Why Saturated Fat is Good For You

In the early 1900's, we heart disease was rare and usually consisted of congestive heart failure. Miocardial infarctions were unheard of until about 10 years after the introduction of Crisco, a trans fat.

Back in the early 1900's, we ate 18 lbs of butter a year. In 1990, that number dropped to 5 lbs a year. During that time, vegetable oil intake increase by 40%. So, while we were decreasing saturated fat and increasing polyunsaturated fat, we developed obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

If you refer back to the little chemistry lesson, you'll remember that saturated fat is the most stable of the fats. It does not go rancid as quickly, even when heated. Rancid fats produce free radicals, those nasty things that destroy your cells and cause disease. Eating saturated fat produces fewer free radicals and may even help get rid of them.

Butter contains nutrients that are good for the heart. Vitamin A helps the heart function properly. Lecithin is needed for the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol. The fat surrounding the heart is mostly saturated and it is that fat that the heart draws on for energy.

Here is an interesting side note. Have you ever heard of heart cancer? I haven't either. You want to know why? The heart gets it's energy from fat (the saturated fat surrounding it). Cancer cannot grow on fat, it needs sugar. That should tell us something, I think.

Anyway, back to the saturated fat. Butter also helps protect against cancer with it's vitamin A and E, selenium and cholesterol (which, by the way, is an antioxidant). And because butter contains fat, you actually get to absorb the vitamins and antioxidants so your body can use them.

Coconut oil and butter contain immune enhancing properties and are great for the lungs. These are the best things to eat if you have asthma. The protective lining in the lungs is composed of saturated fat.

Coconut oil and butter are also more likely to be burned as energy rather than stored as fat, so they aid in losing weight or maintaining an ideal weight.

Saturated fat is necessary to put calcium into your bones. I wonder if the increase in osteoporosis is due to our lowfat diet.

Saturated fat and cholesterol are the building blocks of the hormones, including testosterone and estrogen. Our lowfat diet is providing a market for drugs like viagra and women are suffering menopausal problems. More and more women are also having difficulty bearing children (soy plays a role in this as does our lowfat diet).

While cutting out the fat and replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil, we have developed heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, infertility, ADHD and other wonderful diseases that require medication to treat.

We are indoctrinated into the lowfat cult from birth. Even in dietetics school, we are told that saturated fat is bad, but we aren't given any proof for this assumption.

The French eat lots of saturated fat, yet have way less heart disease and obesity than we do. Since the French don't fit in with the lipid hypothesis, we call it a paradox and blame the wine for the lower heart disease.

Well, I personally, would rather eat a high saturated fat diet with some red wine than a tasteless diet of cardboard and plastic to prevent disease. The French diet obviously works better than our lowfat diet and I can guarantee you it tastes a whole lot better.

So, eat your saturated fat. It's what your body needs.