Fat’s Where It’s At

This blog is the first of a series I’ll be doing on fat. My goal in this series is to try to disprove some of the misconceptions people have about fat. So why has fat received such a bad reputation anyway?

I believe that fat began to get a bad name for itself back in the 1950’s as a result of a physicist name Ancel Keys. It was keys who theorized that cholesterol and fat were leading determinants of heart disease. It was Keys’ study that actually resulted in McDonald’s moving away from the practice of frying their French fries in tallow, which was the ingredient that made McDonald’s French fries famous. I posted a blog about this some time ago (Best French Fries).

Keys’ research was based his Seven Countries Study. However, as recent as 2017, the True Health Initiative published a paper that determined that Keys may have selected and excluded specific countries from his study in order to reach his desired findings. The paper explains that Keys excluded countries like Denmark, France and Norway, which typically have diets rich in fat yet have lower rates of heart disease. Also, Chile was excluded from the study and is a country with lower fat diet, yet higher instances of heart disease.

Not only do these contradictions to Keys’ study cause concern, but we can also take a look at what has happened since his findings and our determination to eliminate fat from our diets. In 1980 only about 15% of people were obese, compared with 36% today. In addition, the rate of heart disease has doubled in the same amount of time. It appears likely that Keys nemesis John Yudkin, may have had the correct theory that it was sugar, not fat, that was making us obese and sick.

In my next blog, I’ll discuss why the right fats may actually be good for us.