Experts Told You This Kind of Fat Stinks, 3 Minutes Into This You’ll Be Convinced Otherwise
For access to my article series on Fat and Cholesterol including how eating more fat can help you lose weight – click here.
It really is a shame.
The way fat has been demonized has led to quite a few complications for many Americans.
One of the biggest is it has actually spurred an industry where dangerous processed foods have taken the place of saturated fats. The ubiquitous low-fat and trans fat labels are all a result of the unfounded hatred towards saturated fats.
This has caused more than a handful (and by more than a handful, I mean thousands, if not millions) of people to severely damage their health.
It’s also limited more than one person’s ability to enjoy some extremely tasty foods for fear of eating too much saturated fat.
Which really doesn’t need to happen.
Why Saturated Fat Gets a Bad Rep
One of the biggest, if not the biggest reason saturated fat is looked down on is because many medical professionals believe it causes heart disease.
See, well that’s the thing.
They believe, but “don’t know for sure.”
Let me explain this for a second.
There is some empirical evidence to indicate saturated fat causes poor heart health. BUT…many of the studies that support these hypotheses have been set up so they confirm those theories.
What I mean by that is they tortured research so it would confess to something that really isn’t true.
For instance, one of the biggest reasons people believe saturated fat causes poor heart health is because of Ancel Keys‘ work.
Keys published a study called the “Seven Countries Study.” It was the first major publication that linked saturated fat (from animals) to poor heart health.
Unfortunately, Keys actually hand-picked the data he used to support his hypothesis. There was actually a large amount of auxiliary evidence which would have proven him wrong…had he included it.
However, the study gained a lot of traction in scientific communities and thus began the association with saturated fat and poor heart health.
One of the other reasons for the belief that saturated fat is harmful to health was the supposed connection that saturated fat and cholesterol have with one another.
For a long time it was believed that elevated cholesterol levels were what decreased heart health.
That’s because Rudolph Virchow, a German pathologist living in the 19th century, found thick deposits of plaque in the arteries of many of the patients he examined after their death.
He described the accumulations of arterial plaque in their arteries as “cholesterol”, and thus the connection of cholesterol to heart disease was established.
Keys built on Virchow’s research and we’ve been left with this bad science to shape our beliefs.
Why The Dangerous Trend Hasn’t Died
Without trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, one of the biggest reasons is the top-down propaganda that comes from the government.
The government and its food pyramid would lead you to believe that fat is bad for you.
If you happened to read my earlier article you’ll know that isn’t true.
As you can see, the evidence clearly points to the contrary.
As Dr. Mercola reports:
- A meta-analysis that pooled data from 21 studies and included nearly 348,000 adults found no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.
- Another 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition5 found that a reduction in saturated fat intake must be evaluated in the context of replacement by other macronutrients, such as carbohydrates. When you replace saturated fat with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, you exacerbate insulin resistance and obesity, increase triglycerides and small LDL particles, and reduce beneficial HDL cholesterol.
- Even Nina Teicholz (author of The Big Fat Surprise) writes, “There has never been solid evidence for the idea that these [saturated] fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics, and bias.”
Ultimately, the evidence is being suppressed so companies can continue to make money off of their products.
Now don’t get me wrong.
If all of the sudden there was a well-spring of new information coming out, and people all the sudden figured out saturated food wasn’t bad for them, it wouldn’t hurt these food companies one bit.
That’s because their artificial food has become so entrenched in people’s diets it’s almost impossible for them to get away from them.
Have you ever tried just giving up bread or ice cream all at once?
It’s pretty darn hard.
But the truth remains.
Saturated fat is not bad for you. And in fact, it’s one of the preferred kinds of nutrients you should be ingesting on a daily basis.
What Saturated Fat Does For Your Health
Saturated fat has numerous health benefits.
In fact, without it, there are many functions your body couldn’t carry out.
Saturated fat:
- Build cells, cell membranes, hormones, and hormone-like substances.
- Helps out with the absorption of many minerals essential for health
- Give your brain its best fuel-source
- Helps fight viruses
- Transports vitamin through the blood
- Tells your body you’re full
And much more.
Without saturated fat, you wouldn’t even be able to grow.
Remember that correlation between saturated fat, cholesterol, and poor heart health?
Turns out cholesterol isn’t always a bad thing either.
Cholesterol, too is very important for overall health.
But I’ll be talking about cholesterol and its implications for health in the next email I send you.
If you’re wondering where to get saturated fats, here are some dos and don’ts:
:: DO Get your saturated fat from animal sources.
:: Don’t eat saturated fats that are made of dairy, wheat, soy, or any other processed food.
:: DO Eat more saturated fats than the food pyramid recommends.
:: Don’t eat any low-fat or trans fat food items
If you’re still trying to wrap your head around this, that’s OK. You’ve been given false information for far too long.
I might even suggest watching this video. It should help clear up some of the misconceptions about fat most people have.
In the mean time, eat some bacon, cut the processed foods, and you’ll be doing a lot of good for your body.
For access to my article series on Fat and Cholesterol including how eating more fat can help you lose weight – click here.
Talk soon,
Dr. Wiggy
www.HealthAsItOughtToBe.com