first time, I almost cried it tasted so good. There was a tart sweetness to it that was very difficult to find in any other food. The smoky flavor that is heavy in a lot of American dark beers was very mellow. The bitter nip to it (and it wasn't much more than a nip) stimulated a slight tingle on the tongue. Most noticeable of all, was how smooth it was going down the throat. I want to emphasize that last point. A good beer does not sting going down, it warms the throat just like a good whiskey does. It leaves you sitting there, feeling more complete for having drank it.
The thing that I appreciate about a good beer (yes I am an elitist) the most is the incredible variety of flavor experiences that can be found in a single drink. Very few consumables have the ability to stimulate so many different receptors as beer. This, in my opinion, is what makes it taste incredible. It doesn't just taste sweet, or salty, or whatever, it tastes complex, and I like that. More importantly, I think that's what makes a taste truly unique and worth appreciating. I'm not a wino, but for what it's worth, my wine drinking friends say the same thing about wine.
Now, you compare the taste of beer to the taste of a milkshake and say that a milkshake is what can be called, universally, good. I would agree that a milkshake is pleasing for the sweet receptors. However, it leaves all your other receptors lacking. To make a music analogy, I consider milkshakes to be the equivalent of fun, energetic modern pop music like Katy Perry. It's fun to listen to. It fills you with a good hype for a short time. It's very nice, but somewhat lacking in terms of depth and power. Now a good beer, on the other hand, is like a magnificent symphony or orchestra piece. It fills your very spirit with so many sounds tied together in such wonderful ways that it makes you think. You can listen to a good symphony, and your mind's eye will develop an entire cinematic to go along with the music, rife with character, feeling, plot, color and on and on. Now, is the powerful symphony better, or the fun pop music? Well that's a judgment more than anything, but I don't think either sounds better. I think they both sound great in their own ways.
Similarly, is the super sweet, awesome classic milkshake or the complex fulfilling beer better tasting? Well, neither. They both taste magnificent in their own ways. So you can reiterate your point all you want that beer tastes like shit, but I really think you have missed out on some world class beers or something. Beer provides one of the most complex, amazing symphonies of flavor that I've ever had the delight of partaking in.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
While I agree that the objects in the grocery chain stores don't taste anything like the stuff that comes out of our garden, I'd have to say that you can still get really great beef. However, it costs a lot more.
Now the chicken today tastes horrible compared to real chicken. Even the smell of the antibiotic and hormone-infused chickens cooking is repulsive to me. When I'm at our summer home in the Ozarks, I can buy fresh chickens that grew up uncaged and eating stuff that chickens like to eat and the taste is wonderful by comparison. The guy who raises those chickens likes to say that his chickens that peck their own food from corn and other meal are the best in the country. I suggested that he change his slogan to "nothing tastes as good as a pecker" but he was not amused. Well, he was sort of amused, but he's one of those guys who doesn't really show anything on his face. When he finds something absolutely side-splitting hilarious, he'll maybe twitch one corner of his mouth a millimeter or so. Raises great chickens, though, and plays mean mandolin.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not the way "I" make it...
Just get the food processor out, whip up some egg yolks, a little lemon juice, salt, splash of hot sauce and drizzle in some pure olive oil (not extra virgin, too strong a flavor), let it get creamy. No preservatives. Often, I'll add in a bit of dill, and maybe some roasted garlic...YUM! It takes only minutes, and your potato salad will taste like never before!!
I used to never eat mayo growing up, till I tried making it myself.
And nothing wrong with good fats and protein...better than stuffing yourself with empty refined carbs, that's for sure!!
All things in moderation you know.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"altering foods at the nanoscale level, changing their tiny molecular structures to enhance certain properties"
Seems there's a word for altering materials at the nanoscale, and changing their molecular structures.
Let me think... molecular properties... hmmm... yes, I've got it! We call it "chemistry".
