Your grandmother and her mother, and her mother and so on, probably consumed a great deal more fat than you do today. However, although fat consumption has decreased, heart disease has increased. There is something dramatically wrong with this picture. What is wrong is that fat, good healthy natural fat, has been misrepresented in a way that has made people afraid of it. However, fat is essential to bodily function- fat is essential to the burning of fat – fat is essential to fat loss. Fat is essential to life.
Essentiality of Saturated Fat
For thousands of years, cultures around the world have consumed nutrient-rich traditional fats. Traditional fats include such things as butter, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, chicken, goose and duck fat, tallow and suet from beef and lamb.
Humans require saturated fats because we have warm blood. Saturated fats give necessary structure to cell tissues and membranes.
An over consumption unsaturated fats in liquid form leads to cell membranes that lack integrity and cannot function properly. When too much trans fat is consumed cells stiffen and malfunction. Contrary to what we have been told, saturated fat does not jam up arteries or exacerbate heart disease.
In fact, the heart prefers saturated fats, which lower Lp(a), a marker for heart attack risk.
Saturated fats boost immune system function and are important in cellular communication. They protect us from cancer and diabetes.
The lungs are unable to function without saturated fat – children who are not fed full fat milk have excessive problems with asthma.
Saturated fats are also important for healthy kidney and hormone function.
More than half of the fat found in the brain is saturated, and without saturated fat the nervous system misfires leading to a host of problems.
Consuming saturated fats keep inflammation at bay and boosts metabolism. Fat soluble vitamins A, D and K2 rely on saturated fats, which are transporters.
The reality is that it was not until people stopped consuming saturated fats from animals and tropical oils and began to consume modern processed vegetable oil that there was an epidemic of modern degenerative disease.
Eat More Fat
One of the absolute best things you can do for your health is to consume a moderate amount of healthy saturated fat daily, preferably with each meal. Ditch the margarine and butter spreads for real butter; forget the low fat milk – it is nothing more than flavored water – drink organic whole milk or certified raw milk.
Cook with organic coconut oil and enjoy the rich satisfying taste that healthy saturated fats give to food.
Consume as few packaged, prepared, boxed or fast foods as possible. The majority of these are made with modern processed oils that are now being implicated in such terrible health conditions as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and strokes.
Pass the REAL fat please……
-The Alternative Daily
Sources:
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats
