# Is it possible to eat too little fat?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 25, 2007, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495 "2007-05-25T15:55:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/21 "2007-05-25T19:55:03Z")
[QUOTE=Valgard]
No medical cite but I’ll note that Weight Watchers specifies getting enough healthy fats each day (for example olive oil, canola, nuts, etc - as opposed to mug full o’ lard). I snack on nuts, peanut butter, use a bit of olive oil in my salad dressings and when cooking, that kind of thing.
I’ve noticed that if I’m eating extremely low fat foods I very quickly get a craving for fats - the body seems to have a pretty good feedback mechanism in place!
[/QUOTE]
Another thing a some folks on Weight Watchers may notice is that they get constipated if they aren’t getting enough fat in the diet. Adequate fiber and fluid aren’t enough by themselves. I’ve had it happen to me - adding a healthy fat, like peanut butter, helps things get running smoothly again. 🙂
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/22 "2007-05-25T20:33:11Z")
[QUOTE=toadspittle]
I have to ask: Are these fats (the ones that get stored in cells around our waists, for instance) available/useful for things like building neural tissue, etc., or are they only good for energy storage?
[/QUOTE]
Adipose tissue cells (such as visceral fat, etc.) are essentially storehouses – fat can both enter these cells and be released from them as needed by the body for whatever function (release of energy, tissue repair, etc.).
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### Author:  [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/23 "2007-05-26T00:18:53Z")
[QUOTE=charizard]
Cite?
[/QUOTE]
I am thinking this was a whoosh guys. An implication the body cannot produce fat on it’s own would mean you cannot gain body fat without eating fat – which is clearly false.
If I remember correctly, total fat deficiency will kill you first, total protein deficiency kills you second and total carbohydrate deficiency will make you sick but might not kill you for a long time. No cite though.
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### Author:  [@CeilingWhacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CeilingWhacks)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/24 "2007-05-26T00:47:31Z")
I have an anecdotal cite that without essential fatty acids your hair will begin to fall out (sometimes to extremes) and skin and nails become dry and brittle. Gastric bypass patients have to take supplements to ensure that this does not happen during rapid weight loss/lack of absorption of these lipids.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/25 "2007-05-26T01:05:08Z")
[QUOTE=charizard]
In theory yes. There is such as thing as “essential fatty acids” - that is, your body needs them and can’t synthesize them from other things.
[/QUOTE]
You _could_ get these from a daily capsule also.
You get odd cravings on an extremely low fat diet. Dudes who were able to kill and eat lots of rabbit but didn’t eat the organ meat got some strange dietary problems. (Rabbit _meat_ has next to no fat.)
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### Author:  [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/26 "2007-05-26T01:59:55Z")
[QUOTE=Valgard]
I’ve noticed that if I’m eating extremely low fat foods I very quickly get a craving for fats - the body seems to have a pretty good feedback mechanism in place!
[/QUOTE]
Heck yeah.
I need to find a copy, maybe it’s on the web by now somewhere but the older USDA Agricultural handbook #8 breaks down the nutrional value of just about all the foodstuffs. Very handy for anyone looking to keep track of exactly what they are eating. Fatty foods provide long lasting “keep you going” calories without getting hungry for a while.
I have a fairly severed addiction to Little Debbie Nutty Bars. I ate a whole box once and then saw the calories, couldn’t believe it. I had just consumed something like 1600 calories. Frankly I never feel sated eating “healthy”, too much crunching and munching, when I could eat a nice huge roast or steak in all its arteriosclerotic splendor, dripping with krauterbutter and garlic.
I try to avoid “fads” in diets, and I’ve lived long enough to see them come and go - and then come around again, albeit with a new name. I have no idea why this occurs, but something to do with selling books no doubt. For example, the “low carb” diet so popular recently was called “the drinking man’s diet” in the 60’s. Medical professionals didn’t like it much then either.
