Fred August Kummerow was born October 4, 1914 in Berlin, Germany while his father was away in the German Army fighting the Russians on the Eastern front. His parents were Helene Rieck and August Kummerow.

Fred died on May 31. His wife, Amy, of 70 years died in July 2012. His children are Max (Ellen Jacobsen-Isserman) in Urbana, IL; Jean (Frank Mabley) in Minneapolis, MN; and Kay (Ron Mengarelli) in Gilberts, IL. His three grandchildren are Elizabeth Loban in Sydney, Australia; Robert Loban in New York City; and Patrick Watson in Ossining, NY. His great-grandson is Asher Watson. His brother, Werner, from Madison, WI is deceased. He is survived by numerous nieces and nephews.

Perhaps Fred unconsciously developed a lifetime interest in nutrition and the biochemistry of the body because of the hunger he suffered during World War I. On weekends, his Mother put his brother and him in bed and read to them to conserve their strength because they had virtually no food. This and the continued fighting between political factions in the streets of Berlin stimulated his mother to answer a letter from German relatives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who provided the passage money and a place of employment for his father at their Krieger Concrete Company.

He was eight years old at the time his family emigrated to the USA. Two days before his death, Fred told the story of his family being held over the Memorial Day weekend on Ellis Island in the New York harbor in 1923 upon their arrival. He started school in Milwaukee as a first grader not knowing one word of English. He was rapidly promoted so by the time he was an eighth grader, he graduated with the rest of his class and even won a US History contest. He went to Boys Technical High School in Milwaukee because it had a three-year chemistry curriculum. After graduation in 1933, he was employed at Yahr Lange Drug & Cosmetic Company working 48-hours/week and taking night classes four nights/week at the Milwaukee branch of the University of Wisconsin. That was enough to make him a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when he began there in September 1936. He graduated with a BS degree in Chemistry in 1939. He started his graduate work with Professor Harry Steenbok, the discoverer of Vitamin D. Fred was awarded an MS degree in 1941 and a Ph.D. degree in 1943, both in biochemistry.

He married red-haired Amy Louise Hildebrand of Fowler, Kansas on June 24, 1942. In the Fall of 1943, they left Madison for a National Research Council job at Clemson University in South Carolina. The job aimed to eradicate pellagra, a disease caused by the lack of niacin in the diet, which was still killing 2000 people in 1941. By 1945, only 12 people died of pellagra because of the success of this project. He then took a position as assistant professor in chemistry at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. There among other projects, he worked on making frozen turkeys more edible by changing their diets. In 1950, the family, now with children Max and Jean and soon-to-be born Kay, moved to Urbana, Illinois for a position of assistant professor of food chemistry in the newly organized department of Food Technology (later renamed Food Science). He retired in 1985 and continued to serve as professor emeritus and adjunct professor in the Department of Comparative Biosciences actively involved in research until just a few days before his death. He served as Ph.D. thesis advisor for over 60 graduate students. Over 50 post-doctoral fellows also performed research at the Burnsides Research Laboratory, a facility which Kummerow built and headed on the U of I campus. He was an author or co-author of approximately 450 peer-reviewed papers. The Burnsides Lab was an international enterprise with students and professors from at least fourteen different countries working there over the years. Many of these international scholars went on to highly successful careers in the U.S.A. or back in their home countries. Up until his retirement, he was awarded over $16 million in research grants and had several million dollars of grants since his retirement to support his research. He authored a book of nutritional advice complete with scientific explanations with his daughter, Jean, entitled, "Cholesterol is Not the Culprit."

Much of his research for over seven decades explored relationships of lipids (fats and oils) to nutrition and heart disease. He published a paper on the negative heart health effects of trans fats in 1957 and had been concerned about their effects ever since. He was on the American Heart Association Diet Committee in 1968 when they revised their diet recommendations. He disagreed then with their recommendations to restrict cholesterol and continued to disagree with some of their current recommendations. He had to find alternate sources of funding for his research when his views went against the mainstream thought that cholesterol causes heart disease. Luckily, he found several benefactors. His family always ate butter, not margarine, and always had eggs as part of their diet. In 2009 (at age 95), he filed a Citizens Petition with the Food and Drug Administration to ban trans fat entirely. When there was no action on that petition after a docket number had been assigned, a lawsuit on his behalf was filed in 2014. He was delighted and vindicated when the FDA finally agreed that trans fats were dangerous and announced their ban in 2015. He had long believed in the nutritional value of eggs, butter, and red meat and normally beneficial role of cholesterol, a component of cell membranes and hormones that the body manufactures itself. Slowly the nutritional and political communities have come towards his point of view. He received worldwide publicity for his work on trans fats including articles in the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post along with features by Al Jazeera, a Korean Television Network, and the University of Illinois. He said when receiving news of the trans fat ban, "Science has come out on top." Never one to slow down, he then began research on the effects of diet on Alzheimer's Disease. His papers are archived at the University of Illinois.

He supported his wife Amy's political and community activities including Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party. He agreed with her liberal politics and was proud when she was one of the first women elected to the Champaign County Board where she served for 20 years.

Fred and Amy loved to travel. Fred visited laboratories in Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, India, Israel, China, Australia and Cuba and presented research results at conferences the world over; Amy learned about different cultures and made friends. They loved going to the opera, especially LaBoheme with its themes of poverty and love reminiscent of their own early lives in Berlin and the Kansas Dust Bowl respectively.

Fred received several awards for his research including a "Scientist of Integrity" award from the Weston Price Foundation. His intelligence and insight remained quite strong even after he reached the age of 102. He followed politics avidly, writing numerous letters to public officials, and advocating for peace and green energy. He felt that spreading scientific knowledge throughout the world and feeding people enough of the right foods would go a long way towards promoting better health and longer lives.

The family would like to thank Diversified Health Care Services, especially Gloria Valenti and Lou Ann Carper, for their excellent care of Fred and Amy the last few years of their lives. They enabled him to continue his life's work.

Professor Kummerow's Memorial Service will be held Friday Sept. 1st at 12:30 p.m. at the U. of IL. Biosciences Bldg., Urbana, IL. Due to Professor Kummerow's hardships in securing his education, his wishes were to assist other economically disadvantaged students. Memorials preferred to the Dr. Fred A. Kummerow Fund, check payable to the U. of IL. Foundation, College of Veterinary Medicine, Office of Veterinary Advancement 2001 S. Lincoln Ave. Rm. 3505 VMBSB, Urbana, IL 61801.