Good, Great, Bad, & Killer Fats

Not all fats are bad, though; there are good fats: the monounsaturated fats in nuts and avocados. There are great fats: the Omega-3 fats in flax seeds. And then there are the bad fats: the saturated fats found primarily in meat and dairy. And finally, the killer fats—trans fats, which are found in only two places: hydrogenated oils, and meat and dairy. Trans fats are basically found only in one place in nature—in animal fats.

Now, thanks to better living through chemistry, though, the food industry found a way to create these toxic fats synthetically by hardening vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation, which rearranges their atoms to make them behave more like animal fats. This may be good for shelf life, but is not good for human life. The most prestigious scientific body in the United States, the National Academy of Sciences, released a damning report on trans fats, and concluded that the only safe intake of trans fats was zero.

The Academy said that the tolerable upper daily limit of intake was zero. If the National Academy of Sciences is saying the only safe intake of trans fats is zero, and about one-fifth of American trans fat intake is coming from animal products, did they recommend that everyone should eat only vegan? No, they didn’t; but why not? They were challenged on it, and one of the authors of the report, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, responded: “We can’t tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products. Well, we could tell people to become vegetarians…” He added, “If we were truly basing this on science we would, but it is a bit extreme.” Amazing. Wouldn’t want scientists to base anything on science, would we?

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

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• Food and nutrition board, institute of medicine of the national academies.
• Major Food Sources of Trans Fat for American Adults (Average Daily Trans Fat Intake is 5.8 Grams or 2.6 Percent of Calories). U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2003.

• animal fat
• avocados
• dairy
• flaxseeds
• Harvard
• hydrogenated fats
• junk food
• meat
• nuts
• oils
• olives
• omega-3 fatty acids
• Plant-Based Diets
• processed foods
• safety limits
• seeds
• trans fats
• vegans
• vegetarians