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Fat is where it's at
For decades, fat has been blamed for everything from heart disease to obesity to cancer. But new research shows that fat can be good for you.
Study after study found that people who said they ate low-fat diets didn’t eat any less than people who kept eating fat. The government’s message had perhaps worked too well. People thought fat, not quantity or quality of food, was the villain. The Food Marketing Institute in Virginia reported that buying food products labeled "low-fat" was the most common way people improved their diets. According to Pierre Chandon and Brian Wansink, marketing professors at INSEAD in France and New York’s Cornell University respectively, subsequent studies showed that "low-fat labels lead all consumers—particularly those who are overweight—to overeat snack foods." After all, a reduced-fat version of a cookie often has just as many calories as its "original" counterpart (not to mention more sugar). Chandon and Wansink extended their theory to fast-food restaurants that claim to be healthy. When foods are perceived to be good for you people eat too much of them.
Fortunately, the tyranny of the low-fat diet seems to be waning. Three years ago, Toronto-based chef and food writer Jennifer McLagan struggled to drum up interest for her idea for a cookbook about animal fat. Her 2005 effort, Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore
She eventually found a taker, and her book, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes
As the obesity epidemic was later to arrive in Europe, the pro-fat backlash isn’t yet in full swing there, but signs are emerging. A recent study in the NEJM fingering total calories, not fats or carbs, as responsible for weight loss, made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic. And anecdotes abound. British celebrity chef Anthony Worrall Thompson has been blatant about using lard in his restaurants. In Norway, sausage consumption is up.
Even mainstream nutritional experts have recanted. The blanket message that "fat is bad for you" has few remaining adherents. The AHA, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the American Council on Science and Health have all modified the message, from their original admission that unsaturated fats are good for you to the grudging acknowledgement that even trans fats may not be as bad as they’ve been portrayed to be. "We should apologize for making people think about ‘percentage of calories,’" says the AHA’s Eckel, adding that the focus should be on total calories. "You want to eat steak? That’s fine. Just make it six ounces rather than 16."
To undo decades of fat-phobia, it’s going to take a more rousing endorsement. And for that, it’s necessary to leave the realm of science and enter the kitchen, where it’s easier to consider the possibilities. Take guacamole, or the pat of butter that finishes a risotto or a chocolate pudding. McLagan includes fat in everything from salad to dessert, with recipes for grilled steak and red wine sauce topped with bone marrow. For a sweet, try salty bacon brittle with pork cracklings. These are beyond rich—the animal fats give the dishes depth and an almost medieval earthiness—and they’re delicious, enough to make even confirmed skeptics salivate.
"Go ahead," McLagan says. "It won’t kill you."
Janet Paskin, who wrote about social stock markets in the May issue, gained three pounds reporting this story. This story has reporting by Ursula Sautter.
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This isn't new information. It's new MAINSTREAM information. But more information can be found at WestonAPrice.org, among other websites. Thank you very, very much for putting this on the cover. Saturated fat is GOOD for us! Tribal diets all over the world prove this. Eat whole foods, not non-fat foods. I'm writing for work, or I'd write longer praises about your article. Suffice it to say, thank you for sharing!
posted by JessicaLeah on 6/17/2009 6:53 pm