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The Low Fat Diet: A Big Fat Lie?
For more than three decades we have been subjected to dietary propaganda that a low-fat diet is the key to losing weight and preventing disease. Public officials and the medical profession continue to broadcast the message. And the food industry – eager to sell their low-fat, high-margin, fake foods – is happy to reinforce the belief that a low-fat diet is the key to plaque-free arteries and a slim figure.
The problem is that this is exactly the wrong advice for weight loss and your health. In fact, the “solution” has actually made our problems with obesity, heart disease and diabetes much worse.
The misplaced vilification of fat began in the 50’s and 60’s. But it was not until the late 1970s that the message was broadcast to the public. It began with a 1976 Senate report, titled Dietary Goals for the United States. It was written by a journalist with no background in health, who was advised by a Harvard nutritionist who viewed dietary fat as the nutritional equivalent of smoking cigarettes. Shortly after, countless health organizations (including the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association) and mobilized to spread the word that “eating fat makes you fat” and that a low-fat diet is the best way to prevent disease.
The food industry quickly joined the cause, but without the tasty fat, the food was bland. To compensate, they replaced the fat with sugar, producing thousands of new “low-fat” products. Americans had soon replaced a portion of the fat in our diet with refined carbohydrates.
And did we ever believe the propaganda. Millions of Americans came to associate “low-fat” on food label with “good for you.” This led people to overeat foods that were “low fat,” even though they had the same number of calories as the regular brand and often far more carbohydrates. Journalists even came up with a name for it – the Snackwell Effect – named after a brand of low-fat, high-sugar Nabisco cookies aimed at health-conscious consumers.
The problem is that while our percentage of calories from fat did go down, our collective weight began to go up… up… up.
According to National Health Examination surveys, the rate of obesity in the U.S. during the 60’s and 70’s was relatively stable – around 12 to 14% of the population. Starting around 1980, this number began to rise. By the end of the 80’s, over 20% of the population was obese. Today, more than 25% of the population is considered obese.
And not only has there been an explosion of obesity, but also of related diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
Thankfully, it seems people are finally starting to wake up. However, it is not because the public health authorities or the medical profession have changed their tune. If you are overweight in the United States, and you go to see a hospital dietician, you will almost certainly be put on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
No, people are starting to wake up because the studies are screaming that we have been going down the wrong path. And thankfully, the proliferation of new media has put this vital intelligence in people’s hands.
For example, the Women’s Health Initiative – a $450 million study involving 50,000 women – showed that an extremely low fat diet had no measurable impact on obesity. Neither did the diet show any measurable risk reduction (incidence or mortality) for cardiovascular disease, stroke, colorectal cancer, or breast cancer.
And as Gary Taubes pointed out in a New York Times article, at least four large trials between 1980 and 1984 comparing disease rates and diet “showed no evidence that men who ate less fat lived longer or had fewer heart attacks.”
These results of these studies led Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard – considered by many to be the dean of nutrition and health studies – to state that “the percentage of calories from fat in a diet has not been related to any important health outcome.”
The problems is that the low-fat message is far too simple. What is crucial is not necessarily how much fat you eat, but the type of fat.
Fat is a major component of your cell membranes. Your brain is mostly made of fat. Fat is also critical to help your body absorb certain vitamins and nutrients – such as CoQ10 and vitamins A, D, E, and K. These and other nutrients cannot be properly absorbed without dietary fat.
In fact, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that low-fat diets were associated with 20% less calcium absorption than higher-fat diets. In addition, the State University of New York at Buffalo found that people who eat low-fat diets develop weaker immune systems.
The message is clear. The conventional “low-fat” diet advice is counterproductive to your weight- loss efforts and to your health. If you want to reduce your risk of degenerative disease and maintain a healthy weight, it is far more important to limit your consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates. And you should pay more attention to the type of fats you eat, rather than the amounts.
Here is a simple plan for healthy eating and natural weight loss:
- Eliminate bad fats from your diet, including vegetable and seed oils and hydrogenated oils. DO consume plenty of good fats, including avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, fish oil, nuts, eggs, wild salmon, sardines and naturally-raised meats.
- Avoid processed carbohydrates, grains and sugars. DO consume a wide variety of herbs, leafy greens, and vegetables every day, and a moderate amount of fruit.
- Engage in resistance exercise to build strength and muscle, and interval training to quickly shed fat.
Mimic the diet of your ancestors. Eat unprocessed, natural foods and you will have better health, better control over your weight and greater satisfaction from the foods you eat.
