It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways (24 page)

Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), are the most popular fats in town. Their health-promoting properties are generally agreed upon, and we, your primary-care physician, the government,
and
“that doctor on TV” all believe that a diet rich in heart-healthy MUFAs do, in fact, make you healthier. (That and refined-grains-are-bad-for-you may be the
only
thing we all agree on, but we can live with that.)

Monounsaturated fats are found in a variety of plant foods and oils as well as in animal products. Studies show that eating a diet
rich in MUFAs
improves blood pressure and cholesterol levels, thus reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Research also shows that replacing other forms of fat with MUFAs may
benefit insulin and blood sugar levels
, which can be especially helpful if you are insulin resistant or type 2 diabetic. In addition, other compounds in foods containing high levels of monounsaturated fats (such as olive oil) may have an
anti-inflammatory effect
in the body, helping to keep systemic inflammation in check.

Good Sources of Monounsaturated Fats

Avocado and guacamole are great MUFA-rich complements to a meal, and black or green olives are an often-overlooked portable source of healthy fats.

Cold-pressed (unrefined) avocado oil and extra-virgin olive oil are decent choices for cooking—not your best options, but certainly better than the seed oils you evicted from your pantry a few chapters back. The higher levels of saturated and monounsaturated fats in these oils will help protect the oil from oxidation, as will the naturally occurring antioxidants. (You may lose some healthy antioxidants in the cooking process, but if you keep the heat low and the time in the pan short, the downsides are minimal.) In addition, olive oil or any of the other MUFA-rich oils (like avocado or macadamia oil) are the perfect base for salad dressings and uncooked sauces.

If you’re looking for something crunchy, macadamia and hazelnuts are the healthiest of the nuts and seeds, for reasons we’ll talk about soon. Reach for these (raw or dry-roasted) when you need to add texture to a recipe or need something to grab on the go.

The next category of fats that encourage optimal health are saturated fatty acids (SFAs). Yes, you heard us right! Wrap your heads around it, folks, because this information is here to stay.

As you’ll learn in this section, saturated fat from high-quality, real-food sources is not evil incarnate—it’s just misunderstood. So let’s do some saturated-fat myth-busting, shall we? Don’t worry, we’ll start you off easy.

There are a
lot
of reasons that fast-food burgers are unhealthy, but it’s not fair to blame the saturated fat content. We’ve already mentioned some of the toxic tagalongs in the fat found in industrially-produced meat, seafood, and eggs. That’s not the fault of saturated fat—that’s a direct result of how the animals were raised and the food they were fed. (You don’t find the same unhealthy hitchhikers in grass-fed, organic burgers.) Furthermore, the industrial seed oils in which those fast-food burgers are fried contribute in a significant way to their unhealthiness.

So, yes, those fast-food burgers aren’t very healthy, and it
is
because of the fat. But don’t blame the saturated fat—blame the manner in which the meat was
sourced
and
prepared
. (And the gluten in the bun, and the high-fructose corn syrup in the condiments, and the monster dose of added sodium.)

As we’ve already explained, all foods are a complex blend of nutrients—and meat is no exception. Don’t fall into the trap of food reductionism: “I don’t eat red meat because it’s saturated fat.” In fact, animal products like tallow (beef fat) and lard (pig fat) probably contain a smaller percentage of saturated fat than you may have imagined—less than 50 percent. Even butter, which is often considered synonymous with “saturated fat,” is less than two-thirds SFA! (The rest of butter is almost entirely heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, by the way.)

We like butter.

So should you.

But we digress. Point is, let’s not unfairly oversimplify our fat sources—even animal fats.

This is the big one, folks. The big myth. The big lie. And we’re about to expose it.

Keep an open mind, OK?

We’ve all heard the one about how saturated fat causes heart attacks and strokes. In fact, saturated fat is often described as “artery clogging!” But while the logic may
seem
sound (eating fat fills your arteries with fat),
the facts don’t add up
.

In 2010, the
Journal of Clinical Nutrition
compiled a landmark meta-analysis of the results of 21 studies that followed more than 347,000 total participants for up to 23 years. The studies tracked dietary habits, including intake of saturated fat and the participants’ incidence of heart attack and stroke. The meta-analysis found: “
There is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, or cardiovascular disease.
”

Got it? This massive study-of-studies published by a highly respected scientific organization concluded that saturated fat and cholesterol do not cause heart disease or stroke.

Does that surprise you?

We thought it might.

So if saturated fat is not, in fact, “artery clogging,” what is at the root of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions like heart disease and stroke? Take one guess.

