Pop Quiz: What year were low fat dietary guidelines released and recommended to the American public? Any clue? Yeah I didn’t know the answer to this either. The answer is 1977, when the US Senate Select Committee released the Dietary Goals for the American people. These guidelines clearly stated to reduce consumption of fat and saturated fat. Common sense it seems to us today.
Second Question: When did the obesity epidemic in the U.S. really start to take off? If you guessed right after the 1977 recommendation then you guessed right. See the image below. Coincidence?
This doesn’t prove anything though, as we know this is just correlation. But think about it – we started to drop fatty foods like butter. These things had to be replaced though, right? So in steps the highly processed foods marketed specifically to be low fat. But guess what? They’re full of salt, sugar and tons of other ingredients that our bodies obviously don’t like. Watch the video below. Trust me, it will make you think and start questioning what you’ve been told about nutrition…
Obesity isn’t the only result of dropping fatty foods for processed ones, though. Heart disease and diabetes became more prevalent with the rise of commercial, lower-fat butter replacements and reduction of red meat consumed. The below image is from the above video (though I know you watched it, right?):
Even though there have been many studies that show low-fat diets are not the way to lose weight or get healthy and even though these studies also show that there’s no reduction in your risk to heard disease – ask your doctor or even nutritionist. Chances are they’ll stick to their guns and recommend the now-traditional guidelines that were set into place all those years ago.
Why is that? Are they simply uneducated and still believe what they were taught 20 or 30 years ago in school? Or is there a bigger picture, here? Are the mega-pharmaceutical companies and health professionals enjoying the millions of dollars obesity brings in?
The British Medical Journey recently released information and opened the debate to the link between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease here. Just a quick quote:
“The mantra that saturated fat must be removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four decades. Yet scientific evidence shows that this advice has, paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risks.”
Here are just a couple of the studies that clearly show a low-fat diet just may not be what we’re led to believe:
Low Fat Diet and Cardiovascular Disease
Low Fat Diet and Weight Change Over 7 Years
Of course, we aren’t saying go out and start eating everything high in saturated fat. We would say moderation is key. We aren’t scientists and certainly don’t claim to be. While everything here is based on well-established medical and scientific sites, we understand nothing can be written in stone and that there should still be active, in-depth research to understand what’s going on. However, use this info for what it’s worth and come to your own decision.
