Imagine a world where you got to the front of the coffee shop line
and didn’t feel compelled to say the word “skinny” before the word
“latte.” Or where, facing down the legions of yogurt options at the
grocery store, your hand bypassed the zero per cent Greek yogurt,
landing instead on the full-fat version. The idea that fat is bad for us
has become so all-pervasive that it is now fixed firmly in our minds
that full-fat dairy, bacon or even a hefty serving of avocado are flabby
demons waiting to send chub to our waists and clog our arteries. But a
growing school of thought is suggesting that actually, it isn’t fat that
makes us fat.
The low-fat movement took off in the early 1980s, largely informed by
the “Seven Countries” study begun in 1958 and published in 1980 by
physiologist Dr. Ancel Keys (who popularized the Mediterranean diet and
BMI as an indicator of body fat). It showed a strong link between
dietary fat and heart disease, though Keys has since been accused of
disregarding countries that didn’t fit the hypothesis, plus he only
studied men. Other research followed, and in 1984 the National
Institutes of Health recommended all Americans over the age of two
reduce their dietary consumption of fat from 40 to 30 per cent of their
total calories. Canada followed suit. This ushered in the era of
margarine, skim milk and boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
In the decades since, the Western world has seen a well-documented
rise in chronic illnesses. “We’ve done it. [We reduced our fat
consumption] from 40 per cent to 30 per cent and look what’s happened to
obesity, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,
cardiovascular disease and stroke prevalence,” said childhood obesity
expert Dr. Robert Lustig in a 2009 presentation “Sugar: The Bitter
Truth,” which has nearly three million views on youTube. “They’ve all
jacked way up as our total fat consumption as a per cent has gone down.
It ain’t the fat, people.” So what is it? According to Lustig, professor
of pediatrics in the division of endocrinology at University of
California, San Francisco, it’s the carbohydrates that replaced the fat
in the rejigged North American diet. This line of thinking is niche, but
it isn’t new: in his seminal 2002
New York Times rant “What if
It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” science writer Gary Taubes looked at the
success of high-fat, low-carb diets like Atkins and Zone, and the
“alternative hypothesis” that it’s carbohydrate, not fat, that causes
obesity and shortens our lives.
“Short- and medium-chain saturated fats
are sent directly to the liver and burned for energy. They’re not even
stored in the body as fat.”
By now, most of us are aware that all fat is not created equal. “If
you don’t have any fat, or you have the improper kind, like from
hydrogenated oil, unhealthy cooking oils or a lot of processed food,
that’s what your cell membrane structure becomes built from,” says B.C.
registered dietitian Karlene Karst, author of the new book
The Full-Fat Solution.
“Long term, you can see this in the form of dry skin, brittle hair and
nails, lack of energy, heart health issues, weight issues and
inflammation.”
Monounsaturated fat (such as olive oil) and polyunsaturated fat in
the form of omega-3 fatty acids (found in salmon, mackerel and tuna)
have been praised for their brain- and heart-healthful properties.
Omega-3s have been shown to increase satiety, thereby controlling
appetite, and reduce inflammation, a factor in weight gain and many
diseases. (The Western diet, rich in soy, corn and vegetable oils,
furnishes us with more omega-6 than omega-3. Karst says the typical
ratio is 20:1; it should be closer to 4:1.) And good fat helps the body
use nutrients: one study showed that oily salad dressing boosted
absorption of the carotenoids in the vegetables. “People should include a
small amount of unsaturated fat as part of the healthy eating pattern
that includes mostly lower fat foods,” says Sara O’Dacre, spokesperson
for Health Canada. “Consuming a larger amount of fat is not recommended,
as it tends to increase the total calories in the diet.”
Trans fats made by heating vegetable oils have been widely condemned
for their artery-clogging ways—look for the words “hydrogenated” or
“partially hydrogenated” on labels. More controversially, some are
questioning whether saturated fat—uniformly discouraged by Canada’s Food
Guide and most dietitians—is as harmful as it’s understood to be.
Cardiologist Dr. Beth Abramson, spokesperson for the Heart and Stroke
Foundation of Canada, writes in her new book
Heart Health for Canadians: The Definitive Guide,
“Since saturated fat can raise LDL cholesterol, reducing your intake is
an important step in lowering your risk of heart disease and stroke.”
This is a hot- button topic, since heart disease is the number one
killer of men and women in Canada (incidentally, February is Heart
Month). Saturated fat is a many-headed beast, encompassing “bad”
long-chain saturated fatty acids (found in red meat and hydrogenated
oils), “good” medium-chain ones (in coconut oil and palm oil) and “very
good” short-chain ones (also in coconut oil, and butter). “We know
short- and medium-chain saturated fats are sent directly to the liver
and burned for energy,” says Karst. “They’re not even stored in the body
as fat.” In 2010, analysis of 21 studies encompassing more than 347,000
people concluded there was “no significant evidence” that dietary
saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart
disease or cardiovascular disease. In the new book
The Great Cholesterol Myth,
co-author and cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra writes: “I’ve come to
believe that cholesterol is a minor player in the development of heart
disease.” He says inflammation is a far greater risk factor and that
lowering cholesterol has a limited benefit unless you’re a middle-aged
man with a history of heart disease.
If you decide to add good fats to your diet, you’ll need to take
something else out. “It’s not a free-for-all,” says Karst, who suggests
using a tablespoon of coconut oil to cook with instead of canola oil.
“With the Atkins diet, people were consuming massive amounts of cheddar
cheese and bacon, and that’s not good for you. That’s not what we’re
talking about here. We’re talking whole food: nuts, seeds, full-fat
dairy, fish and green, leafy vegetables.” The other thing to consider
reducing is sugar, in all its forms.
When the supermarket shelves were flooded with reduced-fat products
in the 1980s, food scientists were faced with a challenge: how to make
products palatable without the satisfying creaminess of fat. In many
cases, the answer was sugar, or high-fructose corn syrup, which is
metabolized into fat that the body stores.
The guilt associated with choosing fat-rich foods rather than ones
anointed “low-fat” or “low-calorie” is a big mental hurdle. Fat contains
nine calories per gram whereas carbohydrate and protein have four each.
A breakfast of bacon and eggs is higher in fat and calories than, say, a
honey oat bar sold by a prominent weight-loss brand (though at 20 grams
of sugar, the bar is hardly a healthier option). But the simple math of
“calories in, calories out” doesn’t address the way different nutrients
go to work in your body. “The whole caloric concept is very passé,”
Karst says. Instead, she emphasizes portion awareness and making sure
every meal includes protein, good fat and fibre (as opposed to
carbohydrate, so vegetables and whole grains qualify where white bread
doesn’t). This way, she says, you’ll feel satiated long before you
overeat. “If you’re eating the right foods in the day, real food, the
body knows what to do with those nutrients.”
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