Anyone who reads about the virtues of various foods for health will likely agree that it is easy to get suspicious quickly. Much information about food and diet, whether from medial reports or newest money making fads, contradicts the previous findings and I don’t think it’s cynical to assume the next findings may do the same to our “current” information.
As I frequently try to parse out the actual benefits or impacts of various foods, trying to keep in mind fads and never ever underestimating the power of food industry lobbying, I have come to a conclusion that helps keep these recommendations in perspective: The lesson in health for the 21st century may well be that engineering or processing cannot make food better for us- whole is ultimately best and as more of the impacts of our modern diets are realized the conclusion often comes to that whatever we were doing before- or often whatever many cultures around the world have done and continue to do (until pressured by US information or aid)- was probably right.
Food has an unimaginably complex relationship with our needs and information to the public does not keep up very well with new and often contradictory research and many theories are further entrenched by the profit created by new fangled solutions. A good thing to keep in mind while the food science and health industries sort things out is: if people were eating it 50 years ago, its likely good for you. If they weren’t, its likely not.
The reason I am taking this approach to food is from having just emerged from an exploration of what kinds of oils are best to cook with. I found a very useful explanation in this lengthy report that taught me all about the molecular structure of fats, how they work in your body and when they become unhealthy at high temperatures, breaking down and thus not good for cooking. Lovely, I thought I’ve got it. Load up on the saturated fat. Wait, what? Though I found this work to be extremely informative and I already believe in the greatness of butter (can 65,000,000 French people be wrong?) but I also like to look into my sources.
And did that open a can of scientific/political controversy worms! One of the authors and the sponsoring foundations of this work, Dr. Mary Enig and the Weston A Price Foundation, are rather notorious in the mainstream medical community for their stance on the health of saturated fats and the rejection of the theory that cholesterol per se leads to heart disease or is unhealthy. In many ways the medical findings have begun to be in line with Dr. Enig though they seem loathe to admit it. Over the last thirty years theories about the role of dietary fats have supported everything from the no-fat carb foundation (remember the old food pyramid) to finding value in certain fats above other, even questioning the role of dietary cholesterol in blood cholesterol levels (did people really get egg-white omelettes?). In fact most reports on what is now good for you has to clear the past findings before moving on.
From the Harvard School of Public Health
The discovery half a century ago that high blood cholesterol levels were strongly associated with an increased risk for heart disease triggered numerous warnings to avoid foods that contain cholesterol, especially eggs, liver, shrimp, and lobster. That advice was something of a red herring; for example eating shrimp and lobster doesn’t raise LDL cholesterol. Also, most people make more cholesterol than they absorb from their food. A body of scientific studies shows only a weak relationship between the amount of cholesterol a person consumes and his or her blood cholesterol levels (14) (weak but important for heart disease).
For years, the party line from the American Heart Association, National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, and others was to reduce dietary fat. They generally called for limiting fat intake to under 30 percent of daily calories. One problem with a generic lower fat diet is that it prompts most people to stop eating fats that are good for the heart along with those that are bad for it. In place of fats, many people turn to foods full of easily digested carbohydrates, or to fat-free products that replace healthful fats with sugar and refined carbohydrates. There wasn’t much evidence to support the notion of low-fat diets in the beginning. (18) There is even less now.
It is a common belief that the more fat you eat, the more weight and body fat you gain. This belief has been bolstered by much of the nutrition advice given to people over the past few decades, which has focused on lowering total fat intake while increasing carbohydrate intake. But the notion that food fat equals body fat isn’t completely true, and the advice has been misguided. For example, while Americans have gradually decreased the proportion of calories they get from fat over the past few decades, rates of obesity have increased steeply.
Now they’ve made it to finding that not even all cholesterol is bad, but there are good and bad kinds. Having seen some of the emerging conflicts with this finding- that amazingly our bodies’ functioning doesn’t break down into such moral dichotomies I just have the sense that the reccomendations will eventually look very similar to Enig’s and the Price Foundation’s.
Mostly because they have history on their side. As well as a lack of support from the pharmaceutical industry. No wonder the cholesterol as evil theory has prevailed: Lipitor. The cholesterol medication is the world’s top drug, with $12.7 billion in sales last year. And yet heart disease is still the number one killer in the US, while deaths have decreased the incidence has not. Shouldn’t the prevalence of these drugs and the reduction in saturated fats have shown some impact on the acquisition of heart disease?
But back to my question about the fats I should use. Why isn’t the health of the people who use saturated fats simple proof positive that these fats are not the cause of the health problems Americans face. The medical community will more readily recommend the wine on the French table before the butter, cheese, and whole milk. Is that a good recommendation for teens who are building their foundations of good health?
I was pretty astounded at the controversy of this subject and even ventured into this “talk” section of wikipedia and found all sorts of good scientific/political controversy. I indulged in some supposed “fringe” and controversial articles that I thought were very helpful in understanding the normal functions of these various elements of our body (as they are mostly often explained in the context of being solely pathogenic)
This PDF, the group is apparently politically conservative
This engineer cook gives the whole story on fat (be ready for chemistry lesson)
And, again, from the one that started this all - if you don’t have the patience to read the whole thing, take this. And remember it in five years when we have universal health care and prevention is valued over big pharma and you search “best oils to cook with” and WebMD tells you Butter all the way!
Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease but rather a potent antioxidant weapon against free radicals in the blood, and a repair substance that helps heal arterial damage (although the arterial plaques themselves contain very little cholesterol.) However, like fats, cholesterol may be damaged by exposure to heat and oxygen. This damaged or oxidized cholesterol seems to promote both injury to the arterial cells as well as a pathological buildup of plaque in the arteries.50 Damaged cholesterol is found in powdered eggs, in powdered milk (added to reduced-fat milks to give them body) and in meats and fats that have been heated to high temperatures in frying and other high-temperature processes.When the diet contains an excess of polyunsaturated fatty acids, these replace saturated fatty acids in the cell membrane, so that the cell walls actually become flabby. When this happens, cholesterol from the blood is “driven” into the tissues to give them structural integrity. This is why serum cholesterol levels may go down temporarily when we replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated oils in the diet.46
Trying to figure it out with smarty RN friend
me: what is the evidence that saturated fats are bad for you?
Sent at 4:26 PM on Tuesday
charles: sat fats increase the production of low-density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol) which circulates in the blood stream and eventually contributes to atherosclerosis (fatty plaques in blood vessels that gradually occlude the vessel, which leads to heart attacks and strokes).
that said, I know the same has been said of trans polyunsaturated fats (hydrogenated fats, like margerine)
me: why do they do that? What is the body reacting to by increasing the LDL levels with the introduction of sat fats
charles: LDL is synthesized from absorbed saturated fats; it’s a storage function that was helpful
back in the tuber-and-roots days
when meat was rare
but is no longer useful
and we haven’t adapted yet
me: I am reading that the increase in cholesterol in the blood stream may be due to it healing damage from free radicals from poly-unstaurated fats and that the plaque in arteries varies from person to person
charles: yeah, that’s probably true
the role of dietary fats in vessel disease is becoming more obscure
it’s much more complex, obviously, than ‘you eat fat, you form plaque’
me: I’m going to quote you on that
charles: ok
it’s true, too
me: I am writing a blog post on why butter is so good
charles: ah, yes
it is so good
