Fat for health
The artical in the Independant, Low fat is not healthy? looks like I needn't have agonised over eating low fat. As my cholestrol level is low, (not sure if that's all cholestrol or just the bad stuff,) the artival indicates I should be quite happy about what I eat, just needing to lower the processed carbs.
The myth of the low-fat diet
For years, we've been advised to eat a low-fat diet in order to help prevent heart attacks and promote weight loss. But, says Jerome Burn, the latest research suggests that such a diet may actually do more harm than good
Looking for something healthy and non-fattening for your evening meal? How about a nice porterhouse steak, which is 50-50 fat and protein? It's a suggestion that comes about as close to heresy as we get these days, but there is increasing evidence that a low-fat diet is not the panacea we have been promised. For the past 30 years such a diet has been officially promoted, on both sides of the Atlantic, as the route to plaque-free arteries and a slim figure. A message that has propelled 15,000 low-fat products on to American supermarket shelves.
However, the campaign has had no obvious effect on the incidence of heart disease, nor have the pounds been falling off the national waists and hips. In fact, according to a recent report, we are getting fatter. Not only is a low-fat diet largely irrelevant to reducing heart disease but it may be responsible for the worrying rise of diabetes.
Praise for the fat-laden porterhouse steak came in an award-winning investigative article, published last year, on just how little evidence there is supporting the low-fat dogma (Science, 30 March 2001). Virtually ignored in the UK at the time, it should be required reading for anyone interested in diet. The problem with the low-fat message is that it is far too simple.
For instance, we've all been told to avoid animal fats because they are saturated and that saturated fat raises cholesterol levels in the blood. But half the fat in a steak is actually "monounsaturated" – the same type as found in "good for the heart" olive oil. The other half is, indeed, saturated but about a third of it is a type called stearic acid, which, like olive oil, raises the "good" HDL cholesterol in the blood. So just 30 per cent of the fat in a steak is the sort of saturated fat that can raise "bad" LDL cholesterol. However, even this demonised fat will simultaneously raise the "good" HDL. "All of this suggests," writes science journalist Gary Taubes, author of the Science article, "that eating a porterhouse steak rather than carbohydrates might actually improve heart disease risk".
Now, how do I stop myself eating something just because it looks tasty?
