LDL HDL Ratio

Posts Tagged ‘Saturated Fat’

I’ve written many times in the last couple years about the mistaken beliefs in society about saturated fat and the false perception in the media AND with MOST health professionals that saturated fat is bad for you.

If you’ve seen in some of my articles, I’ve even showed you why saturated fat can even be GOOD for you in some cases, despite every health/fitness professional in the world just accepting the false belief that it’s bad for you.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to FINALLY see a big name publisher have some guts to publish an article about why everyone in the world may be wrong about their beliefs about saturated fat.

I received my new issue of Men’s Health magazine over the weekend, and they have a huge 6-page article in there about the faulty research in the past about saturated fat, and some new emerging research that is showing why it may actually be more good for you than you would believe.

I’ve got to give them credit… the article was VERY well researched and put together beautifully to summarize where the studies in the past have gone wrong, and why recent studies are showing that everyone may have been wrong for the last 5 decades about saturated fat.

I’d highly suggest you read the entire article if you can. If not, I’m going to try to give you a quick summary of the findings here since it was a long article…

First of all, did you realize that although doctors, nutritionists, fitness professionals, and the media all have told you that it’s a FACT that saturated fats are bad for you, this “FACT” has actually never been proven!

It’s actually not a “fact” at all. It was a hypothesis! This goes all the way back to a flawed research study from the 1950’s where a guy named Ancel Keys published a paper that laid the blame on dietary fat intake for the increasing heart disease phenomenon.

However, there were major flaws to his study. For one, in his conclusions he only used data from a small portion of the countries where data was available on fat consumption vs heart disease death rate. When researches have gone back in and looked at the data from all of the countries, there actually was no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. So his conclusions were actually false.

Second, his blaming of fat intake for heart disease was only one factor that was considered. There was no consideration of other factors such as smoking rates, stress factors, sugar intake, exercise frequency, or other lifestyle factors.

Basically, his conclusions which blamed heart disease deaths on fat intake were really just a shot in the dark about what a possible cause may have been, even though all of those other factors I just mentioned, plus many others, may be the bigger cause.

Unfortunately, Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades now as “fact” that saturated fat is bad for you. As you can see, there certainly is nothing factual about it.

Since that time, numerous other studies have been conducted trying to link saturated fat intake to heart disease. The majority of these studies have failed to correlate ANY risk at all from saturated fat. A couple of them made feeble attempts at linking saturated fat to heart disease, however, it was later shown that in those studies, the data was flawed as well.

Do we actually have evidence that saturated fat may actually be good for you instead?

Well, let’s consider a few examples…

Did you know that there are several well known tribes in Africa… the Masai, Samburu, and Fulani tribes… where their diet consists mostly of raw whole milk, tons of red meat, and cows blood? Despite their very high saturated fat intake, they display extremely low body fat levels, and heart disease to natives of the tribe is virtually non-existant.

Now most critics of this example will say that it must be related to superior genetics… however this is false, as when they studied tribesman who had moved out of their native lands and started eating more modern day diets, their blood chemistry skyrocketed with heart disease risk factors.

This is true of certain pacific island countries inhabitants as well. Several studies have shown that certain pacific island nations had VERY high intakes of total fat as well as saturated fat from tropical fats such as palm, coconut, and cocoa. Despite super-high intakes of saturated fat, these island natives were typically very lean and heart disease was virtually non-existant.

However, when researchers followed up with islanders that had moved away from their native island and adopted a typical western diet, the heart disease factors were through the roof.

In fact, did you know that although saturated fat intake does increase your LDL bad cholesterol, it actually increases your HDL good cholesterol even further, hence improving your overall cholesterol ratio, which has been proven to be more important that just total cholesterol level (actually total cholesterol is an almost useless number… inflammation is the REAL problem, but that’s a whole different topic).

Another fact worth noting in favor of saturated fat…

Saturated fat is comprised of various different types… the 3 most common types are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid.

Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa in higher levels. Research continues to show that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. If anything, it’s either neutral or beneficial. In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most of heart-healthy olive oil. Bet you didn’t know that!

Lauric acid is beneficial as well. Not only has it been shown to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels significantly, but it is also lacking in most Americans diet and has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects potentially. It is even being studied currently in HIV/AIDS research to help improve immune function in patients.

Tropical oils such as coconut and palm are the best sources of lauric acid.

Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown to increase HDL good cholesterol to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.

So, if all of these researchers have tried so hard over the years to point the finger at saturated fat, but have continued to fail to show a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease risk, what are the REAL culprits for heart disease?

Well, here are the REAL causes of heart disease risk:

*Trans fats (artificially hydrogenated oils)

*Heavily refined vegetable oils such as soy, cottonseed, corn oil, etc. (inflammatory inside the body, and typically throw the omega-6/omega-3 balance out of whack)

*Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)

*Too much refined starches such as white bread, low fiber cereals, etc

*Smoking

*Stressful lifestyle

*Lack of exercise

*Other lifestyle factors

So why does it seem that so many attempts over the years have tried to lay the blame on saturated fat… do you think it might have anything to do with the muli-billion dollar vegetable oil industry, which has taken over for cooking oils for what used to be mostly animal fats and tropical oils in decades past…

Hmm… do multi-billion dollar industries really have an influence on the way data is portrayed to the public? I think you know the answer to that! And don’t even get me started on the cholesterol meds industry! Again, I digress.

I hope this article has opened your eyes about the truth about saturated fat and how you’ve been misled over the years.

The true FACT is that saturated fat is a neutral substance in your body, and even beneficial at times, not a deadly risk factor for disease. The REAL risk factors are what I listed above.

Keep in mind that this does NOT mean that eating 5 pounds of bacon for breakfast every morning is good for you, and you should only eat foods high in saturated fats. Rather, you still need a to strike a balance for optimal health… this means fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, healthy meats, eggs, and small amounts of whole or sprouted grains.

Again, animals raised in an unhealthy manner are not good for you… this is the case with most commercially raised meat and grain fed meat. On the other hand, wild game meats, grass fed meats, free range chickens and eggs (preferably organic) are healthy animals, and therefore the meat is generally healthy for us with better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios than standard meats.