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### Author:  [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/27 "2007-05-26T02:42:37Z")
[QUOTE=Common Tater]
… maybe it’s on the web by now somewhere but the older USDA Agricultural handbook #8 breaks down the nutrional value of just about all the foodstuffs. Very handy for anyone looking to keep track of exactly what they are eating. …
[/QUOTE]
Not meaning to hijack, but I think you might quite like this source too, **Common Tater**. Detailed breakdown of foods, and with pretty charts and colours too, to take one’s mind of the health or ill-health. 🙂
> **[SELF: Health, Fitness, Nutrition, Beauty, Love, and Culture](https://www.self.com/)**
>
> Here for you.
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### Author:  [@berff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berff)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/28 "2007-05-26T07:49:28Z")
Fat in one’s diet does not equal fat gain in one’s body. Fat has more calories than the other two macronutrients, but if I were trying to watch my weight I’d be more worried about sugar intake than fat intake.
I did try a low fat diet several years ago. I consumed only about 10 grams of fat over a 15 hour period, and by the end of the day I was lethargic, listless and somewhat depressed. And after eating a couple tablespoons of peanut butter, I felt great.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/29 "2007-05-26T15:36:36Z")
[QUOTE=groman]
I am thinking this was a whoosh, guys.
[/QUOTE]
Dunno … only **charizard** can say.
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### Author:  [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2007, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/30 "2007-05-27T05:25:27Z")
So far the cites on the conversion of carbohydrates to fats all say that _certain_ organisms do this but do not say which. Do these certain organisms include humans? Otherwise I think that the cites are not particularly apropos since the OP seems to be about human nutrition.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2007, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/31 "2007-05-27T05:35:06Z")
[QUOTE=sjc]
So far the cites on the conversion of carbohydrates to fats all say that _certain_ organisms do this but do not say which. Do these certain organisms include humans? Otherwise I think that the cites are not particularly apropos since the OP seems to be about human nutrition.
[/QUOTE]
Yes – humans are included. The first several results of a Google search on **“simple carbohydrates”, “turn to fat”** confirms this in short order.
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### Author:  [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2007, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/32 "2007-05-27T08:46:03Z")
[QUOTE=sjc]
So far the cites on the conversion of carbohydrates to fats all say that _certain_ organisms do this but do not say which. Do these certain organisms include humans? Otherwise I think that the cites are not particularly apropos since the OP seems to be about human nutrition.
[/QUOTE]
You people can’t be serious! If humans couldn’t make their own fat you wouldn’t be able to gain a pound of body fat without eating a pound of fat — that’s a ridiculous proposition. You’ve seen people gain 15-20lbs of body fat in a scope of a couple of months, haven’t you? Are they all eating two sticks of butter a day or what?
😕 Am I missing something? I just can’t wrap my mind around how you can be skeptical about something like this at all? To me it sounds like walking out of the bathroom thinking “Huh, that’s funny, I certainly didn’t _drink_ any urine. I wonder where THAT came from?”
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### Author:  [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2007, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-little-fat/405495/33 "2007-05-27T11:12:37Z")
[QUOTE=6drufly9]
Is it possible to consume too little fat in one’s diet? How little is too little and what would some of the symptoms of too little fat consumption be?
[/QUOTE]
[From a site making claims about the role of fat in pre-historic diets](http://www.mercola.com/article/Diet/caveman_cuisine.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> Anthropologist Leon Abrams reports that the Aborigine will throw away a kangaroo he has killed if he discovers that its carcass does not contain sufficient fat. Members of Randolph Marcy’s 1856 expedition to Wyoming grew weak and sick consuming a politically correct low-fat regime of six pounds of lean horse and mule meat per day; Dr. Wolfgang Lutz reports that a very efficient way of eliminating jailed political prisoners in South and Central America is to feed them a diet composed exclusively of lean meat. They soon develop severe diarrhea and succumb. The explanation is that fats contain nutrients like vitamin A that the body needs to utilize the amino acids and minerals in flesh foods; without fat in the diet, the body rapidly uses up its own stores of fat soluble vitamins. When these vital nutrients are depleted, the human organism can no longer fight off disease
I make no claims about the accuracy or up-to-dateness of the info on that page, but it makes an interesting read on (one side of) the debate on prehistoric diets and health
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