eat fat!
There I’ve said it. Eat fat or eat more fat. That’s the whole essence of this post and I could stop here. So why write this? Well I feel compelled to write this as we under attack by the low-fat mafia.
Imagine an advertisement describing a low-tar cigarette as “the healthy choice.” It’s unacceptable right? And it can’t happen because advertising tobacco has been banned and our governments wouldn’t allow such an extravagant and clearly untrue statement. They like the tax revenues the industry creates but have to accept the damage that tobacco causes and constrain the industry accordingly.
Yet we are subjected, on a daily basis, to celebrity-fronted advertising claiming that the latest low-fat Frankenstein “food” is “healthy” or “better for you” or “good for your heart”. These are outrageous claims and it’s time for us as people to stand up and insist on fair play with food. We have a low-fat mafia comprised of the food processing companies and our governments colluding (perhaps in ignorance on the part of our governments) in the promotion of a message that “FAT IS BAD”. Why does this happen? Because our governments haven’t yet learned that the low-fat revolution of the past fifty years is the number one culprit in the rise of obesity, of diabetes and of most other autoimmune related diseases that are so prevalent today.
The recommended diets, or food pyramids, that are held up by governments are based on food company lobbying and not proper science and understanding. They are effectively sanctioning, in food terms, a “healthy cigarette.” The cost of the illness we are creating is incalculable – but the food industry is very powerful, far more so than the tobacco industry ever was. After all, tobacco is just a product for leisure – food is essential for life.
Real Food
You can easily recognize real food when you see it:
- When you see it, you know what it is
- It doesn’t have a label on it describing its ingredients
- It isn’t normally boxed or tinned
- It does not come in “low-fat” variants
- It does not need to be “fortified with vitamins and minerals” or have coloring, preservatives or flavor enhancers (although they might be there if it’s not an organic food)
- Is edible raw (though that might not be your first choice, e.g., steak tartare)
Real food might need to be prepared and you might need to cook it. If you think about meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts they all pass the test above with ease. They are not “processed” and most importantly, they do not come in low fat forms.
So what about the other stuff? Let’s take the example of a cake (or a yoghurt or a ready meal).
You can have your cake and eat it: the only trouble is you get fat.
Julian Patrick Barnes
- You really have no idea what is in it by looking at it
- It will be labeled and list ingredients – we know what some of them are, but, if we’re honest, we’ve no idea what half of the items listed actually are
- It will be packaged in a box or carton, in part to list the items
- There is a high chance that it comes in a low-fat, no-fat, “be good to yourself”, “weightwatchers” or “sugar free” variant. For those versions that are both low-fat and low sugar, you’ll have to admit that you have no idea how they make it or what they make it with.
- You definitely would not eat it raw!
But what about saturated fat?
The clever thing about marketing and advertising is it can make something sound good or bad.
If fat is bad, then what is saturated fat? Really bad, right, because it’s fat and it’s “saturated” so it’s really, really fat right? Wrong. The terms saturated, unsaturated, mono-unsaturated, poly-unsaturated describe different types of fat. It’s a mistake to associate emotions with these descriptions, as this is science not fiction. Saturated fats contain only single-bond carbon linkages. Mono-unsaturated fats contain one double-bond carbon linkage. Poly-unsaturated fats contain more that one double-bond carbon linkage. These are the chemical differences (in very simple terms) between the fats. Is that clearer? Can you see that the names of these fats is being used in a way that is not necessarily linked to the chemical terminology?
Don’t be taken in by claims about foods and particularly low-fat foods. Just know this: any food that needs to be eaten in a low-fat version for you to feel OK about it is probably not a food you should eat at all.
Also know that most low-fat foods replace the fat they take out with huge extra portions of sugar. And sugar above all other “nutrients” will help you store fat, raise cholesterol and lead to obesity and diabetes.
So what to do?
Be a fat radical
By that, I mean be radical about your approach to fat and its consumption. Here are some actions for you:
- Eat real food with their natural fats. This is what we have done for 3 million years. Diabetes has only really materialized as a huge problem in the last 50 years. Eating fat makes you feel full.
- Avoid foods that are packaged and that you have to try and analyze the ingredients to decide if its “healthy” or not – it’s not!
- Collect dripping from meats that you grill and use it to cook eggs or fry onions
- Avoid ready meals completely
- Refuse to ever buy a low-fat or no-fat food. Think of these foods the same way as you’d think of cigarettes. They are just plain bad news.
- Ask your GP to explain why fat is bad for you. Ask him or her to evidence that claim and point to a particular study that proves this is the case (this will cause them some trouble as the Lipid Hypothesis, as it’s called, is just that, a hypothesis and has never been proved so there is no evidence.)
- Avoid sugar in all it’s forms – Coca-Cola, sugar, lactose, high-fructose-corn-syrup, modified starch, modified potato starch, modified maize starch, starch, corn flour, wheat flour, rice flour …
- Get your “fiber” from green vegetables – the best source of fiber by miles.
