For years we have been told that fats are not healthy and to avoid them and to buy fat-free products that “experts” (yes, experts have always exist) said are healthy. But after a while, it was noticed that people, instead of losing weight and being healthier, started to gain weight, and cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other diseases exploded. Well why? That they only ate healthy, as the “experts” had decreted.
Let’s take them one at a time. When they removed the fat from the processed products, they had to replace it with something, and the only alternative was carbohydrates. That means sugar and starch. Plus some flavor enhancers, because a product that naturally has fat, like dairy or meat products, once you get the fat out of it, has no taste. Secondly, fat is satiating, because its main role is to provide energy. Lipids (including fats) release twice as much energy as protein and carbohydrates, in a small volume they provide satiety for a long time. So if you don’t have fat on your plate you don’t feel full, so you eat more. Third, when you do not have fat in your diet you can not assimilate fat-soluble vitamins, ie A, D, E, F, K, resulting in a major deprivation of micronutrients. So after a while the experts did some studies that showed that in fact high carbohydrate consumption leads to obesity and a lot of diseases, while not too much fat.
There are 4 types of fats: saturated (which our body produces, but we also ingest when we eat animal products), monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and trans or hydrogenated. Trans fats should be avoided, as they are unnatural fats, invented to last long on the shelf and give a strong, addictive taste to food. All that crunchy nonsense (biscuits, chips, popcorn, candy), sweets with a warranty period for the next decade, margarine and fast food products have trans fats. In saturated fats, the warning is more nuanced, because, as I said, all animal products contain them. It’s just that in addition to saturated fats, animal products also contain good things for the body: essential amino acids from protein and a lot of vitamins and minerals. For a long time, the “experts” thought that the increase in cholesterol levels (also a type of lipids) was due to the high intake of saturated fats, but it seems that they changed their minds in this regard too, the matter is much more complicated than that, here carbohydrates are also involved, which play a much bigger role in raising “bad” cholesterol and body weight than fats. So dividing fats into “good” and “bad” is not a very happy thing, just as nothing in our existence can be divided into good and bad. So we can safely eat a steak with a little fat on it. Just don’t overdo it, it is recommended that saturated fats do not exceed 10% of the amount of macronutrients, and to be safer, 5-6% is more accurate. And with the specification that the steak should not be fried in oil or burned on the charcoal grill, but made in the oven, boiled, or on the water grill, where no toxic smoke is emitted. Monounsaturated fats gained popularity thanks to the Mediterranean diet, when “experts” found that people in Greece and other neighboring areas lived to old age, although they ate a lot of fat, especially olives and olive oil, seeds, nuts, avocados and other goodies like that. Polyunsaturated fats cannot be synthesized by the body, so must be taken from the diet. So let’s eat fatty fish, flax seeds and sunflower seeds, as well as the oils obtained from them.
One more thing about cholesterol. It is essential for us and it is found in the membrane of every cell in the body, and the myelin sheath, the lining of the cells in the brain, is largely cholesterol. It retains water in these cells to allow their activity, participates in the neutralization of toxins, as well as the metabolism of hormones. So cholesterol as a whole is good, we don’t have to be afraid of it. Only when it exceeds certain values should we take measures, first related to lifestyle, then medication. As I said above, the rise in cholesterol is not related to dietary fats, but sometimes to the activity of the thyroid gland, liver or other organs, sometimes to lifestyle, lack of exercise, obesity, diet high in simple carbohydrates, smoking or consumption of alcohol.
The bottom line is that fats are not boogyman, but carbohydrates, in fact only part of them, simple carbohydrates, which are found in processed cereal products, products that contain a lot of sugars, sweet drinks, milk, very sweet fruits and other foods with high glycemic index. Complex, unrefined carbohydrates with a low glycemic index, from vegetables, legumes, bran, not very sweet fruits, are indicated in a healthy diet, but like anything in life, in moderation and in suitable combinations with other foods.