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Great little article, says it all.
The secret to eating right.
My only question, what about butter and cheese? This is fat, and it’s delicious fat, also containing protein (in the cheese).
I suppose the answer will be, as long as the butter and cheese comes from cows who are not given growth hormones and antibiotics, the food is good.
Too many people still equate “no/low fat” with “it won’t make me fat…..”. whilst they ignore the other insidious ingredients! As for the neurotoxins in the sugar substitutes - nobody wants to imagine that the FDA would approve of any noxious substance.
Once again Jon is right on! Everything was “Low Fat” for years and we all bought in. The problem was they replaced that fat with sugar to keep the taste and guess what, we all got fatter! The name fat should have been given to sugar because so many assume if you eat fat, you will get fat and nothing could be further from the truth.
Thanks Jon
Tim Reynolds MD
TimReynoldsMD.com
Two thumbs up!!!
It’s about time we got information that has not been funded or twisted by profit-minded big business.
I agree 100 percent and have been preaching that fact for years.
No oil from seeds? Unsaturated, unhydrogenated rapeseed (canola), flaxseed, safflower, included? These are supposed to furnish omega 3s. I take it olive oil’s o.k. Would substituting lard or butter be appropriate?
If animal fat concentrates chemical toxins like DDT, as we’ve been informed for decades, wouldn’t one best shun them for the above oils?
While junk snaks doubtlessly raise the obesity statistics, why do some people expand on them more than others? A simplistic explanations — inheritance and excercise — have been the answers until the recent discoveries about epigenetic activity of a number of ingested (and perhaps even inhaled) environmental chemicals like pthlates and the lining material for food cans. These agents are now said to affect adipose regulators in embryos and foetuses.
Might your article carry more weight by addressing the above issues?
In my opinion, low-fat diets were the the biggest nutritional disaster of the 20th Century, & that’s where it should stay, in the 20th Century. It promoted large-scale consumption of sugar, wheat & corn, to which people developed food sensitivities & became fat. People missed out on essential fats, like omega 3s, which are needed to make cell membranes. The low-fat generation are now developing Alzheimers because they were deficient in good fats.
Grass-fed animals have a ratio of 1:1 omega 3s to omega 6s in their fat, which is ideal. Canola, corn & sunflower oil are extracted using heat (far more than cooking meat or fish), & this damages their structure & increases the proportion of omega 6s. Coconut oil, once villified as a saturated fat, is now recognised as a good fat because it is burned directly by the mitochondria (it cannot be stored in the body) & it assists weight loss.
I am confused regarding good oils.
They always say olive oil is OK, but if you cook with it, is it still OK?
How about macadamia nut oil, how about grapeseed oil? avocado oil, walnut oil?
Can you cook with those?
I read that the only oil to cook with is coconut oil. Is that true?
How about cooking in organic butter?
I really hope someone has an answer….
Olive oil is great for making you own salad dressing, but it can’t take the heat of cooking, as the smoke point is pretty low. Use virgin, organic coconut oil. It can take the high heat of cooking eggs and the like, although I do eat my eggs raw (farm fresh of course)!.
You can get coconut oil from nutiva.com. They have free shipping for the stuff. I get mine in gallon buckets, since it keeps at room temperature for a couple of years. I do go through a gallon within 3 months though. Whenever I make a smoothy I put 3 tablespoons of coconut oil in it.
in 1960 I stoped eating sweets such as candy,cake,ice cream,and all the others.The reason was I was boxing and the coach wanted me in a lower class.To make a long story short I have never liked sweets since.I probally have not drank 6 cokes in ten years,but when I quit smokeing 3 years ago with in six months I gained 34#. how can this be explained since I actually ate less? The only thing I know is I retired,had a hip enjury and am still unable to exercise.Can you really help or is this another rip off as so many are?
Thank for your reply!
Having grown up on a dairy farm in Minnesota surrounded by family of British ancestory and neighbors of German ancestory, it was obvious that high fat, even saturated fat as in fatty meats and dairy products, was contrary to the no-high-fat philosophy of the health industry.
The healthiest people I have ever known were these Minnesota farmers who ate large quanties of fat-remembering that they also ate organically grown food including lots of fruit and vegetables.
I am 73 and slightly overweight, but extremely healthy, and I follow the examples of those Minnesotans by eating as much fat as I choose, but making sure it is clean, unpolluted and a combination of dairy, meat, olive, flax, and fish oils.
