Fat is Where it's At (Part 1)

My mother would be the first (but not the last) to point out how ungrammatical the title of this article is.  However, I can't think of another more succinct way to state, plainly, that fat is a very important component in our diets.  I'm talking about the good fats here, the ones our ancestors ate in great quantities before the days of heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

Good fats?  I'm not talking canola here, folks.  I'm talking butter, lard, chicken fat, tallow, suet, coconut oil.  Yes, saturated fats.  Whoa, you say.  Everyone knows that saturated fat causes heart disease, plus if you eat fat, you get fat.

Let's start with the Lipid Hypothesis.  That is what this whole conspiracy is called.  A researcher named Ancel Keys postulated that cholesterol (in saturated fat) causes heart disease, then set out to prove it.   This was back in the 50's.  He looked at all the countries in the world that had data linking saturated fat intake with heart disease.  There were 22 countries.  Six of them showed a positive correlation between intake of saturated fats and heart disease.  16 showed either no correlation or a negative correlation.  That means that a minority of the countries with available data showed there could be a relationship between saturated fats and heart disease.  The MAJORITY of the countries showed that there probably was not a relationship between saturated fats and heart disease.

Ever conscious of making a name for himself, Mr. Keys published a study, citing only the 6 countries that showed the correlation.  This is fraud, actually.  I have always said, "Beware of the scientist with an agenda."  Everyone (including the US government agencies) got on the bandwagon, immense amounts of money were thrown at this conclusion, and the result was decades of vilifying butter but promoting fake fats.  Once the government supports a view, it is very hard to get research dollars to show otherwise.

The first recorded heart attack by Paul Dudley White, the father of cardiology was in 1928.  Before the 1900's, they were unheard of.  No, it wasn't that they weren't able to diagnose them, they didn't exist.  What was happening?  In the early part of the 1900's, margarine and Crisco came on the scene.  The actual use of butter was starting to decline, as people became convinced that "progress" meant it was better for you.  So as people began eating the fake fats and tapered off the real fats, look what happened to heart disease.  It ballooned, along with obesity rates.

Before the 1980's, the highest recorded rate of obesity in any state was 14%.  This was when the low-fat mantra was really getting to be in full swing.  Today, when this belief about saturated fats is in the ether, NO state has only 14% obesity; most states have over 30% of their population qualifying as obese.   Are fake fats the only thing to blame for this?  No, the intake of processed foods, laden with high-fructose corn syrup, the very high carbohydrate diets that many eat--these also have an impact on obesity and disease rates.

There is a plethora of information available today on the fat fraud that has been going on.  I will list resources at the end of this article.  Let me just talk about the important functions that cholesterol provides in our bodies.

• All cell walls require cholesterol.  Without it, the cell walls become "floppy" and don't function properly.
• It has antioxidant properties.
• Without cholesterol, we have no bile salts, which are used for digestion and to absorb fats.
• Cholesterol is required to produce the sex hormones.
• We need cholesterol to form Vitamin D, important for many processes in the body.
• We need cholesterol to ensure the proper functioning of serotonin receptors.  
• Mother's milk is approximately 50% cholesterol, and required for the proper neurological (brain and nervous system) development of young children/babies.  Approximately 25% of our body's cholesterol goes to the brain, where it supports the functions of the brain.

I will finish my thoughts about fats in the next installment of "Fat is Where it's At".  Coming soon!

Resources:

Weston A. Price Foundation   www.westonaprice.org
I wholeheartedly support the Weston A. Price Foundation as the leading voice for sanity about nutrition.  An annual membership is only $40, and this comes with a quarterly journal chockerblock with amazing information about nutrition and traditional foods.  Please join.  You won't be disappointed.

"Good Calories, Bad Calories", Gary Taubes

"Eat Fat, Lose Fat", Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration", Weston A Price

"Ignore the Awkward!", Uffe Ravnskov,

"The Daily Lipid", Chris Masterjohn,  http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/

These are only a few resources.   For the uninitiated, these will provide a great start.  More later.