84. Why Fats Matter: Separating Fat from Fiction

What if everything you thought you knew about fats was wrong? Get ready to rethink your dietary habits as we unravel the myths surrounding dietary fats and reveal the truth behind the fat-free craze of the 1980s. Discover how the move to eliminate fats led to an unexpected rise in sugar consumption and why these changes didn’t bring the health benefits they promised. Learn from the historical shift and understand the real nutritional trade-offs that come with removing fats from our diets.

In this episode, we break down the differences between saturated and unsaturated fats and explain why not all fats are created equal. You'll learn why it's crucial to limit your saturated fat intake to protect your heart health, yet also understand the positive roles that monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats play. From improving cholesterol levels to supporting insulin sensitivity, these healthier fats are essential for a balanced diet. We’ll guide you through the best sources of these beneficial fats and emphasize moderation over elimination.

Finally, we explore the vital functions fats serve in our bodies, from hormone production to nutrient absorption, and tackle popular misconceptions head-on. While omega-3 fatty acids are widely celebrated for their anti-inflammatory properties, not all fats have the same benefits. We debunk the overhyped claims about coconut oil and address the unfounded fears surrounding seed oils. By the end of this episode, you'll have a clear understanding of how to prioritize beneficial fats and avoid harmful ones, empowering you to make informed decisions for your overall well-being. Don't forget to leave a review and join us next week as we continue to set the record straight on fat myths.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

Hello everybody and welcome back. I am continuing my podcast series on all the nutrients we need in our lives to stay healthy and simply alive, because, with the plethora of information out on social media right now and the internet, it is really difficult to know what exactly you are supposed to eat and what fads should you be ignoring. Just know that there are scams galore out there, invented by wellness influencers who have no training in nutrition and science, who do not look at research and want to produce products to sell you at a very elaborate cost. And then there's the rest of us. I love the idea of wellness and being your healthiest and best self, but I have no interest in making money off of dubious theories or products. I am never going to sell you a plan or a workshop or a course that gets you to do something radical, all in the spirit of losing a ton of weight, to only gain it all back again, or to sell you some kind of supplement that has no proof, just so I can profit off of it. Okay, that's my rant Now. The last couple of weeks I have talked about our macronutrients, protein and carbs, and today I am giving you the last of the macros, as some people like to nickname them, which is fats. I'm not sure which of these three protein, carbs or fats gets more press in controversy, but fats have certainly had their fair share of confusion.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Now, if you are in midlife then you are definitely, like me, a person who grew up in the 80s. And if you grew up in the 80s, you definitely know that the fat-free movement was alive and well back then. I don't think anybody could escape it. There were studies done back then that seemed to link fat and that is all fat to a sharp increase in heart disease, and the food manufacturers and health professionals went wild. Suddenly, word on the street was that fat was bad and that we needed to eat as low to no fat as possible. So that meant steaming vegetables instead of sauteing them in oil. Now I remember hearing about water sauteing, and even I knew that this was not sauteing. You do not saute vegetables in water. That is the equivalent of mushy, bland, boiled vegetables. And, of course, if you grew up in the 80s, you definitely remember all the famous fat-free desserts like Snackwell's cookies and fat-free yogurt and fat-free cream cheese and fat-free everything. So here's what happened because of the fat-free movement and this is from a culinary standpoint too.

Speaker 1: 3:51

When you take fat away out of your food when there should be fat there, as in sauteing vegetables or in a cookie, it all tastes really terrible. Fat carries flavor. Fat gives delicious mouthfeel and makes our food taste delicious. So how do you replace fat then? So you actually eat a dessert that has no fat in it? Well, you substitute sugar and you substitute a lot of it.

