Three Good Reasons to Eat Less Fat

Let’s face it: Dietary fat makes things taste good. That is one reason that processed foods have so much of it. It tastes good so we want to eat more. Regardless of what you are eating, if you consume more processed foods you eat more. More calories, more fat, more sugar, more salt, more of everything.

A study