Be careful. Do not listen to the propagandists. Observe, open mindedly, and you will see who is healthy and who is not. Unfortunately, an aged person who is dried up like a prune is likely on a no-fat diet. Fat people generally eat lots of trans fats and carbohydrates together within large quantities of processed foods including corn syrup and sugar. Soda drinkers take in vast amounts of sugar. The consumption of these sugars has increased expoentially with degenerative disease, particularly cancer.
i change my diet to eat like this and exercise with resistance training over 3 yrs ago my weight is down i don’t starve and my blood lipids are the best they ever have been anybody know were i can get whole milk that’s not been pasteurized or homogenize big money makes us pay with our life
Beecher Hinds, stopping smoking is a tough row to hoe, and you are to be congratulated for your effort. White, refined sugar is worse than smoking though, but it sounds like you quit both.
I wold recommend a dietary change. I started eating “paleo” about a year and a half ago and dropped 30 lbs from my gut pretty quick. You can go to marksdailyapple.com for lots more info, but basically yo need to drop all grains from your diet. Grains, besides being antinutrients, go to sugar, and then to fat. You also might want to buy the movie “Fat Head” by Tom Naughton. It’s informative and presented in a humorous way. You can get it on Amazon.
I concur .The low fat high carb diet has been a disaster for the US populace.
Beautiful! But does this mean we need not remove the chicken skin nor trim off the fat from pork when cooking?
I am 80 years old and grew up in NW Pennsylvania. We grew most of our own meat and vegetables. Lard was a staple since we butchered a pig and a cow each fall. We also had a venison, and our own chickens and eggs. Everyone was healthy and no one was overweight. One year, Father raised turkeys and I raised rabbits. I also raised goats one yeat so Father could have goat’s milk for his ulcers. The production of CRISCO began the hydrogenated fat folly. Father lived to 94 and one uncle lived till 113. Good German genes. Jim
Excelltent Article. When I was growing up un the 50´s in England my mother always said to me that bread, potatoes and sugar would make me fat!! How right she was. I now live in a very rural area of Northwest Spain (Galicia. In this area we have the oldest population in the whole of Spain. Regularly people live till over 90 and often well over 100. The diet is based around good food naturally grown with (until recently) no thought to the amount of fat. The pig is king here, home grown and butchered at home with home grown fruit and vegetables and hens, for eggs and meat.. We also have fresh, untreated, water in many villages. I have been here nearly five years and my health is better than ever in my life.
Coconut oil contains saturated fats and solidifies at low temperatures.Oil from seeds and vegetables not to be used?what about Sunflower oil,peanut oil and flaxseed oil?
This is for Beecher Hinds. What they don’t tell you about smoking.
1. Smoking depresses insulin production, so when you stop smoking, insulin production increases. Extra insulin production increases the appetite & makes you fatter.
2. Smoking depresses TSH production; you make less thyroid hormones, & this slows down your metabolism.
Doctors seem to be in denial of this, you are told that “You are eating more because you aren’t putting cigarettes in your mouth”.
I wish I’d known this when I gave up smoking - I put on 30 pounds. I also wish that I’d known about Thought Field Therapy. Apparently, smokers who quit using this technique rarely put on weight.
For Marty -
You can go to the Campaign for Real Milk website to find out if fresh milk is available in your area. Unfortunately, many states have made it illegal to sell unpasteurized milk - using erroneous propaganda about its safety to further the interests of agribusiness, among other things. Here is the address to the website. http://www.realmilk.com/ You may also want to check out westonaprice.org. Great place to visit to find out real solutions to our national crisis of chronic disease and obesity.
Great write up. The best I have read so from THB. I totally agree with you. I an effort to run away from so called fatty foods we have maybe unintentionally closed our eyes to the dangers of food contents like sugar and too much carborhydrates
totally agree with you. I have been using organic butter olive oil and coconut oil for years with fabulous results. The only time I gain weight is when I overload on carbs. Going back to a low carb diet keeps me trim and healthy
Why not whole grains….our ancestors survived on those too.
Our ancestors ate very little whole grains. We did not have the technology to process these foods in bulk. You can’t just go along and strip grains off the stalk and eat them.
If you are going to eat grains, they should certainly be whole grains - not refined. But virtually all grains - even whole grains - causes a strong glycemic response.
And that is the last thing that most of our carbohydrate-overloaded population needs.
Grains also contain anti-nutrients such as phytates.
