A critic of Ancel Keys, he liked to tell the story of the time he had dinner with Keys. Keys ordered a steak. Kummerow said “I thought you don’t eat saturated fat?” Keys reportedly said “Oh that’s not for me, that’s for the people.” --Chris Masterjohn
Fred Kummerow outlived Ancel Keys by two years (102).
— Chris Masterjohn (@ChrisMasterjohn) March 18, 2026
A critic of Ancel Keys, he liked to tell the story of the time he had dinner with Keys. Keys ordered a steak. Kummerow said “I thought you don’t eat saturated fat?” Keys reportedly said “Oh that’s not for me, that’s for the… https://t.co/fRRE7FjN23 pic.twitter.com/wmfLTrqIaQ
Fred Kummerow outlived Ancel Keys by two years (102). A critic of Ancel Keys, he liked to tell the story of the time he had dinner with Keys. Keys ordered a steak. Kummerow said “I thought you don’t eat saturated fat?” Keys reportedly said “Oh that’s not for me, that’s for the people.” A lifelong critic of partially hydrogenated oils, he single-handedly got them out of the US food supply in his late 90s by catching FDA on a legal technicality (they failed to respond to his question in six months) and threatened to sue them for it unless they opened the path to rejecting their GRAS status, which happened quickly. I rented a studio apartment in his basement during this time and had lunch with him every Saturday, so I heard the stories about what was happening in the courts on a regular basis. I never estimated his saturated fat intake but he ate eggs and full fat dairy but relatively small amounts of meat, though he still ate meat regularly. One of his quirkiest nutrition habits was to measure the minerals he lost in his urine and adjust his diet and supplements to replace them. Evidently Keys and his enemies are all capable of living long lives.
