The Pendulum Theory
Prime Future 232: the newsletter for innovators in livestock, meat, and dairy
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Rewind the clock to a time before Amazon or Google were founded, before Taylor Swift was even born. A time when McDonald’s French fries were fried in beef tallow, as they had been since the company’s earliest days.
That changed in 1990 when McDonald’s switched from beef tallow to vegetable oil. The decision was in response to public pressure stirred up by a long-running campaign by Phili Skolof, who spent $15 million to promote his belief that beef tallow posed a health risk.
This 90s-era French fry oil switch didn’t just happen in the foodservice industry, but in home kitchens across America, too, as the pendulum swung from one extreme (animal fats as the default) to the other (vegetable oils as the “healthier” option).
Skolof had good intentions – the growing scientific consensus was that trans-fats in vegetable oils were healthier than saturated fats in beef tallow.
Fast forward to today when that consensus is no longer so consensus-y and in fact, ranges from being questioned to ignored altogether.
It seems that now, the pendulum is mid-swing back towards animal fats, in gravitational pursuit of some sort of equilibrium. Margarine is out, butter is in. Vegetable oil is not something you’ll find in the pantry of most health seekers; they’re using avocado oil or ghee.
But don’t worry; we aren’t going to debate trans-fat versus saturated fat.
No, today we’re looking at a bigger, broader, dare I say, mega-feature of the bigger, broader industry itself: how these pendulum swings within food and ag shape markets, drive and destroy demand, and ripple up and down value chains with whiplash speed and neck-snapping impact.