Posted on April 07, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Good Fats Vs Bad Fats

Every weekend I hop down from my apartment to my favourite coffee shop to sit and drink my Americano and every weekend is I see the same customers drinking the same “skinny latte, low fat jam eating, reduced fat cracker” individuals. Most people think that limiting fats particular saturated fats is a good solution to fat loss and health. As it turns out this view is quite inaccurate and people are questioning, is saturated fat good or bad for you?

 

WHAT MOST PEOPLE THINK AND SAY

• Eating fats particular saturated fats is going to make us gain weight
• Cutting all fats from our diet will help us lose weight
• As long as its fat free its healthy
• If you do eat fats eat the right fats (good or bad fats)
• Saturated fat is the villain of fats
• Saturated fats raise cholesterol and raise our chances of strokes

WHAT RESEARCH AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE SAYS

The biggest worry with saturated fat, is that it will cause fat to stick to inside of your arteries, leading to strokes, heart disease, atherosclerosis and peripheral artery disease. This would be terrifying if it was true.

Rather than looking at single studies about saturated fat that can often be poorly conducted pieces of research, the science community often publishes meta-analysis reviewing all the relevant research in a particular field. One such meta-analysis was recently conducted on saturated fat by two researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health.

The concluding points were as followed:

• When saturated fats were replaced with carbs, LDL (bad) cholesterol rose and HDL (good) cholesterol decreased.
• The above scenario created the perfect environment in the body for heart disease
• The overall conclusion of the meta-analysis was that no overall effect of saturated fatty acid consumption on heart disease events

Now this doesn’t mean that you can start every morning with a massive serving of bacon, no the study also found that that eating processed meats increased the risk of heart disease by 42%, this is due to a type of fat in processed meats called triglycerides.

There is a massive difference between organic grass fed meats and processed meats that people need to start identifying because they are a world away in terms of macronutrient balance from each other.

Maybe its time to realise that we are demonising the wrong component of our diet

Saturated fat has a very, very, very, different fate when its consumed with a lower processed carbohydrate diet. We only have to look back to the 1920s when everyone consumed whole butter, beef, whole cream, etc and the rates of heart attacks were dramatically lower. Then came along high omega 6 vegetable oils, tonnes of low fat carbohydrate high snacks all packed with hydrogenated oils.

Now, reintroducing saturated fat into your diet isn’t going to make anything better if you’re stuck on the ways of the past and continue with a high processed carbohydrate. Moving to a higher protein, high fat based diet is a great move for both health and body composition.

This article doesn’t mean that you should go saturated fat crazy as with every single food its about moderation, however be very aware that saturated fat has been demonised and a simplistic approach of cholesterol in equals higher cholesterol has been established. This is far from what research shows, instead pay more attention to your carbohydrate intake, particularly sugary foods, these are the real causes of terrible cardiovascular health.