The Skinny on Fats – The Big Fat Lie
Confused about fat? Well, join the club! It’s difficult not to be. For decades fat was vilified. We were told that eating dietary fat would make us fat. I’m guessing you’ve heard that saying, “Fat goes from your lips to your hips!” I like to call that the Big Fat Lie!
We were told fats were the underlying cause of heart disease and strokes. We were also told that the fat in arteries resulting in heart attacks came from dietary fat and cholesterol. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Body fat and dietary fat are not the same.
Fatty food does not become fat in our bodies. “A Harvard study in 2012 found that a very high fat diet compared to a low-fat diet sped up metabolism by 300 calories a day. The medical community came to believe that eating saturated fat and its first cousin cholesterol creates roadblocks in the arteries and death by heart attack. About 40 years later health authorities and nutrition experts are finally confessing that what they told us was false. “
From the Book “What The Heck Should I Eat?” ~Dr. Mark Hyman
In 2015, a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health was published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology. The study followed close to 85,000 women and half as many men. It revealed that refined carbs, not fat, contributed to an increased risk of heart disease. Many subsequent studies have supported those findings. And while we all know there is always research to be done, what we do know is that all fat is not created equal and all fat is not bad fat. And, that a bunch of studies fail to connect the dots between fats and heart disease. Now I’m not suggested you go chomp on a stick of butter or down a whole pork belly. Although. Yum! (Especially Gordon Ramsey’s recipe! Little white wine, bay leaf, cardamom, fennel, garlic. So good!) As always, excess of most things are a bad idea.
Perhaps you are not old enough to remember when low fat became the craze. (Wait! Of course, you are old enough!) Everything was “low fat!” Obviously, this was the result of our being told that fat was killing us. We ditched our butter for margarine (Should have called it “margin” based on profits made while they tried to kill us all!) and other hydrogenated vegetable oils. A/K/A Trans fats! We swapped our lard for canola. So, where exactly does canola oil come from? The Canola plant? Uh, no. There is no such plant. It comes from a plant alright! (Industrially produced. FACTORIES!) Canola oil is so nasty it has to be bleached and deodorized in order to make it edible! The chair of the Harvard nutrition department, Walter Willett estimated that the nationwide shift to trans fats resulted in over 200,000 heart attacks, ANNUALLY in the US. In this case, the stick of butter might have been a better idea! SMH! That, “I can’t believe it’s not butter,” slogan should have been “I can’t believe these idiots are eating this crap!” It wasn’t butter. It was poison.
So, here’s what you need to know about trans fats! Processed foods replaced butter with them. They were cheap to produce and increased the shelf life, which means they made a killing! (While killing us all.) Those trans fats increased those unhealthy small dense LDL particles that actually end up causing blockages in your arteries. They contribute to diabetes, obesity, dementia, and can even increase your risk for cancer. As a result, in 2015, the FDA FINALLY recognized them as unsafe and made the food manufacturers remove them from their products. That said, read the labels. If you see the word, hydrogenated, put it back! They’re still hiding in places! READ!
The bottom line is that what we also missed was that when they took out the fat, they replaced it with sugar! Our consumption of sugar and carbs increased dramatically. And guess what else increased dramatically? Waistlines! Obesity! Diabetes! What a damn coincidence! NOT.
“The nationwide rise in obesity began at exactly the same time we started weaning ourselves off of fat. Childhood obesity rates also tripled during the same period. It’s easy to see how the spike in obesity coincided with the federal government release of the first dietary guidelines for Americans in 1980 which told us to restrict fat and eat carbs and starches.”
AND here is the other issue with ditching fats. Fat happens to be essential for our health! Our body needs fats to survive. Every cell in your body is made from fat. Your cells need fat in order to have healthy membranes.
Your brain’s dry weight is 60% FAT! It needs fat to function properly. I don’t know and I haven’t done that research, but I can’t help thinking has a little something to do with the increase in the rates of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other neurological issues. (That and statins being overprescribed for cholesterol! Safe levels of cholesterol keep dropping, coincidently as big pharma makes a s#*t ton of $ on statin prescriptions. Greed is truly killing us all!) Fat is what makes up the protective coating of your nerves called the myelin. (Hmmmm. You mean the issue related to MS? Also on the rise.)
Our bodies need fat to make hormones, like our sex hormones. You know, like testosterone and estrogen. (Hmmm. I wonder when ED rates increased. Just saying.) Immune cells need fat to regulate inflammation. Chronic inflammation is what leads to a whole host of issues. Eating fats ALONG WITH plant foods is how our bodies absorb fat-soluble nutrients. (Fat-Soluble. Get it?)
Our bodies primarily run on two kinds of fuel for energy. Carbs and fats. Protein if necessary. Fats however, unlike carbs, don’t contain glucose. Therefore, they don’t cause our blood sugar levels to spike which triggers the release of insulin. In a study published in the journal of the AMA, (American Medical Association) researchers compared the effects of high fat/low carb diet to a high carb/low fat diet. Participants on the high fat/low carb diet burned 300 more calories per day. They also saw the most improvement on blood sugar, insulin, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol and other cardiovascular markers. And not sure if you know this, but Alzheimer’s had been referred to as Type 3 Diabetes. Again. Just saying. To quote Arsenio Hall, “Things that make you go hmmmmm.”
