Fat is the New Carb

Seventy percent of the American population is overweight, of which 35% are obese according to a May 14, 2014 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The percentage of obesity in children and adolescents from ages 2–5 is 12%, and from ages 6–19 is 18%. Nearly eighty million Americans, 1 in 4, have type 2 diabetes, and the growing rate of this disease in children is alarming. Never in the history of our country have we been so overweight and obese or produced such overweight and obese children. Being overweight or obese is not just a cosmetic problem, being even just 10% over your recommended body weight significantly increases your risk for the following health problems:

• Coronary Heart Disease—the #1 killer of women over 50

• High Blood Pressure

• Stroke

• Type 2 Diabetes

• Abnormal Blood Fats

• Metabolic Syndrome

• Cancer

• Osteoarthritis

• Sleep Apnea

• Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome

• Reproductive Problems

• Gallstones

We have known about this obesity epidemic since the CDC broke the news in the mid-1990s almost twenty years ago. It was attributed then to our sedentary behavior and overeating, but I have learned that it is more than that. I attribute this epidemic to public policy guidance that was not based on scientific fact regarding saturated fats and the mass marketing campaign by the food and agriculture industries, providing us a constant barrage of advertisements for high sugar, poor quality, low nutrition, pre-packaged, chemical- and hormone-laden foods. This whole scheme is further promoted by the pharmaceutical industry, which wants you to take your daily doses of prescribed medications to treat the side effects caused by poor lifestyle choices. The food we eat today is not the food that our mothers and fathers ate in the early 1950s, much less our ancestors.

It has been just within the past few years that I have let go of my “fat phobic” eating habits. I have read several publications by brave authors, providing scientific support for the “fat is not bad” theory. I say “brave” because they are going against not only the USDA Dietary Guidelines but also the food and agriculture industries. There are four books in my nutritional arsenal that have supported me in my journey moving from “grains to ghee.” The first is Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes. Mr. Taubes is an investigative, scientific journalist, and author of several books on diet and health. In 2007 he published Good Calories, Bad Calories and followed by Why We Get Fat… which is an extension of that book including five years of further research. His bottom line is “Carbohydrates make you fat.” Mr. Taubes research is supported by my second recommended book, Grain Brain by Dr. Perlmutter, in which he provides the science as to the damage that grains do to our health. And the third book is Michael Polan’s Eat Read Food … Not Too Much, Mostly Green, which goes into detail about our food system.

The fourth book, which my husband and I just finished reading, was published in January 2015, titled The Big Fat Surprise - Why Butter, Meat, & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. Nina Teicholz documents the conclusions of her nine-year investigation regarding the stigma around saturated fat, revealing that everything we have been told is wrong. She documents in great detail, how weak science championed by a few researchers influenced the public nutritional policy that has been the basis of our dietary guidelines for the past several decades. We have known these things for years, but the agriculture, food, and pharmaceutical industries don’t want you to change because it’s all about the money, money, money. My husband and I recently decided to give up processed carbohydrates and sugars. I will report on our progress in upcoming blogs. But I urge you to re-evaluate what you believe to be true. And don't be afraid to add some butter and meat back into your diet!