It's not often that one finds a perfect oxymoron, but it happened to me in a supermarket recently when I encountered a pint of "Fat-Free Half & Half."
In the U.S., half-and-half is typically half milk and half cream and contains about 12 percent fat, so how can such a product be rendered fat-free? Answer: by replacing butterfat (a mostly saturated fat) with corn syrup and adding chemicals and thickeners to simulate fat's texture and mouth-feel. The ingredients list: skim milk, corn syrup, cream (this is accompanied by a footnote reassuring the consumer that the cream adds "a trivial amount of fat" -- I assume because the product contains a trivial amount of cream) and "less than 0.5 percent of the following: Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Mono and Diglycerides, Vitamin A Palmitate, Color Added (Ingredient not in regular half-and-half)."
Odd as fat-free half-and-half may seem, it's far from unique. A search for the term "fat-free" in the grocery section on Amazon brings up 3,386 products; "low-fat" yields 3,597. That's a vast array of food products in which no- or low-fat content is touted as a virtue. Many of them, like the pseudo half-and-half, compensate for the fat's absence with extra sugar, corn syrup or other added sweeteners.
Such products are so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget just how new they are. From 1958 to 1970, nutrition researcher Ancel Keys surveyed populations in seven countries then published a study suggesting a strong correlation between diets high in saturated fat and increased risk of heart disease. The study was controversial from the start, and its methodology has since been criticized by many (had Keys used available information from 22 countries, rather than the seven he chose, no correlation would have been seen, leading to charges that his data set was "cherry-picked"). But by 1977, the Senate's Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs went all in. Its "Dietary Goals for the United States" perfectly reflected Key's dodgy findings, urging Americans to eat less fat and more grains.
The notion went mainstream when an avalanche of supermarket products engineered along these lines soon followed. The reason? Pure profit. Relative to fats, commodity grains and grain-based products such as high-fructose corn syrup are cheap to produce, especially when they are subsidized. This allows breathtaking profits for food processors. Consider some prices taken from the commodity indexes on April 26, 2012, and from my local supermarket:
This fat-is-bad, sugar-and-processed-carbs-are-harmless movement reached the height of absurdity by the late 1990s, when the American Heart Association (AHA) allowed Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Fruity Marshmallow Krispies and Low-Fat Pop-Tarts all to receive the AHA's Seal of Approval.
Fortunately, such nonsense is on the wane. "It's time to end the low-fat myth," said Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition and chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health:
"Unfortunately, many well-motivated people have been led to believe that all fats are bad and that foods loaded with white flour and sugar are healthy choices. This has clearly contributed to the epidemic of diabetes we are experiencing and premature death for many."
Evidence is accumulating to bolster that point. For example, in 2009, a systematic review supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada of cohort studies and randomized trials concluded that there was "insufficient evidence of association" between saturated fat intake and elevated risk of coronary heart disease. Instead, it singled out the influence of foods with a high glycemic load -- that is, sugar- and processed-carbohydrate-laden foods -- in raising cardiovascular disease risk.
It's not just that fat is neutral -- the right kinds have some unique health benefits. Another study, published in the Dec. 21, 2010 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that a natural substance in dairy fat, trans-palmitoleic acid, may substantially reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes (and, as result, of heart disease). The research team from the Harvard School of Public Health looked at more than 3,700 men and women age 65 or older in a National Institutes of Health-funded Cardiovascular Health Study who had been followed for 20 years to evaluate risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in older adults. The investigators found that participants who reported eating more whole-fat dairy products had higher levels of trans-palmitoleic acid in their blood. Over the following years those men and women who had the higher levels of trans-palmitoleic acid were about 60 percent less likely to develop diabetes than those whose blood levels of trans-palmitoleic were lowest.
