You would be amazed at how this transforms your relationship with food.

There’s a lot of evidence indicating that saturated fat does not increase cholesterol, does not cause heart disease, and that dietary fat is not the primary problem for obesity.

We evolved for millions of years on red meat. Granted, grain fed meat is not what we evolved on and we should be eating pasture raised meat instead, but how could it be that a food we evolved on is suddenly so bad for us? I think nature is smarter than that.

I’m not an advocate of Atkins or any other “low carb” diet, but rather eating the natural whole foods that we evolved on … meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables. This type of natural diet just so happens to be low in carbohydrates. Much lower than what most people are eating.

There are a lot of flaws and questionable influences in the research that suggests saturated fat is bad. For example, the research by Ancel Keys that started it all was selectively manipulated to leave out data points that contradicted the conclusion that saturated fat causes heart disease.

Realizing that we do need fat in our diet, many “experts” suggest replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable oils which are processed, high in omega-6, and easily oxidized. Ironically, these fats are becoming more widely accepted as a major cause of heart disease.

Omega-6 fatty acids are pro-inflammatory and inflammation is a significant factor in heart disease. With the common recommendations to eat polyunsaturated vegetable oils and grains (i.e. USDA Food Pyramid) and all the other processed foods many people eat, many are consuming much more omega-6 than omega-3. We should be getting roughly equivalent amounts and many of us are getting up to 20 times more omega-6 than omega-3.

For more information, I suggest checking out the Weston A Price Foundation and the following two articles:

Busting the Cholesterol Myths

Hey Fat Head, You’ve Been Fed a Load of Bologna

People are inclined to behave like naughty children who should follow the advice of those who know best. This is very unfortunate – with all the complexity involved in our diet (budget, location, preferences and allergies, and culture to name only a fe…

My partner grew up eating macrobiotic and is now somewhat re-evaluating this. She is grateful that she grew up eating so healthily and so now has a good sense of what health feels like. We have recently read and talked lots about Michael Pollan’s In Defence of Food.

Finally (to end this also long comment), an invitation. If you would like to slightly expand this comment I’d be happy to publish it as a guest post. (I understand if you don’t have the time). Thanks for your comment.

Recently, I’ve started listening to Paul McKenna’s “I can Make You Thin” Hypnotic Download once a day, and I feel like it is really helping to give me that feeling of freedom with food. He uses four “golden rules,” which are really common sense, but I think most of us forget about them due to restrictive diet overload:

1. When You Are Hungry, Eat

2. Eat What You Want, Not What You Think You Should

3. Eat Consciously And Enjoy Every Mouthful

4. When You Think You Are Full, Stop Eating

Like I said, these are so simple, but to be honest I think we all are totally brainwashed from all the crazy diets out there and what they tell us our relationship with food should be.

Anyways, sorry for the long comment, but I’m totally in the middle of working this issue out myself. Great article, Evan!