Not only can eating the right types of fats protect against weight gain, eating the right fats improves your HDL lowers and your triglycerides, reducing your risk of heart disease and obesity. The opposite of what we were told for years. The Big Fat Lie!
Okay. So, the key info there is “the right types of fats.” So, what are the right types of fat?
Types of Fats – Not all fats are created equal
Saturated fats found primarily in animal foods like dairy and meat, as well as coconut oil were once widely considered to be the reason for heart disease. (The number one killer ESPECIALLY IN PEOPLE OF COLOR! Total black crackage! Also, one of the leading underlying conditions for Covid deaths among my folks!) And again, while more research is needed, study after study has failed to link them to heart disease. And the fact is, that all saturated fats are not created equal. Saturated fat from coconut oil and from butter isn’t the same. Breast milk is straight up saturated fat. (Not that we are running around here drinking breast milk as adults or need to. No judgment! Hopefully our brains have developed! But it does make me again go “hmmmm.” Again, I haven’t done the research, or read any thus far, but could there be a link to children’s issues and baby formula vs. breast milk?” I need to research those statistics. Will have to save this for another day!)
That said, it appears that carbs, not saturated fats, may indeed be the culprit. Your body converts a lot of carbs to fat in your liver. Saturated fat can actually offer some benefits like vitamins and contributing to proper immune function. And finally, just like all fats are not created equal, it is the same with carbs! Choose wisely.
There is lots more to learn. For the purposes of this post, rather than focus on what we should avoid, I will focus on what we need and what we know to be beneficial!
Monounsaturated fatty acids which come from plant and animal foods contain important nutrients as well as antioxidants. They help protect our hearts against disease, and have been shown to help lower blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity, and lower LDL cholesterol.
MSF’s have been shown to reduce small dense LDL particles that attack the walls of your arteries, resulting in arteriosclerosis. (Which is the hardening of the arteries.)
You can find MSFs in foods like olive oil, nuts, nut oils, and avocados. They’re also found in some animal food like butter, lard, beef tallow, chicken, and duck fat. (Which can be used for cooking.)
Unfortunately, when you expose monounsaturated fatty acids to high temperatures, they become oxidized and can turn rancid. At that point, they become harmful to us. Same for polyunsaturated fats.
Omega 3 & 6 Fats
Polyunsaturated fats, some of which are referred to by scientists as PUFA’s (Fatty Acids) are considered essential. Essential means we require them, but our bodies can’t make them! This means we need to include them in our diet.
The two most important PUFA’s are Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids.
Ya need both! While Omega 6 can be inflammatory, Omega 3 is the opposite. But they work together. They balance each other in different ways. Always about balance! Omega 3’s reduce inflammation and promote cardiovascular health. They protect your brain. A huge percentage of Americans are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. That means a huge percentage of Americans have increased risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, dementia, ADD, depression, and the list goes on. Too much Omega 6, and not enough Omega 3, and we see an increase in chronic inflammation. (Which can lead to a bunch of other health issues and diseases.)
The Lyon Heart Study, a randomized controlled trial, found that decreasing the amount of Omega 6 fats consumed and increasing omega 3 intake resulted in a 70% decrease in heart attacks. It also offered prevention against cancer.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.cir.103.13.1823
Some of the best sources of Omega 3’s are fatty fish, eggs, grass fed meats, walnuts and flax seeds, while Omega 6’s are mostly found in nuts, seeds, grains, beans. The problem is 6’s are hiding in processed and packaged food and in highly refined vegetable oils! So, avoid those vegetable oils to keep things in balance! Most of us are consuming way too many 6’s, especially if consuming processed and fried foods.
It’s also important to consume your fats and veggies together. (You know. Like a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on veggies, or a light lemon vinaigrette perhaps.) Nutrients like Vitamin A, D, E and K are fat-soluble. That means our body needs fats to absorb them. Consuming the fat with the veggie stimulates bile production. Bile is needed in order to properly absorb fat-soluble vitamins.
Good Fats
EVOO – a/k/a Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Organic even better!)
While it’s 20% saturated fat, it’s the 80% which is monounsaturated fat a/k/a oleic acid that we should focus on. Studies have shown oleic acid can help reduce inflammation. EVOO is high in antioxidants, (Health promoting and anti-aging compounds!) polyphenols, and anti-inflammatory compounds.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6160559/
EVOO is best used in marinades, dressing, or drizzled on veggies. Keep in mind that you don’t really want to fry with it. (Or fry at all!) It’s not suitable for high heat cooking like frying because high heat changes it and not for the better! When heated to the point of smoking, the fat molecules breakdown and release free radicals and other toxic substances. That smoke point is relatively low, so it’s best used for cooking over lower heat. If you are cooking with high heat, ghee (clarified butter) or coconut oil is best. Even avocado oil has a higher smoke point. It’s also rich in oleic acid.
Another thing to note is that olive oil can also oxidize when exposed to light. Look for oils in dark colored glass bottles and store in a cool, dark spot.
Please read the labels. There are a lot of oils out there marketed as EVOO that has been adulterated with lesser oils!
And finally, another oil to consider is walnut oil. It’s high in antioxidants and Omega 3’s. It’s best used in dressings. The smoke point is even lower than olive oil, but it adds a nice nutty flavor to your dishes!
All fat is not bad fat! It’s just a big FAT lie.
Be sure to check out Dr. Hyman’s book. “What the Heck Should I Eat” You can find it on Amazon. I recommended his podcast, among others in last week’s post!