- Avoid all pastries – there is no such thing as a healthy version – you’re just kidding yourself.
- Enjoy real food!
Please remember that your brain is 50% fat, that all your nerves are coated with saturated fat and that the ancestral human diet sourced everything it needed from protein and fats.
Look after yourself, look after your body. Enjoy your food; eat when you are hungry and Eat Fat!
17 Responses to “eat fat!”
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by carrie dufresne and Travis Schefcik, Mark Owen-Ward. Mark Owen-Ward said: Eat fat! http://goo.gl/fb/v0xNj [...]
Great post! I enjoyed how you simplified the argument to real food versus processed and took the “bad for you” sheen off of natural fats. The no-fat message given to us by the medical establishment and USDA is just leading our society to more sugar and grain-based carbohydrate, which is just making our obesity problems worse. When will they realize that it isn’t working? And when will they understand that they can’t manufacture a better food than we can get from plants and animals? Frustrating! Thank you for making the effort to educate against this paradigm!
Thanks for your comments Kristy. I wonder if the problem isn’t a lack of knowledge but a lack of knowing how to take on the food processing giants.
Excellent information and suggestions. Each of us is different, and I am modifying my diet to eat mostly vegetables and non-sweet fruits like peppers and tomatoes, and very little meat except for wild-caught Pacific salmon. Thanks for the post.
Thanks. You are right- each of us is different but as you say, your diet is not without protein; you’ve selected what is right for you but it’s still paleo. You might find some residual effects from tomatoes which are nightshades and toxic to some as are aubergine/eggplant and potatoes. The key is trying it out and seeing you well you feel. Good luck with your experimentation and modifications!
Greetings from a HEALTHY, happy, strong, super-fit vegan! Though I don’t eat animals (for a couple of reasons – not willing to kill them myself, and most have been doused with chemicals, hormones, and fed unnatural diets and I don’t want that crap in me) I still totally love your description of REAL FOOD. I’ve been challenging people for years to eat real foods and say good-bye to processed faux foods. Eating foods right out of nature (label-free) will give us everything we need, in the right forms, including healthy fats that we all need.
By the way, I agree that many “veggies” aren’t eating for health. They’re eating processed, fake foods, and tons of sugars. NOT ME. I’m all about being healthy most of all!
Hi rachel – thanks for commenting and glad you’re a real foodie. The meat I eat of course is organic grass-fed or wild and given the chance I’d happily hunt it personally. I don’t want chemicals or hormones either! I respect your dietary preference though I don’t agree with it but hope you stay with us. I agree that the problem is the mass of processed food, dominated by the grain industry, which ironically is one of the biggest killers of small mammals and insects through massive mono-crop agriculture.
Mark,
Loved the post man, so I had to tweet it. People have the case against fat all wrong. Why can’t we turn around that thinking on sugar!? Sugar makes people fat, not fat.
All the best,
Travis
Hi Travis – thanks for tweeting and commenting. And a good question. I think the answer is that the food industry spends a fortune on propagating the lie that low-fat is good. For example, one of the major UK supermarket chains (and I’m sure all the others) know that “low-fat”consumers spend more on food per capita per week than any other. They are typically 35+ females with higher than average disposable income. So the manufacturers and supermarkets spend millions of dollars marketing low-fat rubbish because they make a killing in sales and care nothing for the health consequences (because there is no come back). They know that the perception is that low-fat food tastes bad, so they work their socks off to make it taste good and to hell with whether it’s good for you or what the hell’s in it. As long as they can say “low-fat” and people like the taste, they just don’t care. The advertising is blatant “go on, you deserve it” type crap – it’s like a drug dealer giving it away. Food has to become political, because the drug barons, the food companies and supermarkets, are getting away, literally, with murder and laughing all the way to the bank with our money. And we are just getting ill. It is totally outrageous and unregulated and we need to stop it, now! The tobacco companies that I referred to are much more tightly regulated, and arguably they do LESS harm because the whole population doesn’t smoke. The food industry has the whole population at its mercy and plays God with lives every day.
The low fat high sugar brigade are killing people in droves with their filthy ways. I couldn’t agree more, and for the vegetarians out there, its just not natural, Rib Eye all the way!!!
They are indeed and it’s about time we stood up for our health! As for the veggies, as you know I was one once – the problem as I see it is again too much grain and sugar in most veggie diets and inadequate protein.
Testify testify praise the lord the truth is out there.
Mark thank you for your honest factual approach, people need to listen to what you are saying and hear you out. I have been aware of this information for a while now and it has certainly changed my approach to what I am fueling my body with. Lets end the mindless brainwashing from the low in fat mafia and start the trust the fat revolution.
DONT TRUST THE LABEL
Don’t trust the label indeed! Trust Real Food
A new habit to take but it makes sense
Amen to that!
Right on Mark. Eat real food. Love it.