Misconception About Fats and Its Dangerous Effects

In a previous articleI have stated that there is a misconception about fats and its dangerous effects. There, I mentioned that there are many traditional societies that have survived for many years (and continue to do so) with high fat diets. Not only they survive but they do it by having better health that the our so-called "advanced society" or "modern society".

The problem with the misconception about fats is that all fats have been classified as unhealthy because some of them are really unhealthy. I am talking about highly processed fats and oils and foods that contain them either as a part of their composition or because food have been cooked (fried for example) with them. If you look at recent past history you will find out that the increase of heart diseases, degenerative diseases and obesity is highly correlated with the increase of use of highly processed fats and oils.

Recently, there has been some attempts to overcome the misconception about the dangerous effects of fats. The terms of "good fats" and "bad fats" have been created. Generally, the good fats term has been used for those fats that are unsaturated (that is fats that have double bonds in its structures) while the "bad fat" is referred to saturated fats. This is still a misconception about fats and its negative effects. An unnatural highly processed unsaturated oil (olive oil for example) can be as bad as lard because it is the processing that makes the fat or oil bad for your health. If you take natural cold-pressed "extra-virgin" oil you are taking a natural unprocessed, unrefined oil which is excellent for your health.

The key to healthy fats is to ingest natural unprocessed fats and oils as opposed to highly processed refined fats and oils or foods that contains them. Even trans fats can be healthy. I know you may be thinking I am crazing but natural meat fat contains low levels of trans-fat that are good for your health. Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) in its natural sate (not the one synthetically created in a lab and distributed in a pill) is healthy according to research recently published.