# So now I'm supposed to increase my intake of saturated fat? WTF. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 3, 2014, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312 "2014-09-03T01:05:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2014, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/1 "2014-09-03T01:05:47Z")
[Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat.](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html) I give up! ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/2 "2014-09-03T04:44:10Z")
Just follow the diet you find easiest to stick to: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29031985](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29031985) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2014, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/3 "2014-09-03T06:28:35Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > [Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat.](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html) > > **I give up!** (Bold added.) No, you simply finally figured it out. I did exactly that (what you call “giv[ing] up”) quite some years ago. When the healthful diet rulz change daily, one realizes sooner or later that nobody really knows what the fuck really matters. So eat what you enjoy eating. And if you’re going to die sooner because of it, well at least you had more fun eating what you liked while you lived. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/4 "2014-09-03T15:42:12Z")
I don’t understand the title of the article. Why are they calling for a low-carb diet that embraces fat? It’s already here, it’s called Atkins. In fact they mention it right in the article. They say the participants followed a “modified” Atkins plan but it would appear that the only modification was allowing beans. The key isn’t “eat more saturated fats and you’ll lose weight!” though. The key is to avoid sugar and refined carbs, and really all processed foods. A hamburger on a bun is not going to get you anywhere, even if it fits in to some calorie goal. Two hamburgers without buns and a side of broccoli with butter is going to get you there much better, provided you eschew the buns. Forever. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/5 "2014-09-03T22:39:16Z")
Being a child of hippie parents, I ate a crunchy-granola low fat nuts and berries-type diet (well, mostly) until my late 40s. Which also happened to be high carbohydrate - tons of whole grains, fruit and veg, low on meat and animal products. In my late 40s and in menopause, I started to notice that I was getting sugar highs and crashes after high-carb meals. Gradually I have shifted from high carb/low fat to low carb/high fat. I feel better. I remain fairly thin (I weigh at 56 what I weighed at 14 - ten stone/140 lbs) and I have discovered the wonder that is bacon and steak, which is a beautiful thing. I do love my vegetarian woo meals, but I love meat a whole lot too. Just, in moderation. Bottom line: Eat what you enjoy. Avoid highly processed foods. (Eat real butter, not “_I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter_”, :rolleyes: real cream or cheese, not that horrible fake low fat crap or creamers, real sugar, not sugar-free lab-made food-like items, free-range/hunted meats if that’s available, etc). Real food is better for you and tastes better as well. Always eat lots of vegetables and fruit too. Lots and lots. All that fiber makes all the bad stuff just flow right through and it won’t stick to your arteries. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/6 "2014-09-04T04:44:20Z")
So besides protein, what I’m hearing from Fellow Dopers is, “Eat low to the Food Chain”, yes? ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/7 "2014-09-04T11:28:28Z")
If by low on the food chain you mean [“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,”](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) then yes, basically. The link goes to a lengthy but interesting article by the author (Micheal Pollan) of the statement linked to. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/8 "2014-09-04T12:01:09Z")
Buy your own ingredients, make your own food, save the sugar for dessert. If you still want to have pasta or bread, that’s fine; what kind of pasta maker do you use, and when’s your baking day? Another way of looking at it is, take the Food Guide Pyramid and shift everything down one level, and put the processed grains level up at the top. Use as much fat as you want to, because they’ve been unable to prove a connection between high fat intake and heart disease. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/9 "2014-09-04T14:52:58Z")
Really another example of over-interpretation of medical literature by newswriters hungry for something to hype. This was a small study that really says only a little. 150 subjects total. One group (“high fat”) specifically told “to eat mostly protein and fat, and to choose foods with primarily unsaturated fats, like fish, olive oil and nuts … allowed to eat foods higher in saturated fat as well, including cheese and red meat. … eating some beans and fresh fruit was fine as well” The other group was basically replaced fats with carbs. The “high fat” ("low carb’) group indeed had more saturated fat than the AHA advises (and more than the “low fat” group) but pretty much the average for America. The saturated fat intake was a no change condition. Most “of their fat intake, however, was unsaturated fats.” Basically they increased what are thought of as “healthy fats”- olive oil, nuts and fish, and protein, replacing some simple carbs in the process; and were told to increase some sources of high fiber carbs like beans. The other group cut down fats and increased carbs, and while not detailed in anything I can get to on-line right now, probably that included lots of simple carbs. By now we know that replacing fats with simple carbs is a bad idea. Honestly at this point it would have been shocking to find that a group who replaced simple carbs with calories from olive oil, nuts and fish, while preserving high fiber carbs, did not do well. To headline this as “saturated fats are fine!” is just plain stupid. Crappy reporting like this results in the average underinformed Joe and Joella concluding “that nobody really knows what the fuck really matters” which is completely wrong. I understand that many people need very simple messaging. “Eat food, Not too much. Mostly plants.” is