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By Darlene Kvist, M.S., C.N.S., L.N.Another news flash just appeared on the morning
news: Sixty-seven percent of adults are now overweight or obese! We often hear reports that diabetes and heart disease are
at epidemic rates in the U.S. You might ask, “How can this be happening because the American public has been on a low
fat diet for the past 50 years?” We were promised that all our health problems would disappear if we followed a low
fat diet. Over and over, dieticians, doctors and food manufacturers have beaten the low fat drum. As a nation we have substantially
reduced our fat intake, but has it worked?Walter
Willet MD, world-renowned researcher and chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, doesn’t
believe it has worked. He clearly states, “Low fat diets don’t work.” He goes on to say, “The idea
that fat in food makes fat in and on our body is incorrect.” Data from Dr .Willet’s extensive Nurses Study found
that there is no good evidence linking dietary fat with excess weight. Instead, he firmly believes fat is one of the most
important factors in a person’s health.What
people don’t understand they fear, and most Americans don’t understand how fat functions in the body. If you removed
all the fat from your body, as people with anorexia try to do, you would die rather quickly. Your cell membranes, nervous
system and brain need fat to avoid collapsing.The
fats you choose are much more important than how much fat you eat. Until now, you have not been taught that some fats are
good and should be included in your diet! Let’s get smart and learn to fear the bad fats and embrace the good fats.
A smart consumer needs to know the best fats to eat and the ones to avoid. A combination of monounsaturated fats (olive oil,
avocado, peanut oil and olives), polyunsaturated fats (nuts and seeds) and saturated fats (butter, coconut oil and palm oil)
is the best. All of these fats and oils should carry the label cold pressed or expeller pressed to ensure that heat or chemical
processing has not damaged these fragile fats and oils. Buying organic fats and oils to eliminate pesticide and hormone residue
is even smarter. For cooking, use peanut oil, coconut oil or palm oil for higher heat and olive oil and butter for sautéing
at low heat.Smart consumers of fats and
oils avoid all foods that are labeled with the ingredients hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated and refined oils such as
soybean, cottonseed, safflower and canola. Never buy nuts and seeds roasted in cottonseed oil. Hydrogenation creates the dangerous
trans-fats which damage cell membranes and lead to a variety of health concerns including high LDL cholesterol, cancer, depression,
heart disease andautoimmune diseases. Smart consumers also avoid trans-fatty acid foods such as: fast foods, cereals, breads,
box meals, frozen pizza, cake, cookies, and margarine.Finally, it is time to get smart about saturated fat. Many consumers still believe the outdated, inaccurate
nutritional information about saturated fat from the 1950s. They fear butter and believe the food manufacturers’ claims
that margarine is safer. Smart consumers consult more current research and understand that the saturated fats in butter and
coconut oil are not the culprits in coronary heart disease. The problem lies with the refined polyunsaturated corn oil
and soybean oil that is used to make margarine and vegetable shortening. In fact, margarine that is made up of partially hydrogenated
oil increases the bad LDL cholesterol and lowers the good HDL, while butter increases the good HDL and lowers the bad LDL!Prominent researchers have periodically examined
the inaccurate 1950’s nutritional data blaming saturated fat for the increase in heart disease only to find no association
between saturated fat intake and coronary heart disease.- 1974: Dr. Walter Willet and Associates found “no association between saturated fat and coronary
heart disease.”
- 1992: Dr. William Castelli,
director of the famous Framingham Heart Study found, “The more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate,
the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol and weight.”
- 1995: Dr. Walter Willet and Associates stated, “Data do not support the strong association
between intake of saturated fat and risk of coronary heart disease.”
To stay healthy, we must rely on more current, well-respected research, not on research funded by
food manufacturing companies. Dr. Marion Nestle, author of the award-winning Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences
Nutrition and Health, acknowledges that the food manufacturers funding the research are major contributors to organizations
such as the American Heart Association and the American Dietetics Association.How much fat should a smart diet include? Researchers have found the exact amount is not as important
as the quality of fats. I believe most people feel the best and get the best health results when they practice eating all
the food groups in moderation, including fats. Researchers have found that getting 30% to 40% of calories from fat is considered
moderate, while low fat is 20% and high fat is 60% of calories from fat. U.S. governmentguidelines recommend that 30% of daily calories come from fat. As a nation, if we practiced moderation,
chose only good fats and avoided all manufactured refined oils and food containing partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated
fat, we would be much healthier.As a nutritionist,
I understand why people are confused about fats or even afraid of them given all the mixed and misleading information in the
past fifty years. We devoted a radio program to this topic, The Oiling of America, with guest author Sally Fallon, which you can hear as a podcast. If you are still puzzled about fats and oils and want to
learn more, I recommend two great books as resources: Know Your Fats by Dr. Mary Enig, and GoodCalories, Bad Calories by Gary
Taubes.
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