Speaker 1: 4:24

So now, if you look at some products in the stores which are still fat-free even to this day, a six ounce fat-free vanilla yogurt, for example, has zero fat in it, but it has about 14 grams of added sugars give or take, depending on the brand. As a side note, just in case you pulled your fat-free vanilla yogurt out of your refrigerator and you're still thinking I need to go totally fat-free and you are looking at the nutrition label, you might see that it says total sugars and there is a number, probably about 20 grams, and then below that it says added sugars and that says 14 grams about. Added sugars are simply plain old white table sugar. So that's the added sugars, which, if you did not listen to my two podcasts on carbs, take a listen to them after you listen to this one. It'll explain more about what white sugar is and how it works in our bodies, because white sugar is simply a carbohydrate and it's really devoid of any nutrition whatsoever. Also, 14 grams of sugar is about three teaspoons of sugar. So imagine taking your small six ounce container of yogurt and spooning in three teaspoons of sugar. You would probably never do that on your own, but that is what is in your yogurt to make up for the loss of fat that you don't get in there.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Now what about the other six grams of sugar that they post on the label? Yogurt contains dairy and dairy contains lactose, which is a milk sugar. It's totally fine and it's part of the dairy, but it becomes part of the carbohydrate label. So, just as a side note, I wanted to get that out of the way in lieu of talking about this fat-free movement that we were all under when we went through fat-free anything, and usually, even to this day, when you take the fat out, you have to make your food taste good somehow, and that is typically with a lot of sugar. So if you've ever had a fat-free plain yogurt, you know that it's so bland and sort of not. It just doesn't taste great, not to me at least.

Speaker 1: 6:46

And what about Snackwell's cookies? Well, they went out of business a few years ago, but before that they were many dieters' answer to being able to eat desserts. Because we ignored the rest of the nutrition label and went right to how many grams of fat were in them, which was zero and loaded with sugar. So here's the takeaway when you take fat out of a product, it can taste kind of like cardboard, pretty terrible. And to make up for it, food manufacturers went for the next obvious thing, which was to add sugar. Because who doesn't like the taste of sugar? Fat-free cookies will leave you unsatisfied and always wanting more. So the takeaway is that fat-free, as we had thought was going to be healthful for us and beneficial for our hearts, was really not the way to go in your food. It ended up adding a lot of sugar into our diets. So we learned something from the fat-free movement Heart disease didn't end up dropping, the numbers did not end up dropping and obesity did not drop either. Rather, it went even higher and started to become epidemic. So what was going on here?

Speaker 1: 8:03

The history of fat in our diets has been mired with so much personal opinion, questionable studies, fear of fat, fear of getting fat because, after all, fat is higher in calories per gram than protein and carbohydrates it's nine calories per gram versus four calories per gram. So it seems to make sense to cut out fat from our diets in order to lose weight, doesn't it? But why did heart disease and obesity continue to rise then, even when the collective thinking was to cut fat? Researchers have learned a lot about fat since the 80s, but we are still pretty confused. So today I'm going to tell you why fat is so incredibly important in our everyday eating and, most importantly, for our health. I want to take you out of the old thinking that all fat is bad for you and also debunk a lot of influencer-led theories, like the detriments of seed oils or the benefits of coconut oil so let's jump in. Of seed oils or the benefits of coconut oil, so let's jump in. Okay, let's get clear on what dietary fat is.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Fats, also known as lipids, are one of the three main macronutrients, like I had said, along with proteins and carbohydrates, that our bodies need to function effectively. We cannot live without fat. They are a vital part of our diet, providing energy, supporting cell growth, protecting our organs and helping to keep our bodies warm. Fats also help our body absorb some nutrients, like fat-soluble vitamins, and to produce important hormones. We absolutely need fat in our diets.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Now there's three main types of fats that I'm going to talk about today. The first one we have all probably heard about is saturated fats. Saturated fats are those that are typically solid at room temperature and are found in foods like butter, cheese, red meat and other high-fat animal products. Saturated fats are called saturated because their chemical structure is fully saturated with hydrogen atoms, with no double bonds between carbon atoms. You don't have to remember this. You just mostly have to remember that they are solid at room temperature, like a stick of butter or the marbling that you see in a steak, and that they are found in mostly animal products. That's saturated fat in action. So you'll find saturated fats naturally occurring, like I said, in many animal products like meat, butter, cheese, cream, but they're also found in very, very high amounts in some tropical oils such as coconut oil and palm oil. Now, saturated fats in these foods have been a part of our diets for centuries. They add flavor and texture to dishes and often play a starring role in some recipes like baked goods and fried foods.

Speaker 1: 11:13

There's been a lot of controversy around plant-based saturated fat. It's not coming from animal products, right? So is it good for you? After all, coconut oil has been huge in the world of health. I'll talk about that in a minute, but for right now, know that saturated fats in general are the ones to definitely limit.

