If you think that a low-fat or no-fat diet keeps you skinny and healthy, consider it may actually help put on the weight.
When people recount their diets, they commonly claim, “I try to eat low fat.” This is seen as a virtue but is based on poor research. Fat has a bad reputation. Sadly, it is the villain of the fat/carbohydrate/protein triad.
When you take all the fats out of your diet, you eat more carbohydrates to replace them. Increased carbohydrates raise your blood sugar and insulin levels without making you feel full like fat does. Fat stimulates the feel-full hormone, CCK. Increased carbohydrate intake, especially fructose, has been linked to the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Excess cholesterol may also be produced by eating a high-carbohydrate diet.
Saturated fat has been implicated in causing heart disease, so decreasing it is supposed to decrease the risk of heart disease. This is only partially true. Decreasing saturated fats from hydrogenated vegetable oils (such as shortening) decreases the risk of heart disease. Decreasing saturated fats altogether may not decrease the risk like once thought.
Many vegetables have fat-soluble nutrients in them, which means they are absorbed better when eaten with a fat. Focus on keeping a high level of Omega-3 fatty acids (important for decreasing inflammation) as compared to Omega-6 fatty acids (which can contribute to causing inflammation). Long-term inflammation has been linked to multiple diseases, including cancer, arthritis, heart disease, and chronic pain. Focus on healthy fats and only eat organic or pastured meats, which are high in Omega-3.
It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health problems.
– Dr. Hu, Journal of the American College of Nutrition
Fresh Ideas to Extend Your Expiration Date
Buy full-fat products. Lite, no-fat, and low-fat products have added sugar and chemicals to make them taste good and give them a more compelling texture. Eat foods with real fat, not processed fake fat. There is processed fat in cookies, chips, salad dressings, and margarine.
Check out the appendix for tables with healthy fat guidelines.
Not all fats are good, mind you. Fats that aren’t good include trans fats commonly found in margarines, chips, and processed foods. Trans fats are still around. Even when labeled “no trans fats,” it is not always true. It just means there is less than .5 percent per serving. Trans fats are proven to lead to heart disease and inflammation. It’s confusing because most health experts focus on low fat. You have to completely flip your mind-set. Eat your egg yolks. Don’t be scared of the fat in organic meat. Embrace it and learn to eat it.
Learn More
Real Food: What to Eat and Why, by Nina Planck, is an easily readable book about the benefits of real foods and real fats. She presents relatable, straightforward, and easily implementable ideas garnished with research and common sense. Gary Taubes is the author of two books, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do about It and Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fat, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health. These books contain research supporting the hypothesis that consuming fat does not contribute to weight gain. His website, garytaubes.com, is a wealth of information with links to the various articles he has written on this subject.