even too complex for some people. But dang, is it really too difficult to understand that highly processed shit is bad. Only buried at the bottom of the article was the real take-away: > [@](#): > > the research suggested that health authorities should pivot away from fat restrictions and encourage people to eat fewer processed foods, particularly those with refined carbohydrates. Shocking. Meanwhile [another study](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1900510), not tiny, released at the same time, gets very [little press](http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Researchers+weighing+diets+find+carb+plans+produce+similar/10168266/story.html). This one, looking at 7286 individuals in a meta-analysis, found no real differences at one year between “branded” low fat and low carb diets on weight loss: > [@the JAMA article](#): > > Significant weight loss was observed with any low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. Weight loss differences between individual named diets were small. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight. Exercise was associated with 3 kg more loss at the 1 year mark. Simple message: don’t eat the processed crap and exercise. However you can do that is fine. Many will find a diet moderately high in protein and fiber and healthy fats (nuts, olive oil, etc.) as a very reasonable way to achieve the first part of that. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/10 "2014-09-04T17:29:12Z")
When I had hepatitis in Chile, the doctor told me to eat a no-fat diet. After week there was little improvement, my wife told the doctor that she was strictly feeding me a no-fat diet, he said you’re killing him, he’s not getting any fat-soluble vitamins. In Chile, “no-fat” means pour the liquid bacon grease off your fried eggs, instead of soaking it up in your bread. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/11 "2014-09-04T18:14:53Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Meanwhile [another study](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1900510), not tiny, released at the same time, gets very [little press](http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Researchers+weighing+diets+find+carb+plans+produce+similar/10168266/story.html). > > This one, looking at 7286 individuals in a meta-analysis, found no real differences at one year between “branded” low fat and low carb diets on weight loss:Exercise was associated with 3 kg more loss at the 1 year mark. Be careful. That study used some unusual inclusion criteria according to Stephan Guyenet: > **[What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-about-other-weight-loss-diet-study.html)** > > The same day the low-fat vs low-carb study by Bazzano and colleagues was published, the Journal of the American Medical Association publishe... ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/12 "2014-09-04T21:41:17Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > I give up! Good. Then you’re ready to hear the secret: _It doesn’t matter what you eat_ **What matters is how much you eat of what you eat** Caveat: with some foods you’ll find it easy to restrict your portion sizes, with others you’ll find it hard. So avoid the latter in favor of the former. For bonus points, try to eat a reasonably varied diet and you’re all set. Edit: from the perspective of weight loss/gain/maintenance. If you don’t eat a varied diet you may end up with vitamin/mineral deficiencies. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/13 "2014-09-04T23:32:34Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Simple message: don’t eat the processed crap **and exercise.** However you can do that is fine. Many will find a diet moderately high in protein and fiber and healthy fats (nuts, olive oil, etc.) as a very reasonable way to achieve the first part of that. Snip and bolding mine. I think exercise is often forgotten, because that’s been a mantra for decades, yet wonder-diet fads come and go. Exercise as part of one’s daily activities is, IMHO, _incredibly_ important. The best diet in the world won’t do much good for a person who gets zero muscle-bearing or aerobic exercise on a fairly regular basis. Plenty of people I know view “exercise” as a chore, or a necessary evil, or something you have to join a gym to get. That for many, today’s typical sedentary lifestyle includes little or no physical activity, is pretty sad. I have some half-formed theory that a society that views the solution to every ill is to “take something” for it, or to revert to a magic food/diet remedy taken by mouth (which requires very little effort, aka a magic pill) is a physically weak and unhealthy population. Incapable of running a mere mile, climbing some sets of stairs, beset by allergies and chronic conditions, held together and kept alive by meds and other medical remedies, physically incapable, by middle-age, of very basic activities. I know an unsettling number of my peers, not even 60, who are physically impaired and reliant on medication (doG bless Western medicine) to stay alive and functional. But they eat like shit and rarely, if ever, make an attempt to be active or eat real food. Then expect their doctors to make everything better with pills and speshul diets. ---
**Author:** ![JayRx1981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71e660/32.png) [@JayRx1981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayRx1981)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/14 "2014-09-04T23:46:05Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Be careful. That study used some unusual inclusion criteria according to Stephan Guyenet: > > [Whole Health Source: What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-about-other-weight-loss-diet-study.html) After reading his blog post, I’ll agree that the inclusion criteria probably weakens how widely we can apply the results of this meta-analysis, but his own cites, including Hession et al. (2009) indicate that while low-carb diets may produce greater weight loss meeting statistical significance, the size of the effect is very small, which may not actually reach clinical significance. I’ll try to dig in to Hession later when I have more time to see if they were able calculate an effect size. I’ll also note that while his blog posts are generally pretty informative, I still tend to approach his posts with a degree of skepticism due to his ties to the Paleo crowd, his recommendations of Weston Price, and links