“Urging people to follow low-fat diets is having “disastrous health consequences”, a health charity has warned”….

Recently, this has been more in the public eye than usual as a result of a recent report by The Public Health Collaboration – titled “Healthy Eating Guidelines & Weight Loss Advice For The United Kingdom” (you can download the full report here) – which questions the healthy eating guidelines recommended in ‘The Eatwell Guide’, with the topic of fats (i.e how much we should be eating) at the forefront of the report….

Indeed, the report goes as far to say that “the advice to follow current healthy eating guidelines has resulted in 25% of adults being obese, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes doubling in 20 years, 35% living with pre-diabetes and 20% living with the early-stages of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.”

See. If the advice was right, this just would not have happened. Sugar is a major culprit too – and some people believe it is an even bigger threat to our health overall than fat by a long way. I have long bemoaned the low fat lobby and I directly link it to mental health issues such as depression and brain illnesses including Alzheimer’s as we simply are not feeding our brains enough of the right fats.

The advice to go low fat has harmed us in my opinion and not just because of the rise in diabetes and obesity talked about here in this report. I suspect the need for the right fats in cell membranes and our barriers has had a major effect too – are they more permeable or leaky than they were because of it? I suspect so. Plus, fats are needed for prostaglandin production – and those control inflammation. Almost every disease has now been linked to some form of inflammation. I truly hold my head in my hands with this daft low fat advice.

Anyway, I like the recommendation here that people should be encouraged to eat fat but from good natural sources rather than from processed ‘low fat’ foods the industry has created to fit the niche created by such advice.

OK, I’ll stop ranting now. Do get a cuppa – green tea for heart protective antioxidants? – and sit and read this if you are still one of the low fat weight loss believers. I won’t say I told you so, even though I did about 15 years ago 😉

In fact, it reminds me of when I used to teach the Stop Dieting and Lose Weight cookery courses (remember those in Poulton le Fylde College anyone?). I used to fling olive oil, avocado, nuts etc into the recipes with gay abandon and simply loved the look of shock on participants faces. They had the last laugh too because every one of them lost weight and felt better in themselves. Nuff said.

Not low fat: good fat.