Speaker 1: 11:34

And, just to note, it's almost impossible to escape saturated fat in our diets. I was thinking earlier. I'm like, could we actually live free of all saturated fats? And the answer is no. And, as you'll see, all oils that are used in our foods have different ratios of the types of fats available to us. So olive oil, for example, is mostly mono and saturated fat, but also has a small amount of saturated fat in there. So it's almost impossible to avoid saturated fats, and that's okay. There's a use for all fats. So therefore, it's really all about balance. The guidelines say to keep your intake of saturated fat to about 10% of your total fat intake. So if red meat and cheese are front and center on your plate every day, really consider how you can reduce that intake. Focus on plant-based proteins, like we had talked about in the protein podcast, and balance those with plenty of fruits, vegetables and other sources of healthier fats, like olive oil and avocados.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Now why do we exactly want to limit our saturated fat intake? There's a couple of really good, solid reasons for doing that. The number one first reason is the increase in our cholesterol levels. So one of the primary concerns with consuming high amounts of saturated fat is its impact on your cholesterol. Saturated fat can raise levels of LDL, that's, your low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, in the blood. Ldl cholesterol is often referred to as the bad cholesterol, because high levels can lead to a buildup of cholesterol in your arteries and this buildup can form plaques, making arteries narrower and potentially leading to blockages. Another reason that we want to limit our saturated fat intake is our heart disease risk. Due to the effects on raising LDL cholesterol, high intake of saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. Heart disease remains one of the leading causes of death globally still, and managing dietary factors is a key component of prevention. The plaque buildup caused by high cholesterol can lead to coronary artery disease, heart attacks and strokes.

Speaker 1: 14:12

Another good reason to limit saturated fat is our weight gain. Fats are more calorie dense than carbohydrates or proteins, like I had said before nine calories per gram compared to four calories per gram for carbohydrates and protein. So, consequently, foods high in saturated fat are also higher in calories, which can contribute to weight gain if consumed in large quantities. If you are not exercising, if you are not somehow burning off those calories, it can lead to weight gain. So, over time, excessive weight gain can lead to obesity, which itself is a risk factor for you guessed it heart disease and diabetes and other things like joint problems. And finally, the other risk that I like to talk about is the potential impact on insulin resistance. Now, some studies suggest that consuming a lot of saturated fat might actually worsen insulin resistance. So we talked about insulin resistance in the carbohydrates podcast, but I didn't mention back then that there might be a connection to your fat intake along with your carbohydrate intake. So insulin resistance, I'll remind you, is a condition in which the body's cells become less responsive to insulin, leading to higher blood sugar levels and, potentially, type 2 diabetes. The relationship between saturated fat intake and insulin resistance is complex and it's influenced overall by diet, but also by genetic factors and lifestyle. But just keep that in the back of your head as a potential reason to limit your saturated fat.

Speaker 1: 16:01

Okay, we have other fats, and these are the healthier fats that I want to definitely talk about today. The first one is unsaturated fats. So unsaturated fats are usually liquid at room temperature and those are found in oils from plants and fish, such as olive oil and salmon, or if you get fish oil in a supplement, and these unsaturated fats can be further broken down into monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats are a type of healthy fat that are found in many delicious foods if you want to think maybe more of the Mediterranean diet. Chemically speaking, monounsaturated fats have one mono double bond in their molecular structure. This single double bond causes a slight kink in the fatty acid chain, which makes these fats liquid at room temperature but starting to get solid when chilled. Again, we don't have to worry about the chemical makeup of these. We just want to know that monounsaturated fats are really good for you. Heart-healthy fats. To focus on.

Speaker 1: 17:23

Monounsaturated fats are really like superstars in the world of fats. They can help improve your cholesterol levels by helping to lower your LDL cholesterol that bad fat. Or they can help improve your cholesterol levels by helping to lower your LDL cholesterol that bad fat. Or they can help raise your HDL cholesterol, which is high-density lipoproteins, which is your good fats. Eating fats high in monounsaturated fats, therefore, can be really, really good news for your heart. They can also help with that insulin sensitivity and may even help your body better use fats for energy instead of storing them. So definitely be sure to include foods rich in monounsaturated fats in your diet every single day, and I'm going to, at the end of the podcast, give you some good sources of monounsaturated fats. At the end of the podcast, give you some good sources of monounsaturated fats.

