Hello Dear One!
Have you wrestled with certain people’s embracement (or encouragement = ME!) of eating such things as butter, eggs, or red meat?!?
Well the truth is it’s understandable to have felt concern due to common knowledge of which some has been skewed in one direction, and the rest has been INCOMPLETE.
Here are some of my findings as I had an opinion starting, and now I have more fully formed understanding.
Is saturated fat bad for you?
NO! And here’s why!
Most studies that have involved saturated fats have also included people consuming TRANS FATS and PROCESSED FOODS (which are undeniably detrimental affecting things like insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes).
Which also brings up sugar.
Fat got such a bad reputation in the 60’s with incomplete research done pertaining to heart disease.
The, “heart healthy diet”, was born that involved eliminating the saturated fat in eggs, red meat, butter, and dairy as it was accepted that it was artery clogging – and instead it was encouraged to follow a low-fat diet and to get most of one’s fat from omega-6s like those found in vegetable oil.
At that time SUGAR LOBBYISTS were at the effort to share misinformation that turned people’s attention away from the research finding that sugar played a role in heart attacks and cancer, and then even deliberately promoted the fact that saturated fat was a cause of heart disease instead.
Eek!
And the truth is there are large scale studies that have been done over 10-20 years that show no correlation between saturated fat and heart disease, and in some even a lower risk of stroke.
Ok, so if the studies have been skewed by involving trans fats along with them, and the Sugar Research Foundation in the 60’s and 70’s shared misinformation and vilified fat to keep their sales high – is saturated fat actually GOOD not just not as BAD??
YES.
And here’s why.
SATURATED FAT:
– helps to lower lipoprotein (marker when RAISED increases risk for heart disease)
– MCT’s (= saturated fat!!) promote fat loss, especially in belly region
(learn about, or get my beloved Brain Octane oil here.)
– needed for calcium to be absorbed into bones
– protects liver from medicines and alcohol
– assists BRAIN FUNCTION as it is made of mostly SATURATED FAT and CHOLESTEROL
– is HEART FOOD as the fat around the heart is highly saturated and gets drawn on in times of stress
– 50% of cell membranes are made up of saturated fat
ALSO…
– cholesterol is the building block of sex hormones
– testosterone drops with a low fat diet (and sugar decreases the hormone significantly)
Plus saturated fat in our diet is DELICIOUS!
And when we cook with it it’s more STABLE meaning it doesn’t oxidize resulting in increasing inflammation in our body (and if we don’t remember that from last week is KIND OF a killer)
So where to get it?
In order to avoid the risk of coupling it with ANYTHING INFLAMMATORY aim for:
– grass fed beef
– grass fed dairy
– pasture raised eggs
– pasture raised pork
– wild caught fish (especially sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon, and herring = SMASH = also fish lowest in mercury)
– coconut oil
– palm oil
And lastly a super easy guide to know whether on not a fat is saturated or not is if it’s solid or liquid at room temperature.
FINAL STATEMENT – like I tell my Fat Burner’s, “Fat is fuel, use it to get full, but not indiscriminately.”
Gram per gram fat has more than double the calories of carbohydrates or protein, which makes it GREAT for ENERGY (especially if you’ve been set up to use it – learn how fat burning works here), but BAD for the waistline if we’re eating LOADS of it.
To understand more about how we use it in a way that makes weight loss feel easy and comfortable, please check out the Fat Burning Mastery program here.
If you have confusion or curiosity about training or receiving coaching, please check out this series of programs here.
And if you’ve yet to check out the Unbound Podcast, please give that a listen here.
(And if you’d like to check out the two articles I used for my research they are here: “Is Saturated Fat Bad for You?”, and, “Is Saturated Fat Good or Bad?”.)