For the past two decades you have been brainwashed into believing a horrible lie that is keeping you from losing weight and burning fat.
Here is the lie…Guru’s, physicians, personal trainers, and even your best friend have told you that eating saturated fat is “bad” for your health. THIS IS A LIE!
Albeit, this lie was only partly spread with bad intentions. You see, the food industries wanted to develop a sales pitch for selling margarine, so they had to come up with a marketing strategy.
In a downright deceptive effort, the first pioneers of margarine set out to make saturated fat the enemy of every health freak. Thousands of articles claiming to be backed by physicians were released and the mainstream media followed the buzz by constantly republishing VERY BAD INFORMATION.
And so, the masses began to take hold of this idea and make it their motto. They truly believed that avoiding saturated fat would be their ticket to health nirvana.
However, their was one problem with this. While margarine sales were booming for companies, the rate of cardiovascular disease in the US began to increase steadily. Until in the 1990s, it started becoming the #1 source of death.
Presently, the top cause of death in the United States is heart disease and it accounts for almost 30% of all deaths depending on who you ask and where you get your statistics from.
All of this because of a “healthy lie” that people deemed as being the truth. Here is the real truth about saturated fat that is equally important to your weight loss as well as your health. In fact, you can’t lose weight unless you practice what I am about to discuss.
First of all, did you realize that although doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, fitness professionals, and the media all have told you that it’s a FACT that saturated fats are bad for you, this “FACT” has NEVER BEEN PROVEN!
In reality, this “fact” is nothing more than an extremely flawed hypothesis, which goes all the way back to a research study from the 1950’s. In this study, a scientist named Ancel Keys published a paper that laid the blame on dietary fat intake for the increasing heart disease issue around the world.
However, one of the major flaws of the study was that it used inconclusive data from an extremely small population of people taken from several countries. Really, the population was so small it would never be considered legit by today’s “research standards”.
Following his research years later scientists found there was in fact, no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. Therefore, while his hypothesis seemed to have powerful supporting data when it was first introduced, it was really empty.
Second, his blaming of fat intake for heart disease was completely isolated from other possible lifestyle related habits that were capable of causing heart disease. There was no data or consideration of other factors that may play a role in heart disease such as smoking, stress factors, sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, and fitness levels.
Really, his conclusion ignored a holistic view of the disease and completely focused on the issue of saturated fat. It was almost like the study was bias from the onset.
Unfortunately, Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades now in various research journals, books, magazines, and other supposedly factual literature. It’s even taught in grade school and most physicians will even follow this advice and tell their patients!
Since that time, virtually every study that has been published on the topic has failed to find even a limited correlation between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease.
In fact, the most recent and reliable research suggests that saturated fat is important for both cardiovascular health and weight loss! This is the exact opposite of what the majority of health gurus promote!
For instance, there are several well known tribes in Africa (Masai, Fulani, and Samburu), where their diet consists mostly of raw whole milk, large quantities of red meat, and cow/goat blood. Their saturated fat intake is THROUGH THE ROOF and yet the occurrence of heart disease is non-existent to members of the tribe.
In fact, according to Dr. Weston A. Price - a dentist who studied tribal dietary habits - all tribesman he studied had zero incidence of cardiovascular disease if they held fast to their ancient eating habits. It was only when these same tribesman turned to modern food supply that they began to develop the common diseases we are faced with today.
In Price’s study, he correlated his results by studying how food caused tooth decay in ancient and modern times. What he found was simply amazing. Tribal members that stuck to their ancient diets were completely free of cavities! They didn’t even brush their teeth!
If that example of healthy eating helps you realize how powerful an effect your diet has on your health, then congratulations. You are now getting closer and closer to realizing and achieving your weight loss and health goals.
Consider this, although saturated fat intake does increase your LDL bad cholesterol, it actually increases your HDL good cholesterol morso. The result is an overall improving of your cholesterol ratios. THIS has been proven to be more important that just total cholesterol level.
It’s important to understand that not all saturated fat is considered to be equal. There are various chemical structures that all fall under the category of “saturated fat” and each of them acts a bit differently when inside of the body.
The 3 most prevalent types of saturated fat are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid. Each naturally occurring food contains varying ratios of each type of fat and this important because it means that certain foods contain better fat profiles than others.
Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa in higher ratios than other foods. Resent research shows that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. Most studies have found that it’s either neutral or beneficial.
In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most of heart-healthy olive oil. This proves that it is very usable by the body for energy production.
Lauric acid is another beneficial saturated fat. Not only has lauric acid been shown to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels significantly, but it is also the hardest fat to attain in the Standard American Diet (SAD).
Lauric acid has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects. It is currently being studied for it’s implementation in treating HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other immune related research to help improve immune function in patients.
Tropical oils such as coconut and palm are the best sources of beneficial lauric acid. If you buy coconut oil be sure to obtain extra virgin coconut oil. It should have the aroma of coconuts and a fairly tropical taste to it.
Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown in studies to increase HDL good cholesterol to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.
It makes you wonder, if all the researchers have tried so fiercely to bash saturated fat , but have continued to fail to show a correlation between saturated fat and cardivascular disease, what are the REAL causes for heart disease?
Well, here are the real causes of heart disease:
* Trans fats (artificially or partially hydrogenated oils)
* Heavily refined vegetable oils such as soy, cottonseed, corn oil, etc. (inflammatory inside the body, and typically throw the omega-6/omega-3 balance out of whack)
* Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)
* Too much refined starches such as white bread, low fiber cereals, etc
* Smoking
* Stressful lifestyle
* Lack of exercise
* Other lifestyle factors
Really, the attempts of the big food companies to spread the lies and make you think vegetable oil are the best thing on earth have been quite successful. However, you can make the decision for yourself to start including better fats into your diet to replenish and nurture your body. These same “healthy” saturated fats will help you to lose weight also because they possess a very high ability to keep you from craving.
Do not let the pull of the multi-billion dollar food industries distort the truth for you and your family. You can make the difference in both your weight loss and your health by changing your diet to include more healthy saturated fats.
Long after this article is written the media and big food companies will still be trying fiercely to make saturated fat look like it is the cause to heart disease. More and more pharmaceuticals will be developed to “combat” heart disease, yet the incidence of this disease will continue to rise. It will continue to rise until our healthcare system can no longer support ANY type of heart disease related expenditure.
To make sure you get the proper amount of healthy saturated fats in your diet you should include a healthy amount of organic eggs, red meat, cold water seafood, avocados, nuts (walnuts, almonds, pecans), and organic oils such as olive and coconut oils.
Also, your food sources should be as healthy as possible. This means making sure that your fish is NOT farmed, but wild Alaskan or cold water caught. It also means that your meat sources are “grass fed” or “open/free range”. These animals should NOT be fed grains in their diet because it will distort the type of fats found in the meat tissue. The healthier meats have better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios than standard commercial meats and will help satisfy your hunger more.

