I ask this as a question because I'm still trying to find out the answer:

Are fats really that bad? I understand that 'fatty plaques' are bad, but how are fatty plaques made? And how do they adhere to arteries?

Are they like a gelatinous mess that clings to arteries? Or are they the bricks, but with some sort of mortar that glues them to the walls?

I'm starting to think that it's the latter, with excessive refined carbs and sugars, of which are better able to form long complex chains that 'glue' anything it can get it's hands on.

I would think that Vegans generally have a 'clean' diet that refrains from eating these refined carbs, while 'meateaters' generally still eat terrible food. If we remove all these carb/meat eaters, and filter for 'clean' standard diets, I would suspect that the risks associated with meat eating, would fall and be closer to vegans.

And statistically speaking a 50% increase risk from 2% to 3% for heart disease (random numbers) vs 2% to 2.08% really isn't that big of a deal.