Scientists propose doing chemistry on food! Stop the presses! --What? Food chemistry has been an applied science since the 1700s? It's not news?
Oh,
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
How about you show some proof that matters instead if regurgitating crap.
Since you asked (even though nature is on my side, and the burden of proof is really on you to show that it doesn't matter):
How about the evolution of cows (they evolved to eat grass, not corn--they have a rumen and and eat grass; we can't, but we can eat them...should be a nice system, right?) and the sad state of both cattle and human health since the widespread adoption of corn diets for cows? Corn turns their stomach/rumen acidic (it's usually neutral), which both opens up the possibility for the evolution of acid-resistant E. coli and other bacteria (many are killed by our stomach's acid, but not the famed strains that kill people because of this--there's a reason we haven't heard about them until the last few decades) and also makes the cows themselves more prone to falling ill (one of the reasons, in addition to their crowded living conditions, that they are injected with antibiotics, even if they are not [yet?] sick--and I'm sure you know that overuse of antibiotics has consequences of its own).
Of course, there are benefits on the human side, too. Grass fed beef has lower levels of saturated fat than corn-fed beef. (The nutritiousness of your food depends on the health of the animal or plant it came from; not all is created equal, contrary to what the USDA seems to think.)
I could go on, but you can find information just as easily as I can. Feeding cows corn does matter, both for the animal, you, and the planet as a whole.
R.Mo
Psychologically, sure. Physiologically, children can taste a lot better than an adult. Four times better, in fact, since you lose taste buds as you get older, plus I'm sure taste-bud density drops as your mouth gets bigger. (People also vary by ~50% IIRC.) We don't appreciate stronger flavors as we get older, we tolerate them since we can't taste them as well as we used to. Personally, I couldn't stand spicy food as a child, but today I rarely notice it, so I pay more attention to the other flavors in the food (e.g. most hot sauces taste like vinegar now).
Children are also known for being picky about vegetables. That makes sense, since many (probably most) plants are poisonous, and a child has no business trying to discern which are and which aren't. So, evolutionarily, it's better to just avoid them entirely. If your parents force feed you vegetables, you'll probably learn to like them, psychologically. Or you'll be defiant and never like them, although that could just as easily be individual preference manifesting itself in childhood.
The only animals that eat grains in nature are birds and mice. If you feed a cow grains, it will make it so sick that dies in a year or two. There is lots of proof showing that the contents of grass-fed beef is far healthier than grain-fed.
"Saturated fat is bad" is entirely political. The US Gov't has literally spent billions of dollars on studies trying to prove the deleterious health effects of saturated fat. This started in the early seventies, and after they did a massive study, and with lots of lobbying from the grain-industry, politicians aren't going to come out and say, "We were wrong". Politicians aren't very good at saying that.
(Gary Taubes covered the history of low-fat in Good Calories, Bad Calories in great detail).
Saturated fat is a healthy fat, there is no reason to avoid it. Tribes in the Pacific eat a tonne of coconuts, and they live to ripe old ages, but they get better than 10 times fewer degenerative diseases than North Americans. They never get diabetes, they don't get alzheimers, they don't get arthritis, and cancer is very rare. Yet they eat a tonne of saturated fat.
They don't eat and sugar, grains or vegetable oil. These are the foods that make us sick and cause our bodies to degenerate prematurely.
The brain is primarily made out of fat, and needs large amounts of fat to maintain brain cells. Eating low-fat deprives the brain of the nutrients it needs, which in many people manifests itself as a strong feeling of depression. Most vitamins and minerals are fat-soluble, that means we can only absorb and use them if they're consumed with fat. Lots of tribal cultures consume copious amounts of fat (Inuit), but they never get degenerative diseases such as diabetes or heart disease.