For the past two decades you have been brainwashed into believing a horrible lie that is keeping you from losing weight and burning fat.
Here is the lie…Guru’s, physicians, personal trainers, and even your best friend have told you that eating saturated fat is “bad” for your health. THIS IS A LIE!
Albeit, this lie was only partly spread with bad intentions. You see, the food industries wanted to develop a sales pitch for selling margarine, so they had to come up with a marketing strategy.
In a downright deceptive effort, the first pioneers of margarine set out to make saturated fat the enemy of every health freak. Thousands of articles claiming to be backed by physicians were released and the mainstream media followed the buzz by constantly republishing VERY BAD INFORMATION.
And so, the masses began to take hold of this idea and make it their motto. They truly believed that avoiding saturated fat would be their ticket to health nirvana.
However, their was one problem with this. While margarine sales were booming for companies, the rate of cardiovascular disease in the US began to increase steadily. Until in the 1990s, it started becoming the #1 source of death.
Presently, the top cause of death in the United States is heart disease and it accounts for almost 30% of all deaths depending on who you ask and where you get your statistics from.
All of this because of a “healthy lie” that people deemed as being the truth. Here is the real truth about saturated fat that is equally important to your weight loss as well as your health. In fact, you can’t lose weight unless you practice what I am about to discuss.
First of all, did you realize that although doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, fitness professionals, and the media all have told you that it’s a FACT that saturated fats are bad for you, this “FACT” has NEVER BEEN PROVEN!
In reality, this “fact” is nothing more than an extremely flawed hypothesis, which goes all the way back to a research study from the 1950’s. In this study, a scientist named Ancel Keys published a paper that laid the blame on dietary fat intake for the increasing heart disease issue around the world.
However, one of the major flaws of the study was that it used inconclusive data from an extremely small population of people taken from several countries. Really, the population was so small it would never be considered legit by today’s “research standards”.
Following his research years later scientists found there was in fact, no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. Therefore, while his hypothesis seemed to have powerful supporting data when it was first introduced, it was really empty.
Second, his blaming of fat intake for heart disease was completely isolated from other possible lifestyle related habits that were capable of causing heart disease. There was no data or consideration of other factors that may play a role in heart disease such as smoking, stress factors, sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, and fitness levels.
Really, his conclusion ignored a holistic view of the disease and completely focused on the issue of saturated fat. It was almost like the study was bias from the onset.
Unfortunately, Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades now in various research journals, books, magazines, and other supposedly factual literature. It’s even taught in grade school and most physicians will even follow this advice and tell their patients!
Since that time, virtually every study that has been published on the topic has failed to find even a limited correlation between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease.
In fact, the most recent and reliable research suggests that saturated fat is important for both cardiovascular health and weight loss! This is the exact opposite of what the majority of health gurus promote!
For instance, there are several well known tribes in Africa (Masai, Fulani, and Samburu), where their diet consists mostly of raw whole milk, large quantities of red meat, and cow/goat blood. Their saturated fat intake is THROUGH THE ROOF and yet the occurrence of heart disease is non-existent to members of the tribe.
In fact, according to Dr. Weston A. Price - a dentist who studied tribal dietary habits - all tribesman he studied had zero incidence of cardiovascular disease if they held fast to their ancient eating habits. It was only when these same tribesman turned to modern food supply that they began to develop the common diseases we are faced with today.
In Price’s study, he correlated his results by studying how food caused tooth decay in ancient and modern times. What he found was simply amazing. Tribal members that stuck to their ancient diets were completely free of cavities! They didn’t even brush their teeth!
If that example of healthy eating helps you realize how powerful an effect your diet has on your health, then congratulations. You are now getting closer and closer to realizing and achieving your weight loss and health goals.
Consider this, although saturated fat intake does increase your LDL bad cholesterol, it actually increases your HDL good cholesterol morso. The result is an overall improving of your cholesterol ratios. THIS has been proven to be more important that just total cholesterol level.
It’s important to understand that not all saturated fat is considered to be equal. There are various chemical structures that all fall under the category of “saturated fat” and each of them acts a bit differently when inside of the body.
The 3 most prevalent types of saturated fat are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid. Each naturally occurring food contains varying ratios of each type of fat and this important because it means that certain foods contain better fat profiles than others.
Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa in higher ratios than other foods. Resent research shows that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. Most studies have found that it’s either neutral or beneficial.
In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most of heart-healthy olive oil. This proves that it is very usable by the body for energy production.
Lauric acid is another beneficial saturated fat. Not only has lauric acid been shown to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels significantly, but it is also the hardest fat to attain in the Standard American Diet (SAD).
Lauric acid has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects. It is currently being studied for it’s implementation in treating HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other immune related research to help improve immune function in patients.
Tropical oils such as coconut and palm are the best sources of beneficial lauric acid. If you buy coconut oil be sure to obtain extra virgin coconut oil. It should have the aroma of coconuts and a fairly tropical taste to it.
Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown in studies to increase HDL good cholesterol to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.
It makes you wonder, if all the researchers have tried so fiercely to bash saturated fat , but have continued to fail to show a correlation between saturated fat and cardivascular disease, what are the REAL causes for heart disease?
Well, here are the real causes of heart disease:
* Trans fats (artificially or partially hydrogenated oils)
* Heavily refined vegetable oils such as soy, cottonseed, corn oil, etc. (inflammatory inside the body, and typically throw the omega-6/omega-3 balance out of whack)
* Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)
* Too much refined starches such as white bread, low fiber cereals, etc
* Smoking
* Stressful lifestyle
* Lack of exercise
* Other lifestyle factors
Really, the attempts of the big food companies to spread the lies and make you think vegetable oil are the best thing on earth have been quite successful. However, you can make the decision for yourself to start including better fats into your diet to replenish and nurture your body. These same “healthy” saturated fats will help you to lose weight also because they possess a very high ability to keep you from craving.
Do not let the pull of the multi-billion dollar food industries distort the truth for you and your family. You can make the difference in both your weight loss and your health by changing your diet to include more healthy saturated fats.
Long after this article is written the media and big food companies will still be trying fiercely to make saturated fat look like it is the cause to heart disease. More and more pharmaceuticals will be developed to “combat” heart disease, yet the incidence of this disease will continue to rise. It will continue to rise until our healthcare system can no longer support ANY type of heart disease related expenditure.
To make sure you get the proper amount of healthy saturated fats in your diet you should include a healthy amount of organic eggs, red meat, cold water seafood, avocados, nuts (walnuts, almonds, pecans), and organic oils such as olive and coconut oils.
Also, your food sources should be as healthy as possible. This means making sure that your fish is NOT farmed, but wild Alaskan or cold water caught. It also means that your meat sources are “grass fed” or “open/free range”. These animals should NOT be fed grains in their diet because it will distort the type of fats found in the meat tissue. The healthier meats have better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios than standard commercial meats and will help satisfy your hunger more.