Speaker 1: 18:21

The poly in polyunsaturated means these fats have more than one double bond in their chemical structure. The structure makes them even more fluid at room temperature compared to monounsaturated fats. Because of these multiple double bonds, polyunsaturated fats can't pack tightly together, so they stay liquid even when they're cold. So polyunsaturated fats also include omega-3 fats, which I'm sure you have probably heard of, and omega-6 fats, which you have probably also heard of too, if you are fearful of seed oils, and I am going to dive into that in a little bit. Omega-3s and omega-6 fatty acids are essential fats. That means that your body cannot make these fats on their own and they must come from your diet. Omega-3 fats are particularly beneficial for your brain and heart health and are anti-inflammatory, while omega-6 fats are also essential for your health and are crucial for skin and hair growth, and also play a role in maintaining bone health. Polyunsaturated fats are found in foods like walnuts and sunflower seeds, fatty fish like salmon and mackerel sardines If you're a fan of flax seeds or soybeans, tofu, edamame you're getting a good dose of polyunsaturated fats. Incorporating both mono and polyunsaturated fats into your diet can lead to numerous health benefits, like I had just mentioned before, like lowering the risk of heart disease, to supporting your mental health and reducing inflammation. So a good balance of these fats can really contribute to a nutritious, balanced diet, keeping your body and your heart very happy.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Okay, let's talk about one more fat, and and that's trans fats. Now this is not really an issue anymore, because trans fats have actually been banned in the United States out of the food or food systems. We don't allow trans fats in food anymore because they have been found to be extremely harmful for our health, and they're often found in very processed, highly processed foods, but you're not going to come across them regularly anymore, but I think this is worth a mention. Okay, so trans fats are a type of unsaturated fat that goes through an industrial process called hydrogenation. This involves adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid and shelf-stable, and the primary motive behind creating trans fats in the first place was to extend the shelf life of foods and improve the texture that's often appealing in highly processed baked goods and other things that have like that mouth feel to it. This type of fat, like I said, is found in a various array of processed foods, including margarine, of processed foods, including margarine, shortening, fried foods and many, many packaged snacks.

Speaker 1: 21:36

What was found with trans fat and why they became so harmful, was that not only did they increase our LDL cholesterol that bad cholesterol but they also decrease our HDL cholesterol, known as our good cholesterol. We know that high LDL cholesterol levels are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, so eating trans fats increased the risk of developing heart disease and having a stroke because they contributed to clogged arteries and that restricted the flow of blood. Trans fat also can induce inflammation, which is another risk factor for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic conditions, and they also negatively affected the endothelial cells lining your arteries, which is detrimental to vascular health. So there was a lot of good reason to ban these kind of fats from our food supply. In fact, many countries have taken steps to reduce or even ban the total use of them. The World Health Organization even called for a global elimination of artificial trans fats from the food supply.

Speaker 1: 22:58

We talked about four different kinds of fats saturated fat, unsaturated fat, which includes then monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated fats that includes omega-6 and omega-3 fats, and then we talked about trans fats. So the takeaway so far is that there has been a lot of misinformation about fats, starting from the 80s, in general in our diets. We know that saturated fats those fats that stay solid at room temperature and are found in animal products are the fats to limit. We know that trans fats are the fats to eliminate, and that has been helped greatly by government regulations not allowing trans fats in our foods. And we know that fats that are high in monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are your healthiest options and which there are many, many benefits.

Speaker 1: 23:55

We need healthy fat in our diets. Healthy fats are essential for so many things, but for today, I want to highlight just a couple of things that I think are relevant to my listeners and that you would be interested in knowing, and that is our brain health, our hormone health and our heart health. So, in case you didn't know this, this is a fun fact. The brain, our brains, are made up of about 60% fat, with essential fatty acids, those omega-3s and omega-6s, being major components. Omega-3 fatty acids are integral to the structure of neuronal cell membranes and are crucial for the fluidity and function of these membranes. Healthy fats also provide anti-inflammatory effects that are beneficial for our brain. Chronic inflammation, as you might know, is linked to many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Fats are involved in the functioning of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, which regulates mood, so low levels of omega-3 fatty acids have been linked to depression and mood swings. There's still a lot to be learned about these diseases, of course, but knowing that nourishing your brain with these good fats is essential is just really helpful information for you to know.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Fat is also responsible for making hormones and other nutrients in our body, such as estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, vitamins A, k, d and E, which are our fat-soluble vitamins, meaning that they need fat to be absorbed into our bodies, cannot function without the help of fat to get absorbed by and let's mention again heart health, since there's been such a sharp rise in cardiovascular disease and what's also got us into the fat fear in the first place. Now, while saturated fat and trans fats help to lower HDL cholesterol that's your good cholesterol and raise LDL cholesterol that's your bad cholesterol healthy fats do just the opposite. High HDL and low LDL helps reduce the buildup of plaque in arteries, lowering the risk of heart disease and stroke. And, like I mentioned before, omega-3 fatty acids are particularly helpful for heart disease. Omega-3s are known for their strong anti-inflammatory properties, and chronic inflammation is linked to heart disease and by reducing it, omega-3 fatty acids help protect the cardiovascular system. Overall, these fats can help reduce blood pressure levels, which is a significant risk factor for heart disease. Also help prevent the formation of harmful blood clots by making blood less sticky. So when your blood is less sticky, you can decrease the chance of blood clots forming inside blood vessels, which then can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Speaker 1: 27:11

