Are fats all bad? What is truly healthy diet?
Director of Wellness, Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong,
Dr. Tal Friedman, ND shared his perspective with us
In recent years, dietary fat has been the subject of much controversy and confusion. With conflicting information and opinions circulating, it’s not surprising for me to often hear someone go on about how saturated fat (or steak, or eggs, or butter) are bad, cause heart attacks, make you fat and so on. This myth is one of the most pervasive in the world of nutritional advice. I want to tackle it, as simply and concisely as I can here, and set the record straight.
I’m not the first to tackle this topic. I highly recommend the book Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes for those who want a deep dive into the topic.
How did we get so scared of fats?
Dietary fat is one of the most confusing and controversial nutrition topics and has been for a long time. A big part of the reason for this is that in the media, there have been mixed messages about whether it’s okay to eat fat for more than 50 years.
In the 1950s and ’60s, saturated fat (like mentioned earlier in red meat eggs, etc.) began acquiring a bad reputation. During that period researchers were finding that people with diets lower in saturated fat appeared to be healthier. Cardiovascular disease rates started climbing. Many public health officials grew concerned about saturated fat intake. By the time the 1980s rolled around, this concern grew into a more generalized warning about eating fat, any kind of fat.
In the 1980s many governments around the world started to implement much more specific dietary guidelines than they had done in the past. In North America, guidelines had started recommending people to cut their total fat intake. This recommendation spurred the massive growth of the “low fat” diet trend. The trend lasted nearly two decades and still pervades many people’s minds. Unfortunately, it seems that this diet trend did much more harm than anyone would have foreseen.
Food companies began replacing the fat in their products with sugar. They marketed these products as healthy low-fat options to replace the “evil” foods we had been eating. This, we now know, is terrible since those sugars and refined carbohydrates are just as bad if not worse for our health. Furthermore, these companies also replaced saturated fats with artificial trans fats, like margarine instead of butter. This was an even bigger disaster as trans fats are some of the worst food products you can eat and have been proven to be extremely detrimental to one’s health. We now have worldwide obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease rates that can be linked to the increased intakes of sugar and trans fats.
So where are we now?
In recent years it seems that the pendulum has swung back and fats are no longer demonized. In fact, the cover of Time Magazine in June 2014 stated, “Eat Butter”. The main article in that issue titled “Ending the War on Fat” touched on research describing saturated fat wasn’t nearly as harmful as we thought and arguing that we should ditch artificial foods in favor of natural foods (like butter). Once again in 2016 Time Magazine ran another article titled “The Case for Eating Butter Just Got Stronger,” once again highlighting research showing the follies of the past decades.
It is important to understand how we got here. However, that doesn’t make it okay to eat deep-fried pork and bacon cheeseburgers daily. What it really means is that not all fat is bad, and in fact, fat is part of a very healthy diet.
From my perspective, there are three important considerations that you need to take into account when thinking about eating fat.
1. Trans fats are bad. Man-made trans fats have been around for a long while but rose sharply in popularity for a few reasons. Firstly, they are very inexpensive, especially when compared to animal fats. They can help increase the shelf life of food, they taste good, and most importantly they got billed as healthy alternatives to “bad fats.”
Trans fats are more strongly linked to cardiovascular disease than any other type of fat. They have also been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and more. Avoid trans fats. You will most likely find them in packaged ready to eat foods. Examples include shortening, packaged pastries, non-dairy creamer, and spreads like margarine.
2. Eat actual food and don’t focus on nutrients. Most food contains a combination of different types of fat (saturated, and unsaturated). Focusing solely on the nutrients themselves paints an incomplete or distorted picture. There are foods that have saturated fat in them that are healthy, while there are also foods with no saturated fat that are unhealthy.
Think about the type of food you are eating. Less processed, and closer to the real thing. Eating more plants and choosing lean high-quality meats will have a bigger impact on overall health. Looking at diets across the world, where people live long healthy lives, people eat real, unprocessed food. It has nothing to do with how much fat or carbohydrates they track and eat.
3. Fats aren’t all bad (expect for the man-made trans fats as mentioned above), but certain types of fat are better for health than others. No need to go out of your way to avoid fat that comes naturally in your diet, even the saturated kind. The research just does not back up the claims that it is as bad as we once thought. You may want to add some healthier options like olive oil and fish as they have some unique benefits. I am not here to tell you that any one diet or nutrient is good or bad. What I will say is to think about how much a food was adulterated before you decide to eat it. If you care about your health, you can’t just focus on saturated fat or on any other nutrient. You need to look at the foods that provide it, and beyond that, at your overall diet and lifestyle. Doing otherwise means missing the forest for the trees.
Dr. Tal Friedman, ND completed his undergraduate degree in Kinesiology and Health Science at York University, Toronto, Canada. He received a specialized honours with a special focus in sports nutrition and was invited back to do a short lecture series at the university after graduating.
After working for as a certified Kinesiologist, he furthered his studies through a four-year post-graduate Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine (ND) course at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. Whilst there, he completed a 12-month clinical internship at the Robert Schad Naturopathic Clinic, with a number of shifts at the various satellite clinics around the city of Toronto.
He went on to work at several clinics in Toronto. One clinic was focused on sports medicine where he worked closely with hockey players, combat athletes, runners, and fitness competitors. The other clinics were general practice where he treated a variety of health concerns including high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and more.
Currently Tal is working as the Director of Wellness, at Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong