In the early 1990’s the advice given to fight the obesity epidemic was to eat a low-fat diet. It sounded good – it made sense – so many people went low-fat or attempted to eat fat -free (which is totally impossible, by the way). The grocery stores filled up with low-fat and fat-free processed foods.
Now the evidence is showing that a low-fat diet for weight loss or prevention of diseases just doesn’t work.
The Journal of the American Medical Association followed 49,000 women for eight years, and reported that eating a low-fat diet did not prevent heart disease, breast cancer, or colon cancer, and it didn’t do much for weight loss, either. The key is to eat more of the good fats and less of the bad fats.
According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the largest sources of saturated fats (the bad fats) are dairy products and red meats. The largest sources of trans fats (the worse fats) are processed foods such as margarine, vegetable shortening, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, deep-fried chips, fast foods and most baked goods.
The fats that your body needs, the good fats, are found in vegetable oils such as olive oil, nuts, seeds and also in fish. These good fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) actually assist in weight loss and fighting disease. The key is to give your body all the essential building blocks of life, and fats are just one of them.