The most important fats which should be consumed daily and which should constitute the bulk of all fat consumption, are animal fats: fats in fresh meats, fats rendered from meats, dairy fats (butter, cream and ghee) and fats in egg yolks. Animal fats contain largely saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids.

I’m sure you’re begging to ask the questions: What about the “deadly” saturated fats? Don’t they cause heart disease? Aren’t animal fats all saturated? Well, this is the result of the relentless efforts made by the food industry to fight their competition. What is their competition? The natural fats, of course. There is not much profit to be made from the natural fats, while processed oils and fats bring very good profits. So, it is in the food industry’s interest to convince everybody that natural fats are harmful for health, while their processed fats, hydrogenated and cooking oils are good for us. We have been subjected to this propaganda for almost a century, so it is little wonder that many of us have succumbed to it.

The saturated fats in particular were singled out by the food industry. How did this happen? Dr. Mary Enig, an international expert to lipid biochemistry, explains: “In the late 1950s, an American researcher, Ancel Keys, announced that the heart disease epidemic was being caused by the hydrogenated vegetable fats; previously this same person had introduced the idea that saturated fat was the culprit. The edible oil industry quickly responded to this perceived threat to their products by mounting a public relations campaign to promote the belief that it was only the saturated fatty acid component in the hydrogenated oils that was causing the problem … From that time on, the edible fats and oils industry promoted the twin idea that saturates (namely animal and dairy fats) were troublesome, and polyunsaturates (mainly corn oil and later soybean oil) were health-giving.”

The wealthy food giants spend billions on employing an army of “scientists” to provide them with “scientific proof” of their claims. In the meantime the real science was, and is, providing us with the truth. However, it is the food giants who have the money to advertise their “science” in all the popular media. Real science is too poor to spend money on that. As a result, the population only hears what the commercial powers want them to hear.

So let us dive into the truth that real science has provided us:

1. Processed fats, hydrogenated fats and cooking vegetable oils cause atherosclerosis, heart disease and cancer. This is a fact, proven overwhelmingly by real science.

2. Animal fasts have nothing to do with heart disease, atherosclerosis and cancer. Our human physiology needs these fats; they are important for us to eat on a daily basis.

3. Saturated fats are heart protective: they lower the Lp(a) in the blood (Lp(a) is a very harmful substance which initiates atherosclerosis in the blood vessels), reduce calcium deposition in the arteries and are the preferred source of energy for the heart muscle. Saturated fats enhance our immune system, protect us from infection and are essential for the body to be able to utilize the unsaturated omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. One of the most saturated fats that Nature has provided is coconut oil. It has been shown to be wonderfully healthy and therapeutic in most degenerative conditions.

4. Animal fats contain a variety of different acids, not just saturated ones. Pork fat is 45% monounsaturated, 11% polyunsaturated and 44% saturated. Lamb fat is 38% monounsaturated, 2% polyunsaturated and 58% saturated. Beef fat is 47% monounsaturated, 4% polyunsaturated and 49% saturated. Butter is 30% monounsaturated, 4% polyunsaturated and 52% saturated. This is the natural composition of animal fats and our bodies use every bit. Including the saturated part. If you want to understand how important every bit of the animal fat is for us let us have a look at the composition of human breast milk. The fat portion of the breast milk is 33% monounsaturated, 16% polyunsaturated and 48% saturated. Our babies thrive beautifully on this composition of fats and the largest part of it is saturated.

5. We need all the natural fats in natural foods, and saturated and monounsaturated fats need to be the largest part of our fat intake.

6. The simplistic idea that eating fat makes you fat is completely wrong. Consuming processed carbohydrates causes obesity. Dietary fats got into the structure of your body: your brain, bones, muscles, immune system, etc. -- every cell in the body is made out of fats to a large degree.

These are the facts which real science has provided. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, most of us do not hear about the discoveries of real science. Spreading any information in this world costs money. So, the population at large mostly gets information that serves somebody with a fat wallet. In order to get the real, true information on any subject, we have to search for it, rather than relying on news reports of “scientific breakthroughs” unleashed on us by the popular media.

Directing our attention back to the fat composition of human breast milk again we remember it is 33% monounsaturated, 16% polyunsaturated and 48% saturated. Mother Nature does not do anything without good reason. Human breast milk is the best and the only suitable food for a human baby. Human physiology does not change as babies grow, so our requirements for a particular fat composition in food stay about the same throughout our lives: 33% monounsaturated, 16% polyunsaturated and 48% saturated. This is what we need as it is what Mother Nature intended. The only foods with this composition of fats are animal products: meats, eggs and dairy; and these are the foods that should provide us with the bulk of all fats we consume.

Fats which plants contain have a very different fatty acid composition, they are largely polyunsaturated. Polyunsaturated fatty acids are very fragile, they are easily damaged by heat, light and oxygen. That is why Mother Nature has locked them up and protected them very well in the complex cellular structure of seeds and nuts. When we eat seeds and nuts in their whole natural state we get the fatty acids in their natural state, unchanged and beneficial to health. When we extract oils from seeds and nuts in our big factories, we damage fragile polyunsaturated fatty acids and make them harmful to health. But the most important point is this: when we consume whole natural seeds and nuts, we get their polyunsaturated oils in small amounts, amounts which are compatible with our human physiology. We do not need a lot of polyunsaturated fats, the bulk of our fat consumption should be saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. When we consume vegetable and cooking oils, we consume their polyunsaturated fatty acids in excess, far too much for healthy human physiology. It is excessive omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids from vegetable and cooking oils that are to a large degree causing an epidemic of inflammatory degenerative conditions in our modern world, from heart disease and various autoimmune problems to cancer.

Except from Gut and Psychology Syndrome