There is not one single person on this planet at the moment that is not confused about fats. Which ones are saturated? Are they healthy? What about trans fats? Which fats are healthy to eat anyway?? These were exactly my type of questions a few short years ago until I realized I just had to sort it out myself. Here is a very elucidating summary of my research about saturated fats (more to follow about trans fats etc). I’m sure it will help you loads because things are very simply really; too much misinformation can make it difficult sometimes to tell the difference between black and white I guess.
So, which are the saturated fats? For a start, saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature; that depends on the temperature of course, maybe in a hot tropical climate they are not as solid as in UK for example but you get the picture. Therefore, we have a list of saturated fats which consists of coconut oil, palm kernel oil, butter and lard. Due to their chemical structure (which is not something I want to expand on, just to keep things simple) saturated fats are very very stable at high temperatures; their chemical structure does not change, neither their properties. This is very important for cooking for example, because it means that they are ideal since they do not transform to some kind of nasty carcinogenic or inflammatory substances as a result of the cooking itself. They are safe for cooking.
I understand that you have your objections now because you have been told that saturated fats are the single most dangerous thing you do for your heart and cardiovascular system in general. Well, if you have checked this blog before you know that this is not true at all. The “War of Fats” condemning saturated fats as evil, started for reasons very different from protecting public health. More on that on a future article as it is indeed very interesting to see how our dietary habits are affected by financial factors… what I am trying to say here is that saturated fats are not dangerous for the body at all. They have been wrongly associated with atherosclerosis but scientists now realize that people who eat saturated fats on a daily basis have exactly the same level of atheromatic plaques in their arteries as people who never eat saturated fats at all! How is that possible if these fats cause heart attacks then? Apparently , cholesterol and saturated fats are not at the reason why atherosclerosis develops in the first place (see article on Tribute to Dr Kilmer McCully for this amazing story). Also, the records from hospitals in the 1920s show that as long as people were using traditional fats for their cooking like real butter and lard, about 1000 deaths in USA were due to heart attacks every year. When we switched to the “healthy” vegetable oils and the fake butter stuff this figure jumped to 500,000 deaths. Quite a change, right? Also indigenous populations from all over the world which keep their traditional dietary habits intact from western influences, still consume really large amounts of saturated fats ( from coconuts or fatty fish for example) but are really healthy and lean. As explained thoroughly in my article about cholesterol, fats and cholesterol are very important for the human biology and health. Hopefully by now you are at least a bit concerned about the reality of fats.
The bottomline about saturated fats is that:
- They are healthy and DO NOT cause cardiovascular disease
- They are your safest oils for cooking
- They protect the brain tissues from degeneration
