In this past week’s IIN health coaching module, I listened to a lecture arguing the case for traditional fats.  This really spoke to me, because eating traditional foods is part of the lifestyle changes I’ve adopted, which have empowered me to get healthy and drop over 30 pounds.  And I’ve made these changes without counting calories or fat content.  In fact, my diet has been full of what I consider healthy fats.

Replacing sugar, white flour, and just about all processed foods with organic, whole foods and lots of from-scratch cooking has changed my life.  I include organic, local, grass-fed eggs and meat, as well as organic oils, nuts, seeds, butter, yogurt, whole milk, and cheese.  I eat lots of organic veggies and fresh salads, too.  I’ve added in good traditional foods like bone broth, fermented foods like kombucha, and some sourdough bread products.  I enjoy experimenting with fermenting and trying new foods, too.  I “cheat” occasionally, but I rarely eat processed carbohydrate foods, like pasta, bread, chips, cookies, etc.  My long term eating habits have taken their toll on my body and I just can’t handle those foods anymore.

I focus on traditional choices now – foods that have been consumed throughout history and were around before the modernization and industrialization of commercial food.  They are real foods that are nourishing and free from chemical additives.  Traditional foods include traditional fats – organic grass-fed butter, raw (unprocessed) whole milk products like yogurt and cheese, organic cold-pressed avocado oil, coconut oil, and olive oil, nuts and seeds, and wild-caught fish, like salmon.  And you know what?  I don’t even miss most of the processed foods that I used to survive on and, frankly, used to be addicted to.

The nourishing fats keep me full and supply my body with what it needs.

With our brains being 60% fat, we need fats for proper cognitive function!  In fact, we need fats for all kinds of proper bodily function, including for energy, cell growth, organ protection, nutrient absorption, digestion, essential fatty acid intake, maintaining healthy skin and tissues, nervous system function, and even some hormone regulation.  Healthy fats are an excellent source of Omega 3s – the essential fatty acids that are needed for a whole host of processes, including regulating Omega 6 ratios and keeping overall bodily inflammation at bay.  In addition, traditional fats are antimicrobial, antifungal, and antiviral.  They can contain vitamins A, D, and K2, can help to balance cholesterol levels, and can help to raise bone mineral density.

Yes, this is counterintuitive to the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet that has permeated the government nutritional standards in America for quite awhile now.  I know it can be difficult to look at fats in this way – I still sometimes revert into my old habit of wanting to grab the “low-fat” versions at the grocery store.  Fortunately though, it’s becoming more accepted that the right types of fats aren’t actually making people fat and sick.  More and more research is showing that the high-carb, low-fat diet has actually contributed to America’s lifestyle disease epidemic.  According to Dr. Walter Willett, “High carbohydrate, low fat diets also have a negative effect on the fats and cholesterol in our blood: They raise ‘bad’ blood fats (triglycerides) and they lower the “good” blood cholesterol (HDL), both of which can increase the risk of heart disease. These diets also tend to increase blood pressure.”

The American standards still state that people should limit saturated fats, which are in many of the fats that I eat regularly.  The truth is that saturated fat is not necessarily bad for you.  It’s the commercial non-saturated fats like hydrogenated oils (canola, soy, etc.), refined corn oil products, and extremely processed conventional dairy products that we need to be concerned about.  They are highly inflammatory to our bodies.  Not only are they chemically altered, extremely processed (and oftentimes, rancid because of oxidation and the high temperatures at which they’re processed), as well as stripped of their nutrition, they often have an excess of Omega 6s, which can also cause inflammation in our bodies when concentrated in the wrong ratios.  Believe it or not, hydrogenated oils were created to counteract the belief that saturated fats were unhealthy and caused heart disease, but the research simply does not support this idea.  In fact, heart disease statistics have only increased with the consumption of hydrogenated oils (and sugars).

“Saturated fat…turns out to be neutral from a heart health perspective when compared to the average diet so that campaigns which prioritize reducing saturated fat consumption, rather than focusing on foods and overall diet quality, are a misplaced and misleading public health strategy.”

—Barbara Moran, Harvard School of Public Health (2014 HSPH blog)

“Current evidence does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats.

—(Chowdhury R, et al., Annals of Internal Medicine. March 18 2014)

“The more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate… the lower the person’s serum cholesterol.”

—Dr. William Castelli, Director, Framingham Study, 1992

Seems to me like our ancestors knew what they were doing all along.

My hope is that as this research becomes more widely accepted, the government standards will change as well.  We need to focus on making changes to what I personally believe is really making us overweight and sick – SUGAR, unbalanced Omega 6 ratios, chemical overloads, and nutritional deficiencies, all of which contribute to chronic inflammation.  If you do some research on chronic inflammation, you won’t have to look far to find out about just how many health problems it creates.  It is a serious issue to which we need to pay attention.

I’ll add here that I believe all of our bodies are different and require different things.  I fully support bio-individuality – the concept that no one diet or lifestyle works for everyone.  I think people all have their unique needs, nutrition requirements, sensitivities, allergies, etc.  My perfect diet may very well not be your perfect diet.  However, I do also firmly believe that everyone needs healthy fats, and there are a variety of ways to incorporate them into our diets.  Those fats may look different for all of us, but traditional fats have empowered me to live a healthier life.

If you want to add traditional fats into your diet, start small.  Add one fat.  Just one.  Lifestyle changes take time and require many, many baby steps.  I will always be on my own journey as I continue to make just one switch at a time.  An all or nothing attitude would absolutely set me up for failure, so I take it one baby step at a time.

Start by cooking with organic cold-pressed avocado oil (my preferred cooking oil for it’s high smoke point), or organic cold-pressed olive oil (but keep it under 375 degrees) or organic cold-pressed coconut oil (all preferably stored in glass and kept in a dark place to slow oxidation).  Find a local farm that sells pasture-raised, grass-fed whole fat milk.  If you live in a state that allows raw milk purchase, all the better (I’m jealous)!  Buy organic, grass-fed butter like Kerry Gold.  Add organic nuts or seeds to your salad.

You’ll know it’s a traditional fat if it’s not processed and has been around for generations.  Stick with raw or cold-pressed, organic, grass-fed versions whenever available.  Local can be great, too.  Whatever you decide, find one change that will work for your lifestyle, and go for it.