Healthy and Unhealthy Fats

One of the great nutrition myths of the 80s and 90s: that fat-free foods made people lose fat. This myth caused millions of people to eat totally opposite to their nature. Left only with carbs for fuel, it sometimes caused diabetes.

Another myth was that eating fat caused you to become fat. In truth, eating healthy fats actually helps you lose fat.

But fats on the whole are healthy, with some major important exceptions. Good fats: almonds, olive oil and olives (though olives often have a lot of sodium), milk fat (preferably unpasteurized), palm oil, moderate amounts of chocolate (low-sugar which is tough to find), coconunt oil, organic animal fat like in hamburgers not overcooked, high-quality fish oils, chia seeds, flax seed (though they say men should stick with chia), etc.

If you don't really understand fats, you really almost cannot be healthy in the industrial food society we live in. It is worth the time to figure out not just the basics but the fine details, because fats can kill you.

Basically there are two fuels that people burn: fats and carbs. If you don't eat fats you have to eat more carbs. To be stored as excess fat on your body, you have to burn fuel too fast so that there is a surplus. This is easy to do with carbs because they burn quickly, but it is hard to do with fats because they burn slowly.

Eating more fats and protein is also good for diabetes. Carbs drives up insulin in a big way whereas fats do not. Eating fat-free pushed millions of people toward diabetes and/or insulin resistance because each time they traded in fats for carbs, they spiked their insulin in an unnatural way.

Having said that

a) eating too many fats can make you sick. You have to figure out how much is right for you. You can't just inhale a gallon of cream, you won't be able to process it. (I've tried drinking a pint of cream in one shot; though it wasn't too bad compared to what you might expect, I did feel queasy a couple hours later). Also many people do not process plant fats well in their livers and so plant oils can have a toxic effect if you eat too many.

b) there are "fats that heal & fats that kill". The industrial oils like soybean and corn oil used in junk foods are fats that kill. There really is never a good reason to use corn or soybean oils, and yet they have been a staple of American cooking in the industrial food era because they come from our subsized grain crops. They kill because they have a super-lopsided ratio of inflammatory (Omega 6) to anti-inlammatory (Omega-3) fats. Trans fats are deadly as well but are being phased out in most foods, though somehow they still exist.