I believe grains should be eaten sparingly, if at all… and they should certainly NOT make up the foundation of our diet as the USDA food pyramid has advised for decades.
Hi Jon: I am a little disappointed you did not dare to touch the “saturated fat myth”.
I was expecting you will be saying something about it but nothing came out.
Sorry, probably next time.
Thanks.
Alfredo E.
P.S: Excellent article. I did not want to leave the impression I didn’t like it.
Great write up. The cultures that possess a diet rich in saturated fats tend to have the fewest health problems. Even the coconut oils that are presented by the media as “bad” or “dangerous” fats have significant health benefits and all the modern studies are tying these fats to lowered cholesterol.
This article highlights how researches are diverted to the interest of manipultor’s to establish their products.When one lie is repeated many it has become truth. But by this lie they had been killing billions over the years
This article is highly interesting as it has opened another for discussion with respect to obesity and the associated diseases. This new explanation has shed more light on reasons why many refrained from fatty foods and still became fat. However, further research is required to avoid the mistakes of old.
Obute Joseph, Nigeria is a Pharmacist.
I began following Peter Gott’s simple “No flour, no sugar” approach to eating 10 weeks ago and have lost 10 pounds. I don’t pay any attention to fat consumption - meaning I eat some high fat foods and I don’t care.
I spent 20+ years jogging 15 to 20 miles per week *and* riding my bike more than 60 miles per week - and I was always overweight. Today I now understand that the nutritionist who told us to avoid all fat - and eat more grains (as did the USDA food pyramid circa 1992) was hugely wrong. And led me down a path of weight battles for decades.
“No flour, no sugar” leads to a low glycemic index diet and definitely reduces one’s appetite. In a way, a very low carb/high fat diet is merely a more extreme form of a low GI diet.
“No flour, no sugar” has been very easy to follow and stick with; I eat great food and am not hungry. I fully expect to get my weight down now to where I want it and to keep it there the rest of my life. I never had such success with any other weight management or exercise approach - most low fat diets lead to feeling hungry much of the time! Any diet that leaves you feeling hungry is pretty well guaranteed not to work long term
Duh!
Excellent article. It’s a pitty that the media doesn’t pay more attention to the question of the right use of fat in the diet. Many lives could be saved if the question of fat and sugar would be clearly exposed to the people. But the big pharma prefers the way it goes now. Since the vilification of consuming fat the heart sicknesses went up dramatically.
I’m not so sure this information is correct.
I live in Chongqing China (pop. 33 million). The people here eat a high carb diet (rice and noodles) and lots of saturated fats. Almost everything is fried in vegetable oil (primarily canola), and they eat lots of salt, yet 90-95% of the people here are very slim with low rates of heart disease. It is not genetic as when they immigrate to the US or Canada, within five years they are as fat as everyone else. The one thing missing from their diet is sugar; they eat very little or no sugar. They also eat lots of vegetables. It doesn’t make any sense, but those are the facts.
hello!
I am very excited for it.i guss it work & try for it.
please tell more about vegetables oil & another.
thanks alot
plz donot send me no more e-mail. i will be very thankful to you
I’d like to add to what Brian in Chongqing China says. First of all I’m envious. I want to go to Chongqing! Second, when I proselytize for the low-carb diet, people sometimes say, “But what about China, they eat nothing but rice and they’re skinny!”
I have spent nearly a year in various parts of CHina, and my experience is as follows. China is Atkins-land. They eat the fattiest, most low-carb diet I have ever seen.
When I go out to dinner with friends, there will usually be no starch or sugar whatsoever. 5-10 different dishes on the table, no rice anywhere in sight. Occasionally rice will be brought out after everyone has finished eating, and most people ignore it or take no more than one bite. Sugar and sweet food in general is almost unknown.
And fatty? The typical way to serve meat or fish is to serve it entirely submerged in a large bowl of oil. You dig down and pick out the pieces of food dripping in oil.
I’ll say it again, China is the most hardcore high-fat low-carb place I’ve ever been.
Now I need to clarify. This was MY experience. Going out to eat with relatively rich chinese. THis is not the experience of the average poor Chinese person.
It’s true that poor CHinese people eat a fairly starchy diet. And they are skinny. Why is that?
Well they aren’t just skinny, they are short and visibly malnourished. So I think their skinniness is more the effect of malnutrition than anything else. They are so malnourished that they tend to be a full half a foot shorter than their “natural” genetic height. You can see this when they immigrate to the US or Canada and their kids are 6 inches taller than they are.