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Home made fats are to blame for health troubles
The chemistry of fats is complicated. High fat levels are not because you stacked your plate with butter, meat, cream and eggs – your body made those fats.
We’ve been told for years.
Fats are BAD. Carbs are GOOD.
So…………… based on this philosophy, a healthy diet should be a low fat, high carb diet. And this is what most conventional health gurus encourage.
Unfortunately, the rise of and the success of high fat, low carbs diets, has put a spanner in the works. Forcing a review of what a healthy diet is.
This leads to statements like
NOT all fats are BAD.
Which is code for ……….
You can consume unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, fish oil and seed oils, but you should avoid saturated fats, such as butter, meat, cream and eggs, at all costs.
Out with the old, in with the new
It is a little hard to understand why unsaturated fats are okay, but saturated fats are not.
Especially when you consider butter, meat, cream and eggs are traditional foods, they’ve been part of the human diet forever. While seed oils, such as margarine and canola oil are rather new. In fact, these “heart healthy” fats have been around for thirty odd years.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
And obesity, heart disease and diabetes have all become global epidemics in – the last thirty years.
So why are we against saturated fats ?
The biggest reason – when we look inside “sick” bodies, fat levels are SKY HIGH.
Actually quite a few things are sky high in metabolic syndrome, the condition that underpins the modern health epidemics, the list includes
- Blood pressure
- Sugar levels
- Weight, specifically around the belly,
- Cholesterol and
- Triglycerides – this is the biochemical term for fats
And truth be told, we despise ALL of them.
For better or worse, we have campaigns opposing all of these parameters.
Unfortunately, they’re not working. The reason, biology is COMPLICATED.
Our bodies can make saturated fats
The process is called de novo lipogenesis.
Ironically, the starting material for the fats that we make, is not fat. It’s carbohydrate and alcohol.
And this is important. In metabolic syndrome, the high fat levels are not as a result of eating TOO MUCH fat………
The fats causing the trouble are home made
This is what a team of European researchers working on the EPIC- InterAct case-cohort study have discovered.
In this study, detailed lipid profiles, identifying the precise levels of 37 different fatty acids, of 27 296 adults from eight European countries, were assessed and correlated with information about their diet. Some of the people (12 132 had a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes), the rest of the people were “normal” at the start of the study.
As expected, people with weight problems and diabetes, had more triglycerides in their blood, than “normal” people.
The detailed fatty acid profiles, revealed the fatty acids that were elevated, were the saturated fatty acids, specifically the ones with even numbers of carbons,
- Myristic acid – which has 14 carbons
- Palmitic acid – which has 16 carbons
- Stearic acid – which has 18 carbons
But there were fatty acids that were under represented in this group too. The “missing” fatty acids included
- Pentadecanoic acid – which has 15 carbons
- Heptadecanoic acid – which has 17 carbons
- Arachidic acid – which has 20 carbons
- Behenic acid – which has 22 carbons
- Tricosanoic acid – which has 23 carbons
- Lignoceric acid –which has 24 carbons
So what is the difference between the two groups of fatty acids ?
Sourcing fatty acids
Group 1, the even numbered saturated fatty acids are home made i.e. the starting off food, is not a fat. The dietary analysis found the foods associated with increased levels of this group of fatty acids included
- Alcohol
- Soft drinks
- Margarine
- Potatoes
Not much is known about the longer fatty acids, the ones with 20 or more carbons, but pentadecanoic acid and heptadecanoic acid, are associated with the consumption of dairy fat.
NOTE : The people in this study, with the highest levels of pentadecanoic acid and heptadecanoic acid, were the least likely to have diabetes. Maybe it’s time to switch back to full cream milk ?
Chewing the fat
The chemistry of fats is complicated. And, not all fats are BAD.
Things go awry, when fat cells get overwhelmed, the reason this happens, is not because you stacked your plate with butter, meat, cream and eggs, it’s because of BAD body chemistry.
A low fat, high carb diet – accentuates this BAD body chemistry.
The secret to creating BETTER BODY CHEMISTRY is to CANDY FLOSS.
Step 1 : Cut the CARBS sugar gremlin
Step 2 : Add FAT, PROTEIN and FIBRE.
Step 3 ……………….
Click here to learn more about the CANDY FLOSS system.
Further reading
Old brains short circuit on high carbohydrate diet
Officially, the brain runs on carbohydrates, but in the elderly at least, too many carbohydrates, in the diet, hasten foggy thinking.
Eating more fat will take care of that oxidative stress problem
The most effective strategy to decrease oxidative stress, is to simply eat less, but starving is not actually required…. burning fat is all that is needed.
Stop worrying about fat and start worrying about timing
Stay away from fat and nibble all day – lots of small meals, at regular intervals, are the key to weight management. WRONG !
Interested in learning more about the chemistry behind those extra fat layers ?
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