MACRO NUTRIENT MYTHS - All fats are created equal and more is better.
Fat. It’s good for us. It’s bad for us. If protein is the macro nutrient we love and carbohydrate is the one we fear, then fat is the one we seem to yo-yo back and forth about the most. Just like a diet! One week it’s bad for you, the next it’s good for you. The misinformation cycle keeps rolling and it’s no wonder people can become so confused about food.
It’s not supposed to be this complicated. Fat is an essential part of our diet. It provides energy, helps to absorb certain nutrients, and maintains our core body temperature. We need to consume fat daily for our bodies to function properly. But not all fats are created equal, and how much do we really need?
Saturated fats (from animal products) and trans fats (fats that have been chemically adjusted to stay solid at room temperature) are considered bad fats. They negatively impact health, raise cholesterol, and are linked to many modern lifestyle diseases such as heart disease and stroke. Monounsaturated fats are considered good fats and come from foods like olive oil, avocados, most nuts, and sunflower seeds. They have been linked to reduced cholesterol and risk of modern lifestyle diseases. And finally, polyunsaturated fats are essential. This means they are required for normal bodily function, but our bodies can’t make them. They are found in many plant foods like chia seeds, walnuts, sunflower seeds and flax seeds.
And then there’s cholesterol. I used to think that we had to consume cholesterol but the body actually makes it, as well as taking it in from food. It is found in every cell of our bodies and is important when it comes to digesting food, producing hormones, and generating vitamin D. Cholesterol is necessary for our bodies to function properly but at high levels it becomes a major risk factor for heart disease. The good news? No plant-based foods have cholesterol in them and some even actively decrease cholesterol levels. Oats, whole grains, beans, eggplant, nuts, and fruit all work to lower cholesterol levels in the body. This is the breakdown of the good the bad and the ugly of fats, so where does the confusion come in?
It happens when media jumps on a scientific paper it knows will generate interest and releases headlines like ‘Butter Is Back’ and ‘Eat Butter: Scientists labelled fat the enemy. Why they were wrong’. The whirlwind of controversy that followed this particular example was great for readership and clicks, but not so good for peoples’ heart health. This is only one example of misleading headlines that circulate constantly. Nutritional experts delved deeper into this scientific paper and it turns out it wasn’t even new science. It has long been known that observational studies don’t have the power to show correlation between diet and heart disease because everyone’s baseline cholesterol is different. The higher your cholesterol is, the more risk there is of heart disease, but one person's high level may be completely different to the next persons'. The study above combined together many observational studies and released them saying there is no correlation. The aim was to cause confusion and get people back to consuming more animal products. The damage these headlines and articles caused was huge and they were seriously misleading. There were even calls to have the study retracted but that wasn’t given the same press, I don’t think ‘Butter Isn’t Really Back: We got it wrong about being wrong’ would sell many papers!
So where do we look for information about how much, and what types of fat should we be eating? I have found Dr. Esselstyn’s book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease a great guide for dietary fat intake. The book is really informative, easy to read, and has a great recipe section at the back. Heart disease statistics are staggering, and two points really stuck with me after reading his book:
For one in four people the first symptom of heart disease is sudden death.
The current recommended ‘healthy’ levels of cholesterol still progress heart disease.
This means you could think you are doing everything ‘right’ but still be progressing the disease. And the kicker about this disease that effects millions of people and costs billions of dollars worldwide from invasive surgeries and drugs? It’s completely reversible, and even preventable, by eating a plant-based, whole foods diet.
The current recommended daily allowance (RDA) of fat intake is around about 30% of calories. Dr. Esselstyn, and other experts in his field, argue that this isn’t actually low fat at all and is probably why so many ‘low fat’ diets don’t seem to be effective in treating disease and obesity. He recommends a much lower 10% of calories should come from fat and mostly, if not all, from plant-based foods. He places very strict guidelines for people with heart disease but the healthier you are the more nuts, seeds and avocado etc. you can eat. He also suggests going oil free as even plant based oils are highly processed and contain a lot of empty calories. I’ve got to the point where I don’t pay too much attention to macro nutrients (it’s all about the whole food, not parts of the food!) but roughly 25% of my calories come from fats, and all of these from plants. This does include a small amount of oil and coconut cream which is a saturated fat, but has a different make up to animal based saturated fat. This seems to be working for me personally as my last blood test had my doctor commenting on how low my cholesterol was!
There is also relatively new science out there that has discovered that diabetes is actually caused by too much fat in cells. The fat blocks sugar from entering and this is why blood sugar becomes so high. Lowering sugar intake alleviates the symptoms, but lowering fat intake (especially saturated fat) will improve the severity of the disease. Sugar consumption has levelled off in America since 1999 and has been declining ever since but diabetes keeps on increasing. The increase in diabetes much more closely tracks the cheese consumption graph than the sugar consumption graph. Diabetes statistics in NZ are also staggering with 1 in 4 people having pre-diabetes. That's over a million people at early stages of the disease. Making small changes in diet can really have an immense impact on our overall health.
This may have all got a bit complicated and overwhelming. In a nutshell (pun intended) keep it simple. Eat a wide range of plant-based, whole foods and aim for a lower fat (and animal product) intake if possible. If you are eating whole foods this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It’s about the food not the macro nutrients. And if you are concerned at all, go and get a blood test, take control of your on-going health. You then have a baseline to work with and can track any changes and improvements that you make. Plant-based food makes it really easy to nourish and heal your body if you just give it a chance!
There is so much information out there about diet and its impact on disease that it is hard to squeeze the details into a blog post. If your interest is piqued I suggest watching the documentaries Forks Over Knives and What the Health. If you are still curious after that The China Study and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease are great books to dig deeper into the subject. You can also check out my recommended page for links to find more information.
Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or health professional. I have completed a certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from eCornell and have done in-depth research about plant-based living. The information I trust is mostly sourced from medical professionals that are leading the way in this plant-based revolution. Check out my recommended page for more info.
