The Evil and The Good Side of
Saturated Fats
Saturated fats – the term even sounds
nasty. But not all saturated fats are bad for you. The
ones found in avocado and raw nuts are actually quite
good for you; they’re uncooked and sealed from light and
air, which means they have not been transformed in any
way.
Because our bodies are designed to survive starvation,
we store fat. If you eat lots of meat, dairy, and
refined sugar and flour, you’re risking the kind of
saturated fat that sticks to the inside of your blood
vessels, accumulates in your organs like the liver and
heart, and makes you prone to stroke, heart disease, and
a host of other illnesses.
Sources of saturated fats
We eat ten times as much saturated fat today as we did a
hundred years ago; and we only eat a fifth of the
essential fatty acids – the good ones. The worst sources
for bad fat are from animals – beef, pork, dairy. But
saturated fats from hydrogenated vegetable oils aren’t
any better. Worse, they are ubiquitous, hiding in places
like breads and baked goods, canned beans, snack cakes,
and fast food. Even foods advertised as healthy may
harbor hydrogenated vegetable oil.
By avoiding bad fats, you can keep the sticky fats from
accumulating in your body. But some starches also
produce the same sticky fats in your body. A great rule
of thumb is to avoid cooked fats and white starches
(tapioca, white bread, white rice). These are the foods
that increase your glucose, converting easily into even
more fat.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Canadian
Choiceness Conference on Cholesterol and the Canadian
Dietetic Foundation recommended that saturated fat not
exceed 10% of calories.
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