I love this Cornishware lard jar! I gotta get one for my kitchen. Pic from this site (but sadly I cannot find one for sale, anywhere! Must keep searching…).

One of the first things I learned on my real food journey is that far from being the cardiac danger that the mainstream health experts would have you believe, saturated fat is a vital ingredient of vibrant health. I’d like to share what I’ve learned so far.

The background as to how and why saturated fat has been villified has been covered very well on many sites, so I won’t go into detail about that. The basics are this: In the 1950s, a researcher named Ancel Keys discovered what he considered to be a link between saturated fat, cholesterol, and heart disease. His theory came to be known as the “lipid hypothesis.” Since then, many more studies have been carried out, and despite years of health headlines to the contrary, no link has been found between saturated fat and heart disease. Indeed, when traditional populations are studied, such as what Weston A. Price did for his landmark study Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, their diets are found to contain an abundance of saturated fat, and the people are hale, hearty, and healthy. The fact that the lipid hypothesis continues to be promoted today can be attributed to the fact that sales of many drugs and fake foods are quite dependent upon it.

The “French Paradox,” the observation that the French eat all the stuff Americans think is “bad” yet have very low occurrences of heart disease, is no paradox at all; it is merely proof that saturated fat is our friend, not our foe.

What is saturated fat?

To sum it up crudely (apologies to any real science people who read this!), “fat” is one of the macronutrients of our diets (along with protein and carbohydrates). Fat is made up of “fatty acids,” which are chains of carbon atoms attached to each other with hydrogen atoms attached to each of the carbons.  ”Saturated” fatty acids are those whose carbon atoms are attached to each other via single “bonds” and then all the rest of the available space on each carbon has hydrogen atoms attached to it. The carbons are “saturated” with the hydrogens, making them very stable. “Monounsaturated” fatty acids have one pair of carbons that are bonded twice and thus each lack a hydrogen (they’re attached to each other a second time instead of picking up another hydrogen atom). “Polyunsaturated” fatty acids have two or more pairs of carbons doing the double-up game. Confused? Understandable. Check out this page for a better explanation and diagrams.

All edible fats are made up of combinations saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Our bodies use them all for various functions. However, getting too much of one and not enough of others causes all sorts of problems. So how do we know how much to eat of each? Simple: eat real whole foods as they come to us from good ‘ole Mother Nature (in other words, not industrial vegetable oils or fake butter-like concoctions or Crisco). She knows how to balance it all out.

What does saturated fat do in the body?

Saturated fat is vital for so many processes in the body. Here’s a brief list:

• Saturated fat is needed to absorb nutrients; they act as carriers for fat-soluble vitamins. This is why getting vitamins via food instead of taking them in pills results in your body actually being able to use them. This is also why you get much more nutrition from vegetables if you put butter on them—the saturated fat in butter allows your body to absorb most of the nutrients. As an example, fat is needed for the body to convert the carotenes in carrots into Vitamin A; without the fat, the carotenes are unusable. You do not get nearly as much nutrition from plain vegetables as you do from those eaten with saturated fat.
• Saturated fat makes up at half or more of all cell membranes, allowing them to maintain the interrelations of the cell to its surroundings. The role of saturated fat in cell biology is incredibly complex, and for a short explanation of some of it, see this post on the Weston A Price site.
• Saturated fat helps control potential problems from other types of fat. Nora Gedgaudas, author of Primal Body, Primal Mind, says this: “Saturated fats, by virtue of their saturation are inherently resistant to oxidation and serve to protect delicate polyunsaturated fats from oxidation and help both to transport them and utilize them more effectively… 80% of what clogs arteries isn’t saturated fat or cholesterol at all, but, rather, rancid unsaturated/polyunsaturated fats that then stick to the arterial lining (like shellac) and generate irritation and inflammation.” She goes into a lot of detail about saturated fats in this post.
• Saturated fat is necessary for calcium to be absorbed into bones; take all the supplemental calcium you want or drink lots of milk, but if you’re not getting enough saturated fat in your diet, your bones won’t get the calcium.
• Saturated fat has been shown to protect the liver by reducing the buildup of fat in the liver. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is on the rise, and while it is a result of too much fructose in the diet, the link between saturated fat and less liver fat is telling. A liver stressed by too much fructose is even more stressed when it lacks saturated fat, thus paving the way for disease. From what I’ve seen of people around me, those who over-consume fructose usually under-consume saturated fat.
• Saturated fat feeds the brain; the brain is made up of fat and cholesterol, and skimping on saturated fat can slowly rob your brain of nutrients it needs to function properly. Think of all the problems people have today that are related to brain issues, from Alzheimer’s to depression. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
• Saturated fat lowers Lp(a), a substance that has been found to contribute to heart disease.
• Saturated fat supports metabolism. Saturated fat is used as a source of energy and slows down nutrient absorption, which keeps you feeling fuller longer.
• Saturated fat nourishes skin. Fat is what keeps skin & hair healthy throughout life, and while putting on oils and creams can have short-term benefits, nothing creates lovelier skin like feeding it from within.