Real mayonnaise is made out of olive oil and pastured eggs. Both are very high in vitamins, minerals and good fats. Mayonnaise in the grocery store is made with canola oil or soybean oil, these are bad fats - they are very inflammatory and promote heart disease. In addition, they are made with caged-chicken eggs where the chickens are fed a nutrient poor diet. This means that there is a small fraction of the amount of nutrients that is in real mayonnaise. You can find mayonnaise such as "Hellman's Real" with a big photo of some olives on the front, promoting the fact that it, "contains olive oil", but it's mostly still canola oil with just a small amount of olive oil added to it.
There is a debate, but it's sugar, alcohol and refined carbs make people fat. The liver can convert carbohydrates to fat. In fact, if fructose is consumed (which is 50% of the ingredients in table sugar), the liver has no choice but to convert it entirely into fat (and a really bad fat at that). Well, the first bit of fructose your body eats in a day can be turned into glycogen, maybe 10-80 grams depending upon your activity level, etc. But generally if you drink a can of pop, or a glass of fruit juice, it's all going to be turned into bad fast by your liver.
See Sugar: The Bitter Truth for more details on how refined sugar is just as harmful on your liver and on your body as alcohol.
The saturated fat debate should have a been a non-starter, and probably would have been if people had the internet in the 50s, 60s and 70s when the science was done.
About a century ago, humans dramatically started changing their diet, notably with the introduction of refined sugar and vegetable oil (often processed into hydrogenated or trans fats). Ancel Keys, and the saturated fat researchers came up with the "lipid hypothesis", that fat sticks to the arteries and "clogs them up". They didn't even consider the new foods introduced when human health declined, but decided that it was something that we've always eaten which must be the problem. The reason people started suspecting cholesterol was because we'd just come up with ways of measuring it in the blood - so they took the data and went looking for "problems". It really didn't make any sense.
To quote Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, "Statistics have been published by the Department of Public Health in New York City which show the increase in the incidence of heart disease to have progressed steadily during the years from 1907 to 1936. The figures provided in their report reveal an increase from 203.7 deaths per 100,000 in 1907 to 327.2 per 100,000 in 1936. This constitutes an increase of 60 per cent. Cancer increased 90 per cent from 1907 to 1936." This is where things really started going south for humans, and cancer, arthritis, alzhiemer's, heart disease and diabetes really started to come into the picture. We have managed a continued increase in degenerative disease over the last 70 odd years since then. Today 1 in 2 persons who live to old age will die of cancer. Humans used to be able to live to that same age and have a 1 in 1000 chance of dieing of cancer.
Saturated fat is present in ever increasing quantities the closer you approach the equator. It's better suited to plants in warmer climates, as you move to the poles, polyunsaturated fat becomes more present since it has a lower melting point. Humans evolved in temperate regions, where saturated fat is more present. There are a number of studies done on natives eating high-saturated fat diet who were disease free (The Masai for example).
Today we have hypotheses (based on information we've learned since the "lipid hypothesis" about how fats work in the body) that PUFAs might be deterimental, since we know they go rancid easily. Over consumption of PUFAs in conjunction with an anti-oxidant poor diet and a diet low in saturated fat (combing saturated fat with PUFAs makes PUFAs dramatically more stable from rancidity), means that these fats can go rancid in the blood stream - when these happens these fats can no longer be used as fuel, and the immune system needs to clean them out. Many PUFAs (corn oil is the worst) are also higher in omega-3 and low in omega-6, humans have eaten extremely varied diets, but one constant is the ratio between omega-3 and omega-6, because of this constant, these fats are used as inter-cellular messengers for ramping up inflammation or turning inflammation off. Eat a diet of only omega-6 and no omega-3, and silent inflammation turns up in the body and becomes a constant drain on the system.
Still, I don't think that we will find any one fat sub-type as a true "enemy" (sat/mono/pufa - not counting fats destroyed by processing and unusable by humans for energy like hydrogenated and trans fats). All kinds of organisms use a mix of different fats, it doesn't make sense that animals would convert one type of fat to another in the liver, if that fat was harmful to them.