What do steak, eggs, coconut, dark meat, chicken and turkey with the skin on have in common? They are all high in healthy saturated fat and are safe foods to eat.
Bryan Walsh’s report made the cover of Time magazine, “Eat Butter.” His article describes a 43 year “human experiment” using the consumer as guinea pigs to test lowering dietary fat and reducing heart disease risk starting back in 1977; when a senate committee urged Americans to “eat less high-fat red meat, eggs and dairy; eat more carbohydrates and increase fruit and vegetable consumption”.
What happened?
- Heart disease is still the number one cause of death
- Obesity now effects 33% of the US population
- Type 2 diabetes escalated by 166%
I do not have any statistical analysis but there are many more health conditions caused by excess carbohydrate intake that are on the rise, like metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, certain types of cancer, polycystic ovarian syndrome etc…
Why did this cover-up happen?
- The establishment refused to publish controversial research.
- Unethical researchers cherry picked the data used for analysis
- Puppeteers were good at disseminating the low-fat dogma put forth by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).
The research supporting the safety and efficacy of fat and saturated fat exists. In his article, Walsh interviews researchers who explain:
- “Americans were told to cut back on fat to lose weight and prevent heart disease. There’s an overwhelmingly strong case to be made for the opposite.” –Dr. David Ludwig, Boston Children’s Hospital
- “The argument against fat was completely flawed. We’ve traded one disease for another.” –Dr. Robert Lustig, University of California, San Francisco
- “Willett (Walter Willett, Harvard) found that when high saturated fat foods were replaced with carbohydrates, there was no reduction in heart disease.”
- “Simple carbs like bread and corn may not look like sugar on your plate, but in your body that’s what they’re converted to when digested.”
- “Studies (by Eric Westman, Duke University) found that replacing carbohydrates with fat could help manage and even reverse diabetes.”
Mind you this TIME article is not late breaking news. I have blogged on the “BIG FAT” topic before:
- Seeking Saturated Fat, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/?s=saturated+fat
- Follow The Nutrition Guidelines Or Follow Your Heart, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/follow-the-nutrition-guidelines-or-follow-your-heart/
- When It Comes To Saturated Fat Use Your Noggin’, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/when-it-comes-to-saturated-fat-use-your-noggin/
- Carbohydrates Are Worse Than Saturated Fat, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/carbohydrates-are-worse-than-saturated-fat/
- Andrew Weil: Saturated Fat Is Not Associated With an Increased Risk of Heart Disease, Stroke or Vascular Disease, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/andrew-weilsaturated-fat-is-not-associated-with-an-increased-risk-of-heart-disease-stroke-or-vascular-disease/
- Eat saturated Fat For Good Health, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/eat-saturated-fat-for-good-health/
- Fat Functions To Promote Good Health, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/fat-functions-to-promote-good-health/
- Have We Created Our Own Heath Crisis? High Fat Must Have Foods For Good Health, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/have-we-created-our-own-health-crises-high-fat-must-have-foods-for-good-health/
- The Low Fat Nutrient Less Diet Cannot Nourish The Body, http://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/the-low-fat-nutrient-less-diet-cannot-fully-nourish-the-body/
- Eat Foods With Fat (5): Balance Foods With Fat, https://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2187&action=edit
So now what?
It is hard to break bad habits and we have been brain washed for a while into believing low-fat foods are healthy. But now it is time, no more cover ups, to open our eyes to the truth about food, fat, carbohydrates, what we eat and how it affects health.
If you want to undo the damage caused by 40 years of eating low-fat refined and processed foods avoid carbs. Eat real meat, natural fats and veggies to let the healing process begin.
“Eat real meat, natural fats and veggies to let the healing process begin.”
The focus these days in on restricting carbohydrates to initiate the healing process. In truth, carbohydrates may turn out to be a red herring. Excerpt:
“…the issue of high fat diets needs to be looked at very carefully. Just as all polyunsaturates are not created equal, all high fat diets are not created equal. A good example of this is an animal study we did where we compared three high fat diets. All with 60% of calories from fat, in mice. We compared high fat diets that resembled the linoleic acid, Omega 6 intakes, comparable to the levels at the beginning of the century, which was about 1 percent of calories, and those high fat diets with 8 percent of calories, more similar to the amount of Omega 6 in the diet simply from soy oil in the U-S diet, today. Moving from 1% to 8% linoleic acid in the mouse diets, not only tripled the levels of arachidonic acids, but also tripled the levels of a critical derivative of arachidonic acids, which is an endogenous cannabinoid, which creates a similar affect to marijuana. So it’s the brains own marijuana like molecules, and we were able to triple the body’s marijuana like hormones, three times higher in the liver and about 20% higher in the brains just by altering the linoleic acid in those two high-fat diets. Normally those high fat diets used for mice in studies are composed of high linoleic acid, found in soybean oil. When we deleted that one single molecule, the Omega 6 fatty acid, we were able to obliterate the ability of a 60% high fat diet to induce obesity in the mice.”
http://www.meandmydiabetes.com/2013/03/10/vegetable-oil-associated-with-more-heart-deaths-nih-scientist-joe-hibbeln/
For many years I thought added sugars were the major factor in heart disease. Now I’m not so certain. In the decades prior to the introduction of polyunsaturated seed oils (and the fortification of refined grains) tooth decay was rampant in urban areas, but not heart disease. Historically, heart disease began it’s meteoric rise about a decade after Crisco was introduced. It’s not just one thing or another. Disease arises from a combination of dietary factors and environmental factors. A short list:
Excessive added sugars intake.
Excessive omega-6 linoleic acid intake.
Dilution of vitamin/mineral content of foods of all sorts.
Excessive use of antibiotics and sanitation which alters gut microbiota profiles
Yes, I agree. Thank you for your contribution to my blog. You provide valuable insight.