Fighting fat phobia: Changing fat from feared to revered once again

July 4 2017 by , medical review by in Failed low-fat diets, Low carb & high fat, Real food, Saturated fat

Imagine this scenario: It is 20,000 years ago and our distant ancestors are celebrating around a fire as the meat of a freshly killed beast roasts in the flames.

They sing and dance and revel; the hunters’ exploits are dramatized. And as the glistening pieces of roasted, marbled meat and rich organs are carved and shared, some wise woman yells out:

“Don’t eat the fat! It’s bad for you!!”

Never, ever happened, right?

In fact, we know that the fat was the most prized part of the hunters’ catch. Evidence abounds for the revered role of fat in almost every era up until the mid 20th century. Ancient fire pits show smashed bones, from which the marrow (almost 100 per cent fat) was extracted. In fact, the presence of such smashed bones at an archeological site, say anthropologists, means “humans were here.”

Many cultures would mix fat and grease with dried meat or fish to create a high-energy life-sustaining staple that lasted years. The native Cree of North America had one such item called pemmican, from pimi, meaning fat, that was mixed with pounded dried game and berries that lasted for up to 10 years. It not only supported their nomadic tribe, but it sustained the North American fur traders and explorers in their travels well into the last century. “Pemmican is the most satisfying food I know,” said early 20th Century arctic explorer Robert Peary, who because of pemmican’s ability to nourish, pack light, and last took it on all three of his expeditions to find the North Pole.

The English language, from the Bible on, reflects the special nature of fat in sayings like: “living off the fat of the land”; “sucking the marrow out of life”, “slaying the fatted calf” and “chewing the fat.” Modern aphorisms like “bringing home the bacon” and living “high off the hog” still abound.

The fear of fat

Yet, if you have been anything like me, you have feared fat for almost 35 years, ever since the various nations’, food guides, based on the low-quality epidemiological evidence promoted by the likes of Ancel Keys, began advising us to avoid fat and switch instead to low-fat foods, all for our health and waistline.

For three decades, up until 18 months ago, I chose low-fat cheese, skim milk, extra lean meat over regular. I had egg white omelettes, zero fat Greek yogurt, and low-fat turkey bacon instead of the real thing. My chicken breast was always skinless and my toast was always dry — and I actually thought I preferred it that way. A pound of butter in our house would last months.

I would even scold my husband to keep fat out of my food. I remember once he was making a Bolognese sauce from an old Italian cookbook that called for whipping cream. I was cross. I made him leave that key ingredient out (and the dish was dull and tasteless.).

I wasn’t alone — all my girlfriends were all the same. We’d meet for lunch and have our salads with dressings on the side. We’d trade the latest low-fat muffin or cookie recipe that used applesauce instead of oil. We believed the simplistic equation: “eat fat = get fat.” We didn’t understand why, despite this devotion to the dogma, our waist lines over the years thickened and we felt constantly hungry. I would be so starving when I woke up that I had to eat breakfast (low fat, of course) first thing. I’d then be ravenous before noon.

I thought this approach was working. But when I hit menopause, without changing a thing my weight inched up, my waist inched out and my blood sugar went awry. I knew something was wrong.

Adding back fat to our diet

Adding fat back into our diets makes all the difference. But with fat phobia, at first it was hard to do.
Overcoming my fear of fat was the biggest hurdle and remains the biggest issue to explain in my coaching of friends and family in the low-carb ketogenic diet.

Many women think it means they suddenly have to eat copious amounts of meat and protein. “I don’t like steak and eggs and bacon,” they say.

I was the same. In fact, while I knew all about the Atkins diet, and had even seen male friends drop copious pounds while eating steak and eggs, eating like that repelled me. Even when I tried, I couldn’t sustain it more than a day or so.

Plus, I have always I loved my veggies and my salad greens. My big vegetable garden that I plant each year in my backyard is not only a source of gorgeous fresh produce, tending it and working my hands in the soil is a favourite mode of stress release.

That is the beauty of the low carb HIGH FAT diet — I don’t have to give up my veggies. All I have to do is add back fat – in the form of butter, olive oil, coconut oil, cheese and saturated fat. I sauté fresh picked kale, chard, or spinach in butter or olive oil. Zucchini noodles makes a great base for a rich Alfredo or Bolognese sauce with whipping cream and plenty of cheese. Who knew cabbage sautéed in butter was almost meal in itself? Pizza with a cauliflower crust is even more satisfying than a wheat crust.

While my consumption of whole eggs, whites and yokes, has definitely gone up, the rest of my protein intake has stayed the same. But we are consuming a pound of butter each week. I am much less hungry, my blood sugar is normal, and I have lost 10 lbs (5 kg) and kept it off. Whipping cream in any dish is a welcomed ingredient.

I think back to that imagined scene around the ancient fire and know now the wise women like me were urging their loved ones “eat the fat!”

