“Recent findings in nutrition science are rallying behind dairy fats,” said The New York Times best-selling author Nina Teicholz. “One we’ve known for a long time is that saturated fats are the only food that consistently raises high density cholesterol (HDL) or good cholesterol,” noting dairy and animal-based foods are leading sources of saturated fats.
Unfortunately, the good-fat story has long been buried due to fear and politics. However, the tide has turned on that front, pointed out the author of The Big Fat Surprise.
“The story falsely linking heart disease to animal fats is more about politics,” said Teicholz. “Many ideas that we have about nutrition telescope back to a single study, called the Seven Countries Study, conducted in the 1950s by Ancel Keys, a professor at the University of Minnesota. As a result, nutrition science for nearly a half century has been based on his findings.
Even though there was a great deal of nutrition research to refute the hypothesis by Ancel Keys, the results were often buried. “There was a tremendous fear in the field of nutrition to go against Ancel Keys. Anyone who opposed him or his ideas was severely criticized and suffered in their careers, said the book author.
“As a result, animal fat consumption plummeted while vegetable oils took their place,” she said. Margarine replaced butter, for instance.
This situation is now slowly reversing itself.
“New nutrition theory has found not all calories are the same and that excessive calories in carbohydrates tend to be uniquely fattening,” said Teicholz. “New trials have established that low-carb diets are effective for fighting not only obesity, but also diabetes and heart disease.
“The fat you eat is not the fat you get on your body,” she went on to explain to those attending a Nashville, Tenn., dairy meeting. “In fact, fat from foods causes people to feel full,” she said in discussing the growing obesity epidemic. “In large, rigorous experiments funded by the government, the low-fat diet has not been shown to work in fighting obesity, diabetes, heart disease, or even cancer,” she said.
“That has led the U.S. Dietary Guidelines to drop their “low-fat” recommendation, actually, although they’ve tiptoed away from that shift, so the public doesn’t know. Also, last year the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation removed caps on eating saturated fats,” Teicholz said to those attending the joint annual meeting of the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board, the National Milk Producers Federation, and the United Dairy Industry Association.
“I hope you can enjoy your cheese this afternoon with a lighter heart,” said Teicholz in wrapping up her presentation.
