What Are Bad the Fats?

Not all fat is bad.  We all know that.  Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat is good and saturated fat is bad.  Right?  That is what we have been told for decades but is that right?Maybe not.  Recent studies, contrary to long accepted hypotheses, seem to indicate that there may be no bad fat except trans fat.  In proper amounts, no naturally occurring fat is bad whether it is on your body or in your plate.  That said, fats do have their negative side.

Let me make this clear first.  This is article is not an endorsement of indiscriminate fat consumption.   Fat is calorie dense having more than twice the calories per gram as protein and carbohydrates.  Any fat eaten in excess will pile the calories onto your plate and the fat onto your body and into your system.  Excess fat on your body and in your system has a well-established link to cardiovascular disease and, as it turns out, that may be the culprit in health issues and not dietary fat per se.


Has Saturated Fat Been Falsely Accused?
Saturated fat has long been considered the bad boy of natural fats.  Certain foods, red meats, pork, poultry with skin on and full-fat dairy products are high in saturated fats.  So we have been told to skin our chicken, minimize pork and red meat and substitute low-fat for everything dairy.  As it turns out, this advice may not have been as well founded as first thought.  The argument for minimizing, if not avoiding, saturated fat has been that saturated fat increases cholesterol thus raising the risk of cardiovascular disease. But does it really do that?


The answer to that question depends in part to the saturated fat in question.  Almost all the saturated fats consumed by humans consists of stearic, palmitic and lauric acid.   But are these really bad fats?  Perhaps not.  Whenever you consume stearic acid (found in animal fat), you liver converts it to oleic acid, the good monounsaturated fat found in olive oil. 


The other two saturated fats that usually are eaten by humans (lauric and palmitic) do in fact raise total cholesterol.  However, it raises both LDL and HDL so that the ratio of LDL to HDL (the marker that really matters) remains the same.  In other words, the outcome is neutral and not negative.



The conclusion to all this drawn by some is that it isn't the fat that is killing us; it is the lack of activity.  To support their conclusion they point to some of the African tribes whose diets consist of more than 50% fat and half that is saturated.  Yet for all that fat, heart disease is virtually unknown among them and they are among those having the lowest cholesterol.  I recall Joseph Weider noting this in an article almost five decades back and coming to the conclusion that the difference was the fact that they have no cars, TVs, convenience stores or pantries full of edibles high in calories and low in nutrients.


The Really Bad Fat
So who is the bad guy in all these fats?  The bad guy is trans fat.  (See Wikipedia for more on trans fat)  Trans fat is neither natural, necessary nor smart.  What is trans fat?  It is a natural fat that has been altered so that it remains solid at room temperature.   That means it is solid in your body which also happens to be within the room temperature range.  We do not yet know the precise biochemical processes that cause trans fats to produce high cholesterol and related health problems.  But the correlation between trans fat and health problems is to well established to ignore.  Just don't eat trans fat.


How do you know if it is trans fat?  If it is on the shelf and it isn't liquid, it is trans fat.  I the label doesn't specifically say "No trans fat"; assume it has trans fat.  It the restaurant doesn't advertise "No trans fat"; assume that they use trans fat.


Enjoy your natural fats in proper proportions, get the exercise you need, avoid trans fat and enjoy good health.