For the past 20 years, many people have struggled to lose weight and burn fat but there’s a simple reason for this. Because for the past two decades, the US public has been completely brainwashed into believing a horrible lie that prevented weight loss success.
Here is the lie…Guru’s, physicians, personal trainers, and even your best friend have told you that eating saturated fat is “bad” for your health. THIS IS A LIE!
Albeit, this lie was only partly spread with bad intentions. You see, the food industries wanted to develop a sales pitch for selling margarine, so they had to come up with a marketing strategy.
In a downright deceptive effort, the first pioneers of margarine set out to make saturated fat the enemy of every health freak. Thousands of articles claiming to be backed by physicians were released and the mainstream media followed the buzz by constantly republishing VERY BAD INFORMATION.
And so, the masses began to take hold of this idea and make it their motto. They truly believed that avoiding saturated fat would be their ticket to health nirvana.
However, their was one problem with this. While margarine sales were booming for companies, the rate of cardiovascular disease in the US began to increase steadily. Until in the 1990s, it started becoming the #1 source of death.
Currently in America, the #1 cause of death is heart disease. Now, depending on who you talk to, the exact number changes but it roughly makes up 30% of all deaths in the US. Can you believe that?
All of this because of a “healthy lie” that people deemed as being the truth. Here is the real truth about saturated fat that is equally important to your weight loss as well as your health. In fact, you can’t lose weight unless you practice what I am about to discuss.
First of all, did you realize that although doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, fitness professionals, and the media all have told you that it’s a FACT that saturated fats are bad for you, this “FACT” has NEVER BEEN PROVEN!
In reality, this “fact” is nothing more than an extremely flawed hypothesis, which goes all the way back to a research study from the 1950’s. In this study, a scientist named Ancel Keys published a paper that laid the blame on dietary fat intake for the increasing heart disease issue around the world.
However, one of the major flaws of the study was that it used inconclusive data from an extremely small population of people taken from several countries. Really, the population was so small it would never be considered legit by today’s “research standards”.
Following his research years later scientists found there was in fact, no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. Therefore, while his hypothesis seemed to have powerful supporting data when it was first introduced, it was really empty.
Second, his blaming of fat intake for heart disease was completely isolated from other possible lifestyle related habits that were capable of causing heart disease. There was no data or consideration of other factors that may play a role in heart disease such as smoking, stress factors, sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, and fitness levels.
Really, his conclusion ignored a holistic view of the disease and completely focused on the issue of saturated fat. It was almost like the study was bias from the onset.
Unfortunately, Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades now in various research journals, books, magazines, and other supposedly factual literature. It’s even taught in grade school and most physicians will even follow this advice and tell their patients!
What’s more, since Keys’ study, almost every study related to the same topic has not been able to find even a small correlation between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease. Not even a small correlation! Let that sink in for a second while you think about the lie that was fed to you.
In fact, the most recent and reliable research suggests that saturated fat is important for both cardiovascular health and weight loss! This is the exact opposite of what the majority of health gurus promote!
For instance, there are several well known tribes in Africa (Masai, Fulani, and Samburu), where their diet consists mostly of raw whole milk, large quantities of red meat, and cow/goat blood. Their saturated fat intake is THROUGH THE ROOF and yet the occurrence of heart disease is non-existent to members of the tribe.
In fact, according to Dr. Weston A. Price - a dentist who studied tribal dietary habits - all tribesman he studied had zero incidence of cardiovascular disease if they held fast to their ancient eating habits. It was only when these same tribesman turned to modern food supply that they began to develop the common diseases we are faced with today.
In Price’s study, he correlated his results by studying how food caused tooth decay in ancient and modern times. What he found was simply amazing. Tribal members that stuck to their ancient diets were completely free of cavities! They didn’t even brush their teeth!