—
Anne Mullens

Low Carb for Beginners

Earlier with Anne Mullens

Eight Reasons to Adopt a Low-Carb Diet for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

“A Light Went on for Me”

Top videos about fat

The cholesterol network system
22:24
Can you drastically lower your cholesterol, by eating MORE fat?
The big fat surprise
10:36
Have three decades of dietary (low-fat) advice from the US government been a mistake? It seems the answer is a definite yes.
The unknown story of vegetable oils
30:15
Nina Teicholz on the history of vegetable oils – and why they are not as healthy as we've been told.
MEMBERS ONLY
MEMBERS ONLY
MEMBERS ONLY
Is saturated fat bad?
07:29
Low carb is great. But could the saturated fat clog your arteries and kill you? Top low-carb doctors answer this question.
MEMBERS ONLY
MEMBERS ONLY

Name

Provider / Domain

Expiration

Description

ckdc-premium

.dietdoctor.com

1 month

app-banner

.dietdoctor.dev.dietdoctor.com

1 day

This cookie shows whether user closed the App Banner prompt

_gaexp

Google LLC

dietdoctor.com

1 year

Used to determine a user's inclusion in an experiment and the expiry of experiments a user has been included in.

_gaexp

Google LLC

.dietdoctor.com

1 year

Used to determine a user's inclusion in an experiment and the expiry of experiments a user has been included in.

_opt_awcid

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

_opt_awmid

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

_opt_awgid

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

_opt_awkid

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

_opt_utmc

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

_opt_expid

.dietdoctor.com

25 seconds

gtm_auth

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

gtm_debug

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

gtm_experiment

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

gtm_preview

.dietdoctor.com

3 days

_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress

Hotjar Ltd

.dietdoctor.com

30 minutes

The cookie is set so Hotjar can track the beginning of the user's journey for a total session count. It does not contain any identifiable information.

_ga

Google LLC

.dietdoctor.com

2 years

This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports.

_dc_gtm_UA-3268327-1

.dietdoctor.com

1 minute

This cookie is associated with sites using Google Tag Manager to load other scripts and code into a page. Where it is used it may be regarded as Strictly Necessary as without it, other scripts may not function correctly. The end of the name is a unique number which is also an identifier for an associated Google Analytics account.

_hjFirstSeen

Hotjar Ltd

.dietdoctor.com

30 minutes

The cookie is set so Hotjar can track the beginning of the user's journey for a total session count. It does not contain any identifiable information.

_dc_gtm_UA-22012422-2

.dietdoctor.com

1 minute

AWSELBCORS

Amazon.com Inc.

www.podbean.com

5 minutes

The cookies AWSELB and AWSELBCORS are functionally the same cookies. The latter has an explicit SameSite attribute set because of changes made from Chrome 80 and upwards.

_ga_YMCP8KW9S4

.dietdoctor.com

2 years

_hjIncludedInSessionSample

Hotjar Ltd

www.dietdoctor.com

2 minutes

This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit

__cf_bm

Cloudflare Inc.

.vimeo.com

30 minutes

This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website.

_gid

Google LLC

.dietdoctor.com

1 day

This cookie is set by Google Analytics. It stores and update a unique value for each page visited and is used to count and track pageviews.

CookieScriptConsent

CookieScript

www.dietdoctor.com

1 year

This cookie is used by Cookie-Script.com service to remember visitor cookie consent preferences. It is necessary for Cookie-Script.com cookie banner to work properly.

__cf_bm

Cloudflare Inc.

.podbean.com

30 minutes

This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website.

_hjIncludedInPageviewSample

Hotjar Ltd

www.dietdoctor.com

2 minutes

This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit.

_dc_gtm_UA-22012422-1

.dietdoctor.com

1 minute

_gaexp_rc

.dietdoctor.com

25 seconds

Name

Provider / Domain

Expiration

Description

IDE

Google LLC

.doubleclick.net

1 year

This cookie is set by Doubleclick and carries out information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the end user may have seen before visiting the said website.

_uetvid

Microsoft Corporation

.dietdoctor.com

1 year

This is a cookie utilised by Microsoft Bing Ads and is a tracking cookie. It allows us to engage with a user that has previously visited our website.

loc

Oracle Corporation

.addthis.com

1 year 1 month

Stores the visitors geolocation to record location of sharer

test_cookie

Google LLC

.doubleclick.net

15 minutes

This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to determine if the website visitor's browser supports cookies.

_gcl_au

Google LLC

.dietdoctor.com

3 months

Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services

_uetsid

Microsoft Corporation

.dietdoctor.com

1 day

This cookie is used by Bing to determine what ads should be shown that may be relevant to the end user perusing the site.

uvc

Oracle Corporation

.addthis.com

1 year 1 month

Tracks how often a user interacts with AddThis

YSC

Google LLC

.youtube.com

Session

This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded videos.

MUID

Microsoft Corporation

.bing.com

1 year

This cookie is widely used my Microsoft as a unique user identifier. It can be set by embedded microsoft scripts. Widely believed to sync across many different Microsoft domains, allowing user tracking.

_fbp

Meta Platform Inc.

.dietdoctor.com

3 months

Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Google LLC

.youtube.com

6 months

This cookie is set by Youtube to keep track of user preferences for Youtube videos embedded in sites;it can also determine whether the website visitor is using the new or old version of the Youtube interface.

Name

Provider / Domain

Expiration

Description

_ga_7S1SXKKDKN

.dietdoctor.com

2 years

Name

Provider / Domain

Expiration

Description

_hjSession_1945121

.dietdoctor.com

30 minutes

_hjSessionUser_1945121

.dietdoctor.com

1 year

_ga_Y4DLH4EPXM

.dietdoctor.com

2 years

The fear of fat

Adding back fat to our diet

More

Earlier with Anne Mullens

Top videos about fat