If you’re worried about eating too much over the holidays, here’s some good news! If you eat more fat you might not gain weight! Well, healthy fats that is!
You’re probably thinking I didn’t mean to say that, right? You may be having heart palpitations just reading this. After all, fats cause heart disease and high cholesterol right?
Healthy fats are good for you!
It’s true – healthy fats really are good for you! Even the medical community is getting on board and admitting that their mantra eat a low-fat diet has proven to be very bad advice. “An interventional cardiology specialist registrar at Croydon University Hospital in London claims a diet high in saturated fats could be 3x more effective at lowering cholesterol. I couldn’t agree more!
I eat a lot of fat – mostly organic butter, coconut oil and olive oil, too. I just got blood work back from the lab and my cholesterol levels were awesome (they actually came down!) and just in case you’re wondering, my triglyceride numbers were good, too.  I wasn’t trying to lower my cholesterol (although I must tell you that I take Vitamin K and it has cholesterol lowering properties.)
According to Dr. Mercola, there are some people who can benefit from a low fat diet – they’re the carb nutritional types. But for the other 2/3’s of the population, low-fat turned into gain fat!
Fat is not our enemy!
Fat has been demonized as early as the 50’s as a result of a very flawed study known as the Seven Countries Study conducted by Ancel Keys. It is an example of cherry picking data that didn’t fit his hypotheses and publishing the data that did! Keys was known as the father of the Lipid hypothesis which said saturated fat raises cholesterol and that cholesterol causes heart disease.
Here’s a great 2-min. video from the documentary Fat Head, that will explain it all.
I remember all too well, hearing the low-fat push when my kids were growing up in the 80’s. I so regret listening to the doctor’s advice. Since they said to eat lots of whole grains instead of fats, I fed my family a boatload of pasta dishes and bought everything low-fat. I didn’t realize that by doing so, I was dumping tons of sugar and other junk into my children’s growing bodies.
Even worse, I denied them life giving fats and nutrients like vitamin A, K, Â and D (from the milk of grass-fed cows) they could have received from eating healthy fats. I can’t even think about the the toxic effects the Smart Balance butter substitute I fed them caused!
So let’s get this straight – eating healthy fats is not the cause of heart disease. In this article from UndergroundHealth.com, a Harvard scientist who spoke on the hazards of pushing low-fat milk on children said, “While saturated fat was villainized for decades, a 2010 analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that: “there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of [coronary heart disease of cardiovascular disease].”
It really burns me that schools are forced to push this low-fat garbage on kids. Here’s more from ButterBeliever.com, on some of the dirty little secrets of skim milk – like skim milk was often fed to pigs to fatten them up before they were slaughtered!
The myth of replacing fats with “whole grains.”
If you haven’t figured it out by now with the recent New York Times Best-Sellers Brain Grain and Wheat Belly, there’s been a huge backlash against the push for whole grains and carbs. In fact, given the horrendous rise in diabetes and heart disease, I’d call it a health crisis and the American Heart Association is still telling people to eat low-fat!
It would take another full article to get into the  gluten/wheat problems in America, but for the record, I’m not saying you should never eat wheat, but you should do your research. What we pass for wheat today isn’t even remotely similar to the wheat of 2,000 years ago. There’s no mistaking how hazardous it can be to your health.
Another problem with replacing fat with carbs is that most of the time when they take fat out, they replace it with sugar!
Why fat is good for you.
To learn more about the health benefits of eating fats, I encourage you to look at the work of Mary Enig, PhD. She’s one of the foremost authorities on fats, has studied them for decades, and has several books on the subject: Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol and Eat Fat, Lose Fat.
8 healthy fat sources you should add to your diet:
- Butter – The Weston A. Price Foundation explains why Butter is Better. “Heart disease was rare in America at the turn of the century. Between 1920 and 1960, the incidence of heart disease rose precipitously to become America’s number one killer. During the same period butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in statistics to conclude that butter is not a cause. Actually butter contains many nutrients that protect us from heart disease. First among these is vitamin A which is needed for the health of the thyroid and adrenal glands, both of which play a role in maintaining the proper functioning of the heart and cardiovascular system. Abnormalities of the heart and larger blood vessels occur in babies born to vitamin A deficient mothers. Butter is America’s best and most easily absorbed source of vitamin A.” Here’s a fast video from Bulletproof Executive on why butter can help you lose weight!
- Lard – yes, you read that right, lard is good for you. Read this article from Whole New Mom to learn more about lard.
- Coconut oil – if you missed our blog and infographic on the amazing benefits of coconut oil, you’d better read it now!
- Extra virgin olive oil – Â a study from the New England Journal of Medicine showed that people who ate more olive oil had reduced heart attack risks by 30%!
- Avocados
- Seeds – oils from pumpkin sesame, chia, and hemp
- Nuts – this includes almonds, macadamia nuts, walnuts and pecans, but avoid peanuts.
- Fatty fish – like sardines, wild salmon, mackerel & herring. But make sure you buy from reputable sources. There’s a lot of  fake fish our there and plenty of polluted/toxic fish.
So there you have it – if you want to be healthy, eat fat! Â Â Â 
BONUS FAT FACTS
Here are a few things you might not know about eating healthy fats…
- Fats provide satiety – in other words they fill you up. If you’re looking to curb those carb cravings – eat healthy fats about 30 minutes before a meal.
- Fats give you energy. It’s not the tryptophan in the turkey dinner that makes you tired, it’s all the carbs!
- Needed for hormone production (Think mood health here people – we have millions of people who have believed the low-fat lie and millions of people on anti-depressants!)
- Helps stabilize your blood sugar levels. If you’re going to eat a  baked potato, load it up with butter!
- Calms inflammation on the brain!
Pretty impressive, don’t you think?!
Did I forget something? What’s your favorite fat? Post a comment below!
Resources and References:
http://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/6-reasons-why-you-should-start-eating-this-food/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/05/the-truth-about-saturated-fat.aspx
http://blog.naturalhealthyconcepts.com/2012/04/17/do-healthy-vegetable-oils-make-you-hungry/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/high-fat-diet-healthy-safe/#axzz2lru0SUhz
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/fat-health_b_4343798.html
http://authoritynutrition.com/modern-nutrition-policy-lies-bad-science/
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/fats-and-oils-and-their-impact-on-health
Primary Prevention of Cardiovasular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet
http://www.rootedblessings.com/how-eating-more-butter-can-help-your-mental-state/
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Certified Nutritionist in Appleton, Wisconsin, Founder of Natural Healthy Concepts. Natural health and nutrition advocate. Enjoys gardening, biking, fitness, boating, animals (especially cats), and cooking.
