The Fat Truth

First, you have probably been misled into believing that eating fats are what makes you fat. Wrong. Fat is not the enemy of health that the food industry has conjured up over the past several decades. You will actually put on more fat and be unhealthier by eating non-fat foods --while loading up on excess carbohydrates -- than you will on eating those that contain fats. The obvious truth is that American’s have been consuming low fat and non-fat foods for decades but have been gaining weight at the same time. So the shelves loaded with these engineered foods do not help in the battle of the bulge. Fat is a macronutrient that we need like protein and carbohydrates. What we have been failing to understand is that not all fats are the same. There is good fat and bad fat. A big part of the national weight-gain, biggest loser problem is 1) eating too many carbohydrates and 2) eating the wrong kind of fat. When we consume excess carbohydrates, the body stores them as fat, which it uses as a reserve energy source. Should you get stranded on a desert island, lacking fresh carbohydrates to burn, your body will turn to its fat reserves and burn them. There are basically two sources of dietary fats, which produce two different types of fat, animals and plants; the fat derived from former is called saturated fat and from the latter unsaturated. The main problem with saturated fat is that it contains high levels of cholesterol. However, the secondary problem is that saturated fat has twice the number of calories as carbohydrates and protein. That means that unless you are very physically active every day, your body is going to store both the excess carbohydrates and excess fats into fatty deposits in your body. The popular Atkins diet, which has been around for several decades now works because the dieter radically reduces carbohydrate intake. That forces the body to burn its fat reserves. It also illustrates the point being made here. Since Atkin’s dieters lose weight by cutting carbs and yet still consuming protein and fat, the latter is not the main cause of obesity. Vegetables contain polyunsaturated fats which are cholesterol free. In fact, the accumulated evidence shows that eating foods rich in polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) actually improves blood cholesterol levels, which can decrease your risk of heart disease. So, while animal-based foods raise cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease; plant-based foods can lower cholesterol and decrease that risk. This is one reason why the cultures of Asia have far less heart disease than we do. It is also why every study conducted on comparisons between the disease rates of vegetarians and meat-eaters has shown the former are generally healthier. (Seventh-Day Adventist study) Trans-fat is another saturated fat that occurs naturally in some foods, especially those made from animal sources. However, most trans-fats are made during food processing through partial hydrogenation of unsaturated fats. This process creates fats that are easier to cook, and less likely to spoil than do naturally occurring oils. They are also called industrial or synthetic trans-fats. Research studies show that synthetic, trans-fat can increase unhealthy LDL cholesterol and lower healthy high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. This can drastically increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. Unsaturated fat comes in two types, mono- and polyunsaturated. Foods with high concentrations of the former include olive, peanut, and canola oils; avocados, almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans; as well as pumpkin and sesame seeds; foods rich in the latter include sunflower, canola, corn, soybean, and flaxseed oils; and also walnuts, flax seeds, and fish, omega oils. The truth about fat is that the human body needs dietary fat, since it uses fatty acids for energy; and because some vitamins must have fat to dissolve in. The issue is to make a distinction between the good and bad fats, healthy and unhealhthy, and eat foods rich in the unsaturated types every day. Fat is not a bad word and trying to lose weight by eating low fat and non-fat foods is not the answer to the problem that the food industry would have you believe. If you know which fats to consume and which to avoid or cut down on, you won’t have a problem. Studies have shown that the Mediterranean diet produces far lower rates of heart disease than the typical American diet. The traditional Greek diet, for example, gets up to 30 percent of its calories from monounsaturated fats, mostly from olive oil. For polyunsaturated fats, the American Heart Association has set 8 to 10 percent of calories as a prudent target; there is evidence, though, that eating more polyunsaturated fat—on the order of 15 percent of daily calories—in place of saturated fat can lower heart disease riskrn