So I think that we know now there are healthy forms of fats, unhealthy forms of fats, and we want to stay away from those unhealthy saturated type fats and trans fats and focus on the good ones. This is the best bet for your heart health, your brain health. For your heart health, your brain health and weight gain and hormone health so many, I mean, so many other things, but there's still so much fear and untruths around fat and, honestly, as I was putting this podcast together, I thought I have to do another podcast about all the fears and untruths, because once you start digging into just the general topic of fats or carbohydrates or protein, you realize that there's so many layers underneath it. So I'm going to briefly mention a couple of these fears and untruths around fat, but I'm going to do another podcast next week to really dive deep, because I think this is what a lot of people are interested in. So we seem to have gone from fearing all fat back in the 80s to embracing high fat diets like the keto diet or the carnivore diet. I can tell you right now I'll just give you a little hint that neither of these diets is a healthy way to live and eat, especially that you now know what saturated fat can do for heart disease and cholesterol levels. So more on those two diets. Next week you will have to patiently wait and tune in for my talk on these kind of diets that really promote high saturated fat.

Speaker 1: 28:52

Let's talk about coconut oil, too, being good for you and seed oils being bad. This is another two topics that I definitely will dive deeper into next week. But let's first talk about coconut. I'm not sure if you remember coconut oil barreling into our lives a number of years ago. All of a sudden, coconut oil was everywhere on the food shelves. If any food product or supplement comes on like gangbusters into social media, my word of warning is to run or, at the very least, look at it with caution. And that's what I did when coconut oil came to be Coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut aminos, coconut sugar everything seemed to be made with coconut. All of a sudden, influencers were telling us that coconut is so healthy. The plant-based saturated fat was okay, and for some it was the only oil to use in cooking. Coconut supposedly helped cure Alzheimer's. The list went on for the benefits.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Like I said before, I'm going to do a whole other additional podcast on the myths around fats like coconut oil, but for right now I'm going to say that the research shows that coconut oil is a major driver of raising LDL cholesterol. I would use coconut very sparingly, especially if you have concerns about cholesterol. It's extremely high in saturated fat. It's a plant-based saturated fat, but it is saturated fat nonetheless. And now my new favorite fear mongering is seed oils. Again, I want to get into more detail about seed oils, and those are oils that are found in canola oil, sesame seed oil, sunflower oil or corn oil. I can tell you that this myth has been totally debunked. Vegetable oils, for the most part, are very healthy for you, but again, I'm going to wait. You're going to have to patiently wait until next week to get the details about this very buzzy topic.

Speaker 1: 30:59

Okay, let's break down our best sources of fats and where to get them.

Speaker 1: 31:03

Again, we're limiting saturated fats, and saturated fats come from red meat, butter cream, coconut oil, palm oil and other animal products.

Speaker 1: 31:14

We are setting our focus on monounsaturated fats, which help to raise HDL cholesterol while lowering LDL cholesterol, and our best sources of monounsaturated fats are extra virgin olive oil think the Mediterranean diet avocados, nuts like almonds and walnuts, and pecans and cashews, and Brazil nuts any kind of nuts seeds like chia seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, canola oil or sesame oil. We're also focusing on polyunsaturated fats, which contain omega-3 fatty acids, and these come from fatty fish like salmon and sardines, tofu, edamame, also some nuts and seeds like walnuts, and oils like canola oil. Next week, like I said, I will set the record straight on some myths and facts around fats, so you can feel good about what you are eating, knowing you are doing your very best, as always. Please feel free to reach out the link is in the show notes and if you loved this podcast, please do me a huge favor and leave a review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much. Have a great day and bye for now.