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Healthy Eating - The Low Fat Myth (Part 2)

By Charlotte Watts Dip.ION BANT – Nutritional Therapist – www.totalbeing.com and www.healthyconvenience.com

As we discussed in Part I, essential fats (omega 3 and 6 oils) are vital for our health.

Embarking on a low-fat diet not only reduces the amount of harmful saturated fats (although we need some), but also the essential fatty acid (EFA) intake which can have disastrous consequences. Ironically one of these can be weight gain, as they are needed for correct fat metabolism in the body.

Since the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of processing to mass produce and preserve food for longer, many of the EFAs naturally present in nuts, seeds, vegetables and their oils have been lost as they are very susceptible to damage by heat and light.

Much of the benefits of oils are also found in their crude states and when refined they can lose other beneficial nutrients such as sterols and fat-soluble vitamins, needed for many functions, but most ironically the correct regulation of cholesterol. In his book Smart Fats, Michael A Schmidt¹ says that this EFA deficiency can be passed down from generation to generation over the years and many people probably reflect an accumulation of deficiency over three or four generations. Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers have much higher requirements to develop their child’s brains in the womb and also in the high EFA content that should be present in breast milk and often lacking in bottle feeds. Schmidt cites this as a very real contributing factor to the rise in mental illness.

The problem is that when fat is reduced in the diet it must be replaced by something else, which will be carbohydrates or protein, often meat. Carbohydrates can contribute to obesity in the wrong forms and also raise the body’s production of arachidonic acid; this is the substance also found in meat that can stop the beneficial actions of EFAs and cause inflammation. So if the required level of around 30% of dietary fat is reduced to the 10% often advised on low-fat diets, the extra is often made up a fair proportion of carbohydrates and protein, both of which need EFAs to be metabolised properly in the body.

Fat also satisfies the appetite and whilst protein can do this too, carbohydrates will not – they do not stimulate the production of the enzyme that tells you that you are full. They are also less dense and digested much more quickly, leaving you hungry much sooner.

One device that the food industry has used for a long time is the hydrogenation of fats. This is when an unsaturated plant oil, liquid at room temperature, is essentially blasted with water in an industrial process which renders it solid at room temperature. Therefore the manufacturers can claim that it is “healthy” and “poly- or monounsaturated”, but they fail to mention that hydrogenated fats can act in the same way as saturated fats in the body – they become trans-fats in the process and the body does not recognise them as their more healthy sources. High temperatures also create trans-fats and these do not have to be stated on labels, the original unaltered source will be, with no mention of the process it has been through. Many foods like butter alternatives now state “no hydrogenated fats”, but this does not include all processes including heat. Trans-fats make platelets stickier and raise heart disease risk, hardly consistent with the advertising promises of many so-called “healthy” foods. In his best-selling and groundbreaking book “Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill”, Udo Erasmus2 lists that trans-fats adversely affect immune function, decrease testosterone and increase abnormal sperm, lower breast milk quality, alter insulin responses, interact with EFAs, makes cells more rigid and inflexible, interfere with pregnancy, raise Lp(a) a strong factor in atherosclerosis and correlate with low human birth weight – a recipe for disaster.

According to the Natural Health Consultant Andreas Moritz, it is not the fat that is essentially the problem, but the ratio in which we eat it to protein. He states, “The promotion of a low fat diet as the most healthy of all is partly responsible for the continuing increase in liver and gall bladder disease among the population in the Western Hemisphere. Until recently high protein foods were heralded as the most important food to provide physical strength and vitality. Fats, on the other hand, have been branded a culprit for causing many of today’s chronic diseases. But fats themselves can certainly not be held responsible for causing, for example, heart disease”3. This sounds controversial, but as with everything in nutrition, you have to look at the bigger picture and think laterally. Fat itself is not a problem for the body to metabolise as long at it is the right sort, in the right ratio and there is enough of the antioxidant nutrients present to counter the damaging oxidation which is an inevitable consequence of its metabolism in the body.

In his book The Amazing Liver Cleanse, Moritz also cites our relationship with protein as a contributing factor in the equation. Eating animal proteins causes diminishing bile production as the liver becomes clogged with gallstones. Bile is needed for the breakdown of fats and as indigestion, weight and other conditions are a consequence, people are often then told to cut down on fats. The problem here is that fat is needed to signal that the gallbladder empty out its contents of bile into the intestines to digest protein and fat. The body starved of fats will become deficient in essential fats and actually produce more cholesterol, exacerbating the problem by causing more liver gallstones.

Moritz says that low-fat milk is a very typical culprit in this vicious cycle, “In its natural state, milk contains the right amounts of fats required for the digestion of milk proteins. Without the natural quantity of fat in the milk, the gall bladder is not stimulated to release the right amount of bile required to digest both the milk proteins and the milk fats”. Undigested proteins will then be left in the gut, a common cause seen in cow’s milk fed babies who develop colic. Even the full-fat milk we drink has less fat when it comes out of the cow and certainly not enough to handle the protein content. It is not surprising then that dairy intolerances are on the rise, especially seen with the raised incidence of inflammatory and allergic diseases such as asthma and eczema in children and adults. Low-fat products are commonly high in skimmed milk products as they bulk them out and add flavour.