to (IMO) purveyors of woo like Chris Kresser. ---
**Author:** ![JayRx1981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71e660/32.png) [@JayRx1981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayRx1981)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/15 "2014-09-04T23:52:12Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > I have some half-formed theory that a society that views the solution to every ill is to “take something” for it, or to revert to a magic food/diet remedy taken by mouth (which requires very little effort, aka a magic pill) is a physically weak and unhealthy population. Incapable of running a mere mile, climbing some sets of stairs, beset by allergies and chronic conditions, held together and kept alive by meds and other medical remedies, physically incapable, by middle-age, of very basic activities. I know an unsettling number of my peers, not even 60, who are physically impaired and reliant on medication (doG bless Western medicine) to stay alive and functional. But they eat like shit and rarely, if ever, make an attempt to be active or eat real food. Then expect their doctors to make everything better with pills and speshul diets. Speaking as a pharmacist, I’d have to agree that many seem to approach the world in this way, in my experience. You might think that I would view this as an ok thing, given that the more prescriptions we fill, the more money the companies we work for make, and the greater the salaries and job security, but in truth, my training actually heavily emphasizes minimizing drug therapy and maximizing non-drug interventions, including exercise. So, I’m very much not a happy camper with regards to the drug-obsession our society appears to be exhibiting, particularly since we’re dealing not just with poly-pharmacy, but what I and many of the pharmacists I know and work with on a regular basis view as irrational poly-pharmacy. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/16 "2014-09-05T00:17:30Z")
> [@JayRx1981](#): > > Speaking as a pharmacist, I’d have to agree that many seem to approach the world in this way, in my experience. You might think that I would view this as an ok thing, given that the more prescriptions we fill, the more money the companies we work for make, and the greater the salaries and job security, but in truth, my training actually heavily emphasizes minimizing drug therapy and maximizing non-drug interventions, including exercise. So, I’m very much not a happy camper with regards to the drug-obsession our society appears to be exhibiting, particularly since we’re dealing not just with poly-pharmacy, but what I and many of the pharmacists I know and work with on a regular basis view as irrational poly-pharmacy. Thank you for giving a vote of credence to my poorly formed hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/17 "2014-09-05T00:58:41Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > Bottom line: Eat what you enjoy. Avoid highly processed foods. (Eat real butter, not “_I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter_”, :rolleyes: real cream or cheese, not that horrible fake low fat crap or creamers, real sugar, not sugar-free lab-made food-like items, free-range/hunted meats if that’s available, etc). Real food is better for you and tastes better as well. > > Always eat lots of vegetables and fruit too. Lots and lots. All that fiber makes all the bad stuff just flow right through and it won’t stick to your arteries. 😃 I’ve always refused to eat low-fat fake rubber cheese or margarine (_puke_) and for years I was lectured by the Weight Watchers zombies and low-fat-fascists at work about how all the fat is terrible and blah blah. Basically I was gonna DIIIEEEEE! Fast-forward 15 years, and my blood pressure is 120/70, my cholesterol levels are excellent, and my heart appears to be working fine. Unlike most of my colleagues… So I’m going to continue on the “don’t eat fake food, and keep the crap like gooey desserts to a minimum” diet plan. I’m not thin, but labs and stuff seem to indicate that things are working fine. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/18 "2014-09-05T01:02:54Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > Incapable of running a mere mile, climbing some sets of stairs, _ **beset by allergies and chronic conditions** _, held together and kept alive by meds and other medical remedies, physically incapable, by middle-age, of very basic activities. I know an unsettling number of my peers, not even 60, who are physically impaired and reliant on medication (doG bless Western medicine) to stay alive and functional. I get your point, but allergies (and a host of chronic conditions) are highly unlikely to be cured by exercise. Let’s not blame everything on people not exercising enough. It weakens the argument for the stuff that not exercising really does cause. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/19 "2014-09-05T01:07:26Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But dang, is it really too difficult to understand that highly processed shit is bad. I’ll cop to not knowing what exactly constitutes “highly processed shit”. I mean, I had a veggie burger today for breakfast. The ingredients include some words that I can’t pronounce, so I’m guessing it is highly processed. But is it shit, though? Compared to a bowl of Frosted Flakes, I’m thinking it is a good choice. But I don’t know. I just know that I enjoy my veggie burgers and they make me feel good afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312/20 "2014-09-05T01:18:05Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > [Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat.](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html) > > I give up! > [@iljitsch](#): > > Good. Then you’re ready to hear the secret: > > _It doesn’t matter what you eat_ > > **What matters is how much you eat of what you eat** > > Caveat: with some foods you’ll find it easy to restrict your portion sizes, with others you’ll find it hard. So avoid the latter in favor of the former. For bonus points, try to eat a reasonably varied diet and you’re all set. > > Edit: from the perspective of weight loss/gain/maintenance. If you don’t eat a varied diet you may end up with vitamin/mineral deficiencies. YES! This ^^^ I couldn’t have written it better myself. Great advice. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-now-im-supposed-to-increase-my-intake-of-saturated-fat-wtf/697312.md?page=2)