I’ll start with a quick overview:
Unsaturated fats:
- Monounsaturated fatty acids have one double bond and polyunsaturated fatty acids have two or more double bonds.
- Foods like vegetable oils are high in polyunsaturated fats.
- Unsaturated fats will be liquid at room temperature because of the double bonds in the carbon chain.
Saturated fats:
- Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds in their molecular structure.
- Food like animal fats are high in saturated fats.
- Saturated fats will be solid at room temperature because there are more hydrogens in the carbon chains.
The medical community is switching over on their view of saturated fats. Right now they seem to be slowly being viewed as healthy. That’s great! It’s slow though, and most medical institutions still tell you saturated fats cause heart disease.
How did the view that a low-fat diet prevented heart disease begin?
One guy who didn’t do his studies properly. Story of modern medicine. Ancel Benjamin Keys was an American physiologist in the 1950’s. He was the one who postulated that saturated fat caused high cholesterol and that high cholesterol caused heart disease. He did a study (The Seven Countries Study) that looked at a number of different countries, and then chose the countries where there was an increased risk of heart disease and a diet high in saturated fats. Then he wrote a paper and told everyone that it was the saturated fats causing the heart disease, ignoring the countries where the information didn’t work. Chile had high rates of heart disease and diets low in saturated fat. And Holland and Norway had low rates of heart disease and diets high in saturated fat. Those countries were left out. This led to the conclusion that unsaturated fats were healthier than saturated fats and that’s when everyone started eating margarine over butter, and the war on meat really began.
Here’s a YouTube video that probably does a better job than I did explaining it.
Here’s a good article also explaining it better than I. And here’s some more information.
My “beef, salt, and water” diet is incredibly high in saturated fats (animal meat will also have some mono and polyunsaturated fats, but not nearly the majority). I’m getting about 80 percent of my calories from mostly saturated fat. Don’t be afraid of saturated fats!!! It’s outdated, and the original information was based on lies.
I just finished reading it and anyone interested should do the same, but it in ‘no way’ changed my present beliefs about fat, heart disease or whether my body can process and tolerate plant-based foods. If anything, it strengthened my belief that epidemiological studies are often worse than useless and Keyes was unethical, but perhaps didn’t outright lie as Minger points out. (whoop-di-doo). I appreciate her comments and analysis, I truly do, but I actually see the results of Key’s ‘findings’ as even more egregious than before. The FAO statistics he relied on were ridiculously inaccurate as they showed “available” food vs. “food actually consumed!” In addition, I personally feel it was a huge mistake to lump meats and dairy products (and their fats) together, but that’s just me.
Same here. Dairy and meat are not the same AT ALL.
Hi! 🙂 Ancel Benjamin Keys may have done a bad job with the study. But here’s a study of 2 million participants. Which indicates that low density lipoproteins cause atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Hope this may be of interest.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28444290/
Only when mixed with sugars
For anyone interested, here is an article about what one person believes is causing the majority of autoimmune diseases. He has been through his own personal hell and this is his theory:https://ggenereux.blog/2016/04/22/ending-the-mystery-of-auto-immune/
I’ve only just found his site today and have a lot more to read, but so far, I think I’m on the right path with meat and water if his ideas are correct. He also has a free e-book or two for download which describes his journey.
Mikhaila, could meat wrapped in butcher paper cause a reaction? or is butcher paper fine?
I haven’t had a reaction to butcher paper so I wouldn’t worry about it!
Ok 🙂
I think largely the reason the “low fat”, low protein diet became dominant is because you can make money off it. It’s easy to become an “expert” just echo what every other swinging potato is quacking and add your own little twist and voila’ you’re an expert. It’s also how vitamins and supplements work. If 500mg of vit C is already too much, hells bells daddyo lets add another 3 grams and make it really too much! And then make 3gm into a religion. But wait Rose Hips vit C yea that’s the ticket! If you cut out most protein and fat you have to get your calories from somewhere and damn those cookies and cereals sure taste good and have a very high profit margin no mater the hell is causes to your biochemistry.
The medical establishment did it’s part as well pushing the party line and giving credence to the refrain. Part of the problem once something becomes common wisdom it’s 50 years till a better truth can break through because you have 30 years of practitioners who were taught the old way. But in the diet game there were always outliers. JH Salisbury MD invented the Salisbury steak and ate it 3 times a day and fed it to his patients who recovered from many maladies eating beef 3 times a day. Atkins pushed a high fat high protein ketotic diet and was roundly criticized etc. My experience is protein and fat is curative. My opinion is all healing comes from protein because the body is made from protein. Bones are calcified protein, immunity is protein, hematology is protein, organs are protein, hormones for the most part are amino acid chains, brain is fat and protein, muscles are protein skin is protein reproduction is protein and so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby. Nothing in you is sugar except for a dab in the blood and some stored as glycogen so you can run away from a tiger. I worked in a burn unit and if the patient was not peeing out nitrogen (from the excessive protein we fed him/her) his prognosis was RIP. We also fed them lipids to get them enough energy to mend. I think we are just now getting to the point of understanding the role protein and fat play in healing. In my opinion most of the common the diabetes hypertension heart disease strokes obesity metabolic syndrome are a consequence of living in a sea of grains vegetables and fruits processed in ways to give you the biggest buzz when you consume. The buzz is what you pay for. Look up the wiki on James Salisbury and prepare to have your mind blown
Leave a comment