If that example of healthy eating helps you realize how powerful an effect your diet has on your health, then congratulations. You are now getting closer and closer to realizing and achieving your weight loss and health goals.
Consider this, although saturated fat intake does increase your LDL bad cholesterol, it actually increases your HDL good cholesterol morso. The result is an overall improving of your cholesterol ratios. THIS has been proven to be more important that just total cholesterol level.
The term “saturated fat” actually is applicable to a whole slew of saturated fats because not all saturated fats are equal because each one has different chemical structures. Even though they may be different, they’re similar enough to all be called “saturated fats”. It’s important to know how each one acts in your body and it is very simple and easy to remember.
The 3 most prevalent types of saturated fat are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid. Each naturally occurring food contains varying ratios of each type of fat and this important because it means that certain foods contain better fat profiles than others.
Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa in higher ratios than other foods. Resent research shows that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. Most studies have found that it’s either neutral or beneficial.
In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most of heart-healthy olive oil. This proves that it is very usable by the body for energy production.
Lauric acid is another beneficial saturated fat. Not only has lauric acid been shown to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels significantly, but it is also the hardest fat to attain in the Standard American Diet (SAD).
Lauric acid has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects. It is currently being studied for it’s implementation in treating HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other immune related research to help improve immune function in patients.
Tropical oils such as coconut and palm are the best sources of beneficial lauric acid. If you buy coconut oil be sure to obtain extra virgin coconut oil. It should have the aroma of coconuts and a fairly tropical taste to it.
Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown in studies to increase HDL good cholesterol to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.
It makes you wonder, if all the researchers have tried so fiercely to bash saturated fat , but have continued to fail to show a correlation between saturated fat and cardivascular disease, what are the REAL causes for heart disease?
Well, here are the real causes of heart disease:
* Trans fats (artificially or partially hydrogenated oils)
* Heavily refined vegetable oils such as soy, cottonseed, corn oil, etc. (inflammatory inside the body, and typically throw the omega-6/omega-3 balance out of whack)
* Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)
* Too much refined starches such as white bread, low fiber cereals, etc
* Smoking
* Stressful lifestyle
* Lack of exercise
* Other lifestyle factors
Really, the attempts of the big food companies to spread the lies and make you think vegetable oil are the best thing on earth have been quite successful. However, you can make the decision for yourself to start including better fats into your diet to replenish and nurture your body. These same “healthy” saturated fats will help you to lose weight also because they possess a very high ability to keep you from craving.
Do not let the pull of the multi-billion dollar food industries distort the truth for you and your family. You can make the difference in both your weight loss and your health by changing your diet to include more healthy saturated fats.
Long after this article is written the media and big food companies will still be trying fiercely to make saturated fat look like it is the cause to heart disease. More and more pharmaceuticals will be developed to “combat” heart disease, yet the incidence of this disease will continue to rise. It will continue to rise until our healthcare system can no longer support ANY type of heart disease related expenditure.
To ensure you get the proper amount of healthy saturated fats, you should stick to a diet with foundations in overall well-being and health. For example, organic eggs, red meat, cold water seafood, avocados, nuts and organic oils such as olive and coconut oils are just about the best components of a healthy diet you can find.
Also, your food sources should be as healthy as possible. This means making sure that your fish is NOT farmed, but wild Alaskan or cold water caught. It also means that your meat sources are “grass fed” or “open/free range”. These animals should NOT be fed grains in their diet because it will distort the type of fats found in the meat tissue. The healthier meats have better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios than standard commercial meats and will help satisfy your hunger more.