The American public has been led astray, as the government and industry have used shaky science to demonize natural fats and promote fat-free dairy products, processed grains and sweeteners. The fact is that natural fats and fat sources such as extra-virgin olive oil, butter, virgin coconut oil, oily cold-water fish and even an occasional grass-fed, grass-finished steak are all good for you if eaten moderately in the context of a low-glycemic-load diet. They supply essential fatty acids and satiety while helping to keep blood sugar levels, insulin and whole-body inflammation levels appropriately low and steady. Conversely, we all need to stay away from hydrogenated oils and from polyunsaturates including soybean oil, commonly termed "vegetable oil," which is used for deep-frying and in cheap baked goods. I believe the evidence is clear that these are strongly pro-inflammatory.
No one's health is improved by swapping out natural saturated or monounsaturated fats for skim milk, sugars or processed grains. So if you encounter misbegotten products such as fat-free half-and-half, do what I do -- leave them on the shelf.
Andrew Weil, M.D., is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the editorial director of www.DrWeil.com. Become a fan on Facebook, follow Dr. Weil on Twitter, and check out his Daily Health Tips Blog.
Follow Dr. Andrew Weil on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrWeil
How to Avoid Processed Foods in a Healthy Diet - Health & Science ...
Wean Yourself Off Processed Foods in 7 Steps - US News and ...
Low-sodium diet: Why is processed food so salty? - MayoClinic.com
10 Weird and Gross Ingredients in Processed Food | WebEcoist
That said having the right amount of vitamins and minerals is important for overall health. Myself I am going to explore with my family doctor if I need testosterone replacement after reading the results from the study in Germany. If the proper level of testosterone increase my metabolism therefore my weight and the amount of body fat I have the treatment will be worth it in my opinion.
Additionally, have you considered you might be carbohydrate intolerant? Meaning you might benefit from a more low carb/ high protein...high quality fat diet?
Virtually all males get prostate cancer in western cultures at some point, are you sure you want to add to your risk by increasing your odds of that and other forms with increased testosterone...its a huge choice, not a small one...
The data is all over the place because there are a lot of studies sponsored by people with serious financial incentives to fudge or lie. Some of the earliest studies concerning fat intake and heart disease have yielded amazing results. (Esselstyn:Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease) If you want to see living examples - Bill Clinton, Steve Forbes and a bunch of other people have reversed serious heart disease and lived drug and symptom free.
Dr. Weil and Katz have nuanced attitudes toward fats, but I think they are misleading the public by poorly addressing the over the top abuse of fats that come from butter, eggs and meat. Dr. Weil is right about the fact some fats are good for your arteries, but you can not get that fat from animal based products. Stay with cold pressed olive oil, most nuts, avocado and some seafood and fish.
By the way Dr. Weil and partners did pretty well with his restaurants. The food is great and there is very little meat on the menu.
That being said, I do tend to stay away from products that list any transfats or have things in the ingredients list I can't pronounce. I've used 1% milk for so long that even 2% tastes like pure cream, read labels to find out how "heart-healthy" soups compare to regular (that one's an eye-opener!), try to stay mindful that almost all processed foods have way too much sodium and I rarely drink pop of any kind (although that's mostly because I'm a dental technician and I make my living on fools who drink pop).
It's not as simple as just not ordering a Big Mac, a large order of fries and a diet Coke, but it's not rocket science, either. Just listen to your body.
Fads will bounce back and forth, nothing will change that a balanced diet of various sorts of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates is best.
Fat is not evil. However, fat is more calorie-dense than protein or carbohydrates. The reason to consider reduced fat options is not because fat is poison (well, most fats aren't), but because they are a tool in managing calorie intake.
The human system retains the evolutionary trait of craving preferentially precisely because it provides a caloric reserve that used to be useful for a species employing hunter-gatherer techniques that were very low calorie yield per acre and highly unpredictable day-to-day. We are no longer as active as a species nor are we (generally) subject to fluctuation in calorie availability. Fats are no longer as useful to us, but we still crave them disproportionately.