Since much of the vilification of fats has been around saturated or animal sources and the quality of protein is a key factor, we also have to look at our relationship with animals and the meat, eggs and dairy produce we derive from them. The flesh that our carnivorous ancestors ate would have come from animals that grazed naturally and moved around to do so. Even when we began farming them, animals would have had plenty of exercise and eaten natural grasses, so the fat that they grew would be higher in healthy fats. Many animals are now fed on grains and as grains provoke an insulin reaction, if they are eaten and an animal remains sedentary, the fat it accumulates will be a less metabolically active “white” fat, rather than a more thermogenic (heat-producing) “brown fat”. Brown fat has more mitochondria in the cells, which produce energy and give the colour. Game for instance is considered healthier as it is naturally leaner and browner in colour and part of our historical diet. It also has more of the healthy omega 3 oils, especially in wild game such as deer and rabbit4. Here the meat will also be higher in protein due to increased muscle mass; meaning the ratio of fat to protein will be healthier. Remember that our ancestors would prefer animal organs to flesh where possible, as they are naturally more nutritious.

The same applies to dairy produce and eggs; both a nutritional reflection of the animal from which they came. Eggs can be a valuable source of omega 3 oils, (one of the few for some vegetarians) if they come from a healthy free-range chicken. Dairy does not have the same high DHA and EPA content found in human breast milk – these are the fatty acids that make up a high proportion of our brains and are made from omega 3 oils. If a cow has been fed growth hormones and antibiotics, her milk will contain these. Natural organic milk is the least inflammatory, but it is the lactose, the milk sugars that cause humans problems not the inherent fat content as mentioned above.

Choosing meat, eggs and a little dairy that has had as natural a life as possible and ensuring a good variety of proteins by adding different types of meat, means that animal sources of food can provide some healthy sources of fats. If eaten several times a week, but offset with a higher proportion of vegetable oil sources, the damaging consequences of a high saturated fat diet can be offset.

It is important to note that vegetarians, whilst having many health benefits on their side, are also likely to have a much higher ratio of the generally plant based omega 6 oils than the omega 3 oils that are mainly found in oily fish. Some plant foods such as walnuts, flax and pumpkin seeds also contain omega 3 oils, but alongside omega 6, so a vegetarian will be very unlikely to get on top of an imbalance in essential fats. This can essentially present itself as an omega 3 oil deficiency with symptoms such as depression, dry skin, inflammatory health problems, high blood pressure, tingling in the arms or legs, being prone to infections, finding weight loss difficult or memory decline5. A vegetarian with any of these symptoms should consider an omega 3 oil supplement – fish oils are best and a nutritionist can help in this decision. Even when a vegetarian diet contains large amounts of plant fats, they do not appear to have a detrimental effect on the circulatory system and therefore the heart. The American Medical Association recently reported, “a vegetarian diet could prevent 97% of all cases of thrombosis leading to heart attacks”.

This vegetarian diet would of course involve the more natural forms of vegetable fat and not the processed, hydrogenated forms found in low-fat products. We are talking about the inherently beneficial properties of foods such as olives, raw nuts, seeds, vegetables, avocadoes, grains and their cold-pressed, unadulterated oils, treated with the respect they deserve and still recognisable as real food. Without the possible sugars, additives and bulkers used to make up for the fact that the fat is removed, the food is healthy and less than 10% fat in your diet is not.

The following suggestions from Michael A. Schmidt are taken from Smart Fats1 as guidelines for a healthy body and brain and are a useful general overview of fats (see Part I for specific dietary sources):

• Keep total fat intake around 20-30% - higher or lower in certain circumstances
• Reduce saturated fat where appropriate
• Make sure your unsaturated fat intake is adequate, perhaps 40% of total fat
• Keep the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio between 1:1 and 1:3 if possible*
• Make sure your diet is rich in nutrients that help the use of fatty acids: magnesium, zinc, vitamins C, B3 and B6
• Never use unsaturated omega 3 fatty acids for cooking*
• Avoid trans- fats (from processed foods)
• Ensure that the diet contains antioxidant-rich foods that may help to protect brain membranes.

*See Part I for further advice

Total Being Opinion

It becomes obvious that fat is a commercial, historical and very personal issue. Our relationship in the last few generations has been extremely warped by an attempt to rectify the post-Industrial Revolution mistakes. This has lead to a great misunderstanding about fat and our bodies; one of the healthiest peoples on the planet, the Inuits have a diet of about 60% fat and traditionally virtually no heart disease. It is too easy to just see fat as that on our body and we need to look at why foods that we evolved to eat, such as nuts are a much higher fat content than any low-fat food would wish to see on its label.

Always follow the simple mantra “if you don’t know what it is and it has more than three syllables, you probably shouldn’t eat it”; if an ingredient list is really long, that package is more a chemical soup than a foodstuff. Look at a few labels and you will start to see what we mean – the difference between a children’s commercial peanut butter and the organic, healthy variety is always an eye-opener. The butter and spreads market is especially interesting as people can very obviously see that this is a block of fat. A little, more natural organic butter is a much healthier alternative to an over-processed variety or start looking at labels and choose those without additives or trans- fats. It is better to have a natural product with a higher, beneficial fat content, than a supposedly “healthy” low-fat alternative that might have 20% less fat, but that fat could be extremely damaging to your health if it has been highly processed.

So feel free to eat your healthy fats with plenty of different coloured fruit and vegetables. If you feel that you have a condition related to fat metabolism, it may be difficult to discern where any essential fat imbalances lie on your own. Remember, a nutritionist can help to decipher this with a full consultation and health history.

See www.totalbeing.com for a Nutritional Assessment to choose the right diet and supplements to help you get in control of your health!

See www.healthyconvenience.com for help remembering how to get healthy – for posters, shopping guides and recipes.

References

1. Schmidt M. A Smart Fats. Frog, Ltd 1997.
2. Erasmus U. Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill. Alive Books 1993.
3. Moritz A. The Amazing Liver Cleanse. St Annes Press 2000.
4. Braly J. Dangerous Grains. Avery 2002.
5. Holford P and Pfeiffer C. Mental Illness – The Nutrition Connection. ION Press 1996.