Researchers have determined that
low-grade inflammation
is involved in the pathogenesis (and your risk) of many lifestyle-related diseases and conditions, such as
coronary
heart disease,
obesity
, and
diabetes
. (Revisit the diagram back in Chapter 7, with inflammation smack in the middle.)

Ready for a summary of what we’ve learned?

You don’t have to be afraid of saturated fat.

Here’s the kicker, however.

Not all the saturated fat in your body starts out that way. It may not even come from fat in your diet at all. This is where we get into the myth that turns out to be true—only not in the way you think.

Was that confusing enough or what?
^*

True.

Some forms of saturated fat (particularly the “long chain” versions) do contribute to insulin resistance and, by extension, inflammation in the body, which does increase your risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Palmitic acid
(PA) in particular is the type of saturated fat most correlated with insulin resistance and inflammation.

But the form of saturated fat that gets all kinds of ugly in your body doesn’t come from
eating
saturated fat
.

Stay with us.

Decades ago, research correlated saturated fat levels—particularly palmitic acid levels—with cardiovascular disease. (The more saturated fat people had in their bodies, the more likely they were to have a heart attack.)

As a result of that research, we were all told not to eat saturated fat because it would lead to heart attack or stroke. We were particularly warned against red meat and eggs, as they happen to be higher in saturated fat than other foods are. The premise was simple: Meat and eggs have lots of saturated fat. Saturated fat is associated with heart disease. Therefore, avoid meat and eggs.

But those recommendations were based on faulty logic.

Let’s break this down, point by point.

Point #1: Identifying high levels of saturated fat, specifically palmitic acid, in folks who had cardiovascular disease does not mean that saturated fat
caused
the problems. (It’s the old ice cream–shark attack correlation.)

Point #2: It’s impossible to eat palmitic acid all by itself. There isn’t a single food out there—not even palm oil!—that contains
only
PA. Meat and eggs are high in palmitic acid, sure, but they also contain significant amounts of other fats, like oleic acid (a monounsaturated fat).

Point #3: Other fats, like oleic acid, have been found to prevent palmitic acid from inducing insulin resistance.

So what does this all mean?

Eating whole foods that
contain
PA is not the same as eating
just
PA.

Real food (like meat and eggs) contains other fats that help protect your body from too much PA. So there’s basically no way to get a lot of PA into your body all by itself.

Unless …

You eat too much refined carbohydrate.

So, when you eat too much carbohydrate, it’s converted directly into PA by your liver. In which case, you
would
have a lot of PA in your system without the other protective fats—and you would have a rather large amount of saturated fat in the body
that didn’t start out that way.

And that’s the behavior that
really
gives you heart disease.

And it’s
overconsumption of refined carbohydrates
that contributes to the increased “bad” cholesterol and triglycerides that are some of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

It’s not the saturated fat in red meat or eggs at all.

So now that we’ve dispelled the major myths associated with SFA intake, let’s talk about which foods contain these healthy saturated fats. (Say it with us: “healthy saturated fats”—the idea is quite liberating, isn’t it?)

Most people think of animal products first when talking about saturated fats, so we’ll start there. (But remember, even animal products like tallow, lard, and butter aren’t
just
saturated fat—most are also rich sources of MUFA.)

Good Sources of Animal Fats

Saturated fats are your healthiest choice for cooking, especially at high temperature. Saturated fats are very stable when exposed to air, heat, and light, which makes them ideal for sautéing, pan-frying, broiling, or roasting.

Another form of animal fat comes from dairy—butter. Remember, the issues we have with dairy come from its carbohydrate and protein, not its fat. In fact, we think there are some really healthy compounds in pastured, organic butter, like higher amounts of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), vitamin E, and carotenoids.

But we have one stipulation when it comes to butter—that it be
clarified
. See, butter isn’t just fat. (We’re like a broken record with this “food is complicated” stuff, huh?) Butter is only about 80 percent fat; the rest is water and milk solids (proteins). Those milk proteins are a butter deal-breaker in our eyes, as even tiny amounts can be disruptive to the gut if you’re sensitive to dairy or have any degree of intestinal permeability.

The good news is that there’s a way to remove those milk proteins: clarifying your butter.
^*
It’s a simple process by which you melt the butter at low temperature, so the fat and milk solids separate. You then filter out the milk solids, leaving you with nothing but the gloriously rich, bright yellow butterfat.

Perfection.

And so much tastier than the plastic (we mean margarine) spread you used to eat.

There is another fantastic form of saturated fat that doesn’t come from an animal—so you won’t have the same concerns about sourcing. It’s found in coconut and coconut products.