So if trans fats are found in meat and dairy and the only safe intake of trans fats is zero, that means the Institute of Medicine went on to encourage everyone to start eating a plant-based diet, right? No, they did not. The director of Harvard’s Cardiovascular Epidemiology Program famously explained why: “We can’t tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products,” he said. “Well, we could tell people to become vegetarians,” he added. “If we were truly basing this only on science, we would, but it is a bit extreme.”24
