Are saturated fats bad for you?

Everyone knows that saturated fat is bad for you. It is embedded in us that eating saturated fats raises your cholesterol, "clogs your arteries," and in turn, leads to heart disease. The lesser known fact, however, is that every single point in that statement is false.

"Umm, what was that?" I'm sure most of you are looking at me like I just told you the Earth was flat. Oddly enough, if i were to ask you, "How do you know?" most people would respond with, "its common sense," or even more interesting, "Everyone knows that." It is so deeply seeded into American culture that Saturated fats = cholesterol = Heart disease, that even our government's nutritional regulations revolve around this "fact." But why? .... and when did saturated fat get such a bad rap? Before we dive into the why, we're going to have to understand fat and cholesterol at a molecular level.

Saturated vs. Unsaturated vs. Trans Fat

Saturated Fat is a hydrocarbon chain where every carbon molecule is seated with a hydrogen molecule. Because these chains are completely "saturated" with hydrogen molecules, they are stable and are not easily susceptible to oxidation or rancidity. These fats are normally solid at room temperature, ie. Animal fats (yum), butter, Coconut oil.

Unsaturated Fat describes other fats that are missing one or more hydrogen bonds, such as monounsaturated fat (where only one hydrogen cell is missing) or Polyunsaturated fat (where multiple hydrogen cells are missing). Because these chains are missing sections of hydrogen in the hydrocarbon chain, these fats are generally more unstable at room temperature, therefore remain liquid. ie. Vegetable oil, flaxseed oil, Olive oil. Monosaturated fats are relatively stable and are not very susceptible to rancidity. However, Polyunsaturated fats are extremely susceptible to rancidity.

Trans Fat Trans fats exist naturally in some dairy based foods but are more commonly created by a process called Hydrogenation. Hydrogen is artificially added to unsaturated fats in order to fill certain empty spots on the hydrocarbon chain in order to create the stability and structure of a saturated fat. This method allows food manufacturers to stabilize liquid based fats so they are more palatable. Hydrogenation of unsaturated fats also allows manufacturers to increase the shelf life of products, but because of their remaining hydrogen gaps, are still very open to oxidation and rancidity and is actually advised not to be used in cooking O_O.

How these fats affect our body

Saturated fats actually make up nearly half our cell membrane structure and contain vitamins K2, A, and D among others. These fats are converted to monosaturated fats and are used in many different ways including providing energy for brain power, enhancing your immune system, and even protecting liver functions from alcohol and other toxins. While you're body is low in Carbohydrate count, its primary source for energy is fat, a process called Ketosis. This is the essence of low carb dieting or lifestyles.

"BUT FAT CREATES CHOLESTEROL... THAT'S WHAT CLOGS YOUR ARTERIES....RIGHT?" LIKE THIS?? ------>

Before you get all excited, we have to understand what Cholesterol is.

Cholesterol is a lipid that is essential to the human body. It is used to create cells as well as serves as the precursor to the synthesis of many of our hormones including D3, or the sexual hormones like estrogen and testosterone. So contrary to most people's belief, cholesterol is actually a very good thing and necessary for human life.

"So what's all this about arteries being clogged by cholesterol?"

Here's where cholesterol gets its undeserved bad rap. There are two "types" of cholesterol, LDL and HDL. Low-density lipoproteins transport cholesterol from the liver to areas of the body that are in need of cholesterol. When cellular walls break, or when hormones are needed, LDL transports cholesterol to those locations for the beginning stages of synthesis. The second cholesterol, high-density lipoproteins, is then released to pick up the residual LDL cholesterol that is unused during synthesis. Your arteries are a central distribution point of blood flow in your body therefore anything in your blood is concentrated in your arteries. When substances, such as fat, go rancid or oxidize, they can cause arterial inflammation. Your body, being the ever so responsive type, then has your liver send out LDL cholesterol to the source of the damaged arterial tissue in order to begin the repair. Once the LDL has repaired some of the damaged tissue, it then gets picked up by HDL and brought back to the Liver for further processing. Here's where the problem lies, when LDL cholesterol is repairing inflamed tissue, because of its molecular make up, the LDL tends to get lodged within the grooves and gaps of inflammation. This makes it difficult for HDL to attach to the LDL and bring it back to the liver. When your arteries are chronically inflamed from rancid or oxidized fats, you begin to have an unhealthy amount of risidual LDL cholesterol build up in the walls of your arteries which could lead to heart attack or heart disease.