…and there are plenty more. What all of this means is that saturated fat plays a crucial role in maintaining every part of health.

What happens if we don’t get enough saturated fat?

While the body can and does make saturated fat from carbohydrates, that is not the same kind of saturated fat that it gets from dietary sources. A lack of dietary saturated fat has been linked to almost every modern lifestyle disease we have. Look at the above list of what saturated fat does in the body…and then imagine what happens when those processes are interrupted due to lack of saturated fat. Even if you have only a basic understanding of body systems, you can see that problems are inevitable without saturated fat.

What are good sources of saturated fat?

Happily, eating enough saturated fat is easy and delicious. Fat gives food flavor and makes us want to eat it, thus giving us all the nutrients our bodies need. This is why food flavoring companies have spent billions upon billions in their secret labs trying to recreate the full flavor of fat-laden foods. Of course, most of us know that the fake stuff can’t even remotely compare to the real deal. There is a reason for that…your body knows when you’re trying to fool it. It knows when you’re trying to give it stuff it can’t use. Feed it actual fat, though, and you’ll feel that amazingly satiated and satisfied feeling you can’t get with anything but real fat.

So what are the best sources of saturated fat? You could probably guess most of these:

• Butter from pastured, non-treated cows and preferably a deep yellow color
• Real cheeses, cream, whey, raw milk
• Egg yolks, preferably from wandering, free-pecking hens
• Coconut oil
• Duck fat
• Ghee
• Lard
• Olive oil
• Chicken fat
• Other fatty cuts of meat such as bacon

If saturated fat information was wrong in the past, what makes it correct now?

All the science behind this can be confusing and frustrating. Back in the 50s, they thought they knew what was going on in the body, and gave out recommendations. Years go by, new illnesses appear, more research is done, new recommendations come out. The new stuff naturally contradicts the older. Why believe any of it? Who’s to say who is correct now?

For me, the best way to deal with such thoughts—and oh I’ve had them—is to look back at how people have eaten, and thrived, for millinia. Look at the above list of saturated-fat foods; these have been diet staples to all peoples throughout history. Many people subsisted on more fat than anything else, because it makes you feel full, and when food is scarce, you want to feel full. Whether you think of remote tribal peoples or Native Americans or the pioneers or even a couple centuries back in Europe, people subsisted by eating entire animals—including fat & organ meats—and added variety with a few grains and vegetables as they could, sometimes going entire winters living off of fat and meat. If saturated fat led to heart disease and death, humans would not have made it this far; a child brought up on such fare would not have lived too much past his/her teens, let alone thrived long enough to carry on the species so abundantly. Also, consider that the incidence of heart disease began to rise with the decline of saturated fats in American diets; before the early 20th century, heart disease was rare enough to be considered an anomaly. The 20th century saw a massive increase in the study of how food affects us and gave us all sorts of “eat this not that” recommendations. These caused us to stop eating all sorts of things our ancestors ate and to start eating all the newfangled fake foods meant to be “healthier” than what nature provides. A multi-billion dollar industry was born…and look around. The consequences of all that is painfully clear. The more we tinker with food, the worse off we get.

While the 20th century might have given us cures for the diseases that killed our forefathers & mothers, it also took out of our diets too many necessary nutrients and has given us new diseases to take the place of the ones we cured—plus a few new ones to boot. One step forward, two steps back. But I think of it this way: as we come to understand and respect the wisdom of the past, we can combine it with our current knowledge to create a vibrant future of truly better health.

Starting with a daily helping of saturated fat.

Sources & Links:

• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig
• Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice
• Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A Price (full text here)
• “7 Reasons to Eat Saturated Fat,” excerpted from the wonderful book The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle by the Drs. Eades (posted on Tim Ferris’s blog)
• “Saturated fat and heart disease: Studies old and new” by Dr. Eades
• “Two major studies conclude that saturated fat does not cause heart disease” by Dr. Briffa