Fat Part 1
The 1980s and ’90s were the height of the fat-free craze. The logic behind it seemed to make sense: The more fat you eat, the more fat you gain. Unfortunately, this theory was dead wrong, and people like my sweet Mama paid the ultimate price by jumping onto that bandwagon and strictly following it. The supermarket shelves were full of fat- and cholesterol-free options in cakes, cookies, ice cream and a host of other treats. And you could eat it with reckless abandon, guilt-free because it was fat- and cholesterol-free. Remember the old commercial: “No fat! No cholesterol! You can eat cake!!” And boy did Americans respond.
Just one little problem, though. Americans’ health did not improve with this plan. Instead it spiraled out of control and heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and how many other chronic diseases skyrocketed. By giving up fat and cholesterol – with protein as a result also becoming an unfortunate casualty of war – Americans turned to the only thing left: carbohydrates. But it was OK; carbs are not fat and therefore are harmless! This fueled our addiction to carbs, especially sugar. Did you know science has proven that sugar and wheat stimulate the same addictive centers in the brain as heroin? Not to mention grain and sugar in general are far more deadly to the human body than fat and cholesterol. David Perlmutter, M.D., includes in his book, “Grain Brain
I’ve written so many times about the evils of all carbs (except non-starchy vegetables and low-glycemic index fruit), so I won’t bore you with more. Instead, today and in the coming weeks I will delve into fat and all its wonderful glory. It turns out that fat and cholesterol, even the demonized saturated fat, are vital to the healthy function of all cells in the body, especially the brain.
Before I continue with just how healthy fat is, let me first stress that some fats – commercially modified fats (trans fats and refined high polyunsaturated vegetable and seed oils – the fats that humans have messed with) – are proven toxic and contribute to many chronic diseases. The horror of trans fat thankfully is now well known and has been mostly phased out of fast and premade, processed foods. unfortunately, the oils still are absolutely ubiquitous in the Standard American Diet (along with sugar and gluten – is it any wonder we’re all obese, disease ridden and miserable?). Start reading labels and you’ll see just how bad it is.
“Conventional wisdom has for decades been unwisely steering people away from saturated fats in favor of widespread consumption of refined high polyunsaturated vegetable/seed oils like canola and others (corn soybean, cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, peanut, etc…) that are easily oxidized and quickly go rancid (on the shelf and in your body!), particularly when heated during cooking,” Mark Sisson writes in his book “The New Primal Blueprint
.” “Oxidized vegetable oils have a pro-inflammatory effect on your system, leading directly to assorted health problems and a disruption in healthy immune and hormone function.”
.” “Oxidized vegetable oils have a pro-inflammatory effect on your system, leading directly to assorted health problems and a disruption in healthy immune and hormone function.”So these fats definitely should be avoided at all costs. What both amazes and horrifies me is all the supposed health experts for decades have pushed these fats on Americans, saying they were the healthier alternative to animal fat. In reality, humans have been eating animal fat and plenty of it since the dawn of the species, and the human body has evolved over the past two million years to thrive on it. But the so called experts ignored this fact and instead convinced everyone to avoid fat at all costs, and if you must have it, consume these industrialized, disease-causing alternatives.
Healthy fats, on the other hand, such as wild-caught salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring and grass-fed and pasture-raised animal and dairy fat (if you’re not dairy intolerant), along with the oils in avocados and olives; tree nuts (peanuts are NOT one of these); coconuts; and flax, chia and hemp seeds (among many other options) should be embraced and eaten on a regular basis.
“We’ve developed a taste for fat for good reason: It’s our brain’s secret love. … Fat – not carbohydrate – is the preferreed fuel of human metabolism and has been for all human evolution,” Perlmutter writes. “But in the last several decades it’s been demonized as an unhealthy nutritional source, and we’ve regrettably become a fat-phobic, carb-addicted society.”
Perlmutter goes on to list numerous studies that have proven that those who eat a high-carb diet are far more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or some other brain disease than those who consume a high-fat/low-carb diet. He quoted George Bernard Shaw, who said, “No diet will remove all fat from the body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.” The brain may not actually be entirely fat, but it is mostly fat. (Remember what I said about body composition and diet last week?)
“Believe it or not, our brains are composed of 60 percent fat,” an article at greatest.com states. “That being the case, it should come as no surprise that our brains need fat to work correctly. And even though the brain accounts for such a small portion of our bodyweight, it utilizes 20 percent of the body’s metabolic energy.”
But what about heart disease and its link to a high fat/cholesterol diet? Just remember this: What’s good and needed for one part of the body will never be bad for another part. The myth that fat and cholesterol consumption promotes heart disease has been debunked many times over. The human body does not function on a darned if you do, darned if you don’t system in which your choice is either heart disease or Alzheimer’s. Perlmutter quotes Dr. George Mann, who was a researcher with the famous Framingham heart study, an expansive, ongoing and multigenerational study of residents in Framingham, Massachusetts.
“The diet heart hypothesis that suggests that a high intake of fat or cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit, and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprise, food companies, and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century,” Mann says.
Mama was a victim of this scam, and for a long time, I was, too. The belief that a low-fat diet is the best diet has been drummed into my (and everyone else’s) head for my entire life. Although the 1980s and ’90s may have been the height of the fat-free, cholesterol-free craze, it – much to the destruction of our society – still festers at the root of most everyone’s psyche. It seems as though we are brainwashed by the low-fat/cholesterol cult, and it doesn’t help that a lot of doctors still tell their patients to follow a low-fat, high whole-grain diet. I mostly have broken free from the bonds yet still struggle with the idea of eating the fat that rings many cuts of meat. I’ve been slicing it off, practically dissecting the meat to discard every scrap of fat I could find, since I was old enough to wield a knife. I’ve only just recently started embracing it and forcing myself to eat it. It’s amazing how difficult it is to break a habit when it’s part of a long held belief system. But break it we must if we want to create a future that is free of obesity and all the chronic diseases that come with it.
Next time I will share the experiences of my sister, Jo, and me in our attempt to adopt a high-fat ketogenic diet.