Bacon

Is saturated fat bad?

I, like most people, was spoon fed by society the idea that fat is bad and that eating fat makes one unhealthy.  Many of us are taught to avoid saturated fat like the plague.  Upon some research and some talking with my mother, now seriously question the truth behind the “avoid saturated fat” crowd.

When I learned about global warming in middle school, I knew that I was learning about a theory, which may or may not be true.  I did not know it at the time, but I was being taught about theories and unproven principles in health and foods classes too.  I did not realize how much conflicting data and opposing viewpoints there is in the topic of nutrition. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the confusion, misinformation and the thousands of statistics that we hear about diet and health every day.

Saturated fat has a thick clowd of misinformation surrounding it.  In health class at Andover, I was taught that saturated fat was very unhealthy.  We were taught that it causes heart disease, along with other health problems.  The media has created an image of healthy and unhealthy foods, much of which is in heavy disagreement among researchers and doctors.  The media is an unreliable way to find nutrition information. Hundreds of studies that show data different than what is publically expected are ignored, while some that coincide with the established belief are the ones that get reported.  In 2010, a new analysis failed to link saturated fat with heart disease.  The “research” that “indicated” saturated fat was unhealthy in the first place is being debated and is being disproven.  Also, more recently heart disease is increasingly being linked to family, not types of food eaten.  Many people think that fat its self is unhealthy.  According to numerous studies, that is not the case.  Eating too much of anything is unhealthy, but saying that fat is unhealthy is like saying that water is unhealthy.  Too much fat will definitely cause problems.  That is absolutely no reason to fear fat.  Too much lettuce will cause problems too.

It is not clear where the saturated fat hate originated.   According to an article from Paleo Diet Lifestyle website, one of the first studies involved rabbits being fed saturated fat and unsaturated fat.  This was flawed because rabbits consume no saturated fat in their natural diet.  Humans, on the other hand were made to eat meat, which is high in saturated fat.  The article goes on to disprove other popular studies on the subject.

I would not advise one to eat more saturated fat than they would normally eat, but I would not advise against eating saturated fat at all.  I, like a lot of people enjoy bacon and butter and all sorts of foods that are constantly attacked by so called “experts”.    A simple Google search will prove that there are thousands of valid conflicting viewpoints on health and diet information.  However, saturated fat is not the same as Trans fat which is manmade and much more conclusively causes health problems.

Drawing from much of what I read, I was horribly misinformed in foods and health class at school.   I would advise one to take diet “news” with a grain of salt.

Hear is Darryl Worley’s “Keep the Change”.

This is Hank Williams Jr’s lame keep the change.

Life was just a 9 to 5, with a PHD, and a Degree

Till he started bombing mail from time to time

Killin’ people left and right

He moved to a shack to live out his sweet life

Till the FBI asked done tracked him down

They locked him up and never let him out