So to recap:

• Plaque build up in arteries is caused by residual LDL left behind by the repair of inflamed artery walls
• Rancidity and oxidation of fats cause the inflammation of artery walls
• Polyunsaturated fats such as vegetable, corn, or canola oils and are highly susceptible to rancidity and oxidation.

"HOLY CRAP! So everything we know about saturated fat, and the fats we have been told were a 'healthy alternative' like vegetable oil, are actually completely opposite? but it says vegetable!"

It is unfortunate but true my friends. So how exactly did we get it completely wrong you ask? When exactly did we go from eating good healthy fats to eating these polyunsaturated artery time bombs?

To understand how it all got started, Check out this video clip from "Fat head." It brings us back to the origins of the "lipid hypothesis" which states that high fat creates high cholesterol, which creates clogged arteries. Just do it, it's only 2 and a half minutes.

So Ancel Keys is the culprit, and his findings were presented almost 60 years ago in 1953. If you observe many of the findings, you actually tend to see more of a decline in heart disease in countries with high saturated fats. Check out the source of the graph to the right for more graphical findings. You can't really blame Keys, well, besides the whole, leaving out pesky data points that prove him wrong. There was SOMEthing about certain fats that caused issues of the heart. Everyone in America was already somewhat convinced that saturated fat HAD to be bad for you, even before Ancel Keys! What was it even before Keys that caused the suspicion?

In the beginning, there was Fat.

Prior to the 1900's, many Americans were still living on or near farmlands. Living off the land with naturally grown vegetation and grass fed cattle. The only oil or fat based products you could get your hands on back then was if you rendered your own Beef fat or Lard which contains 60% or more saturated fats. Lard was the #1 fat used in most households at the beginning of the 1900's when Heart disease only claimed 1 in 10 of the deaths recorded at the time (in 1994 it was 1 in 3).

In 1911, A little company called Procter and Gamble bought a patent from an English company who designed a way to make hydrogenated vegetable oil for use in candles. Of course candle sales were on a significant decline due to electrification so what's a company to do? They re-marketed the fat as a "healthy solution" to cooking with lard or butter. That's right, what we know now as the "bad fat" was being marketed as the healthy solution. It's not like Americans could just Google the contents of Crisco and it's effects on the human Body, they had to go with what the newspapers were saying. By the 1930's, Margarine (a trans fat at the time) surpassed butter usage for the first time ever and Heart disease was teetering on 1 in 5 deaths, nearly double of what it was 30 years before it.

Queue Ancel Keyes and his research 20 years later and It just snowballed from there. Marketing suggestions coupled with falsified statistical data was enough for the government to jump on board with the low-fat diet train. In 1955 President Eiesenhower suffered his first heart attack and was put on a highly publicized low-fat, low cholesterol diet. At the beginning of the diet his cholesterol started at 165 ml/dl when he was ordered to consume dry toast, Sanka, and a single egg for breakfast. His cholesterol climbed to 259 by the time he was out of office and he eventually died of Heart disease after having multiple heart attacks after office. Go figure, a low-fat, low cholesterol diet actually raised his cholesterol. Who would have thought that the "low-fat" substitutes available would have caused such a negative effect.

Since the Keys debacle, America has only grown more inclined to low-fat dieting up until recently. Even the national "food pyramid" was released that said we should be consuming more grain and wheat. You can basically turn that pyramid upside down to get a better idea of what healthy eating SHOULD be like.

So don't be scared of the high-fat, low carbohydrate diets, just make sure you're eating the right kinds of fat; Saturated or monounsaturated. Now, of course, eating TOO much fat can certainly cause you to gain weight, just like any unused energy source you consume. However, enjoy your fats people, it's what we were designed to live off of. Now all we have to do is get over our Carb and Sugar addiction and we'd be set. If you're interesting in learning how to make your own Lard or Tallow, check out my other Hub. All of my findings are information I've found with my own web research fueled by my passion for cooking. Check out some of these wonderful sites I used to write this hub.