Dear Dr. Boli: I keep hearing about how trans fats are bad for you, which sounds very unenlightened. But I confess that I don’t understand the issue. I can’t even figure out how fats have gender in the first place. What’s going on? —Sincerely, A Manufacturer of Margarine Who Had to Reformulate a While Ago.

Dear Sir or Madam: The “trans” in “trans fats” is short for transubstantiated fats. These are fats in which the healthful energy-producing substance of the food has been removed and replaced with harmful artery-clogging fatty acids, though the greasy accidents of the food remain. The demonic powers have been working on duplicating transubstantiation for the better part of two millennia now, but so far this is the best they have come up with, and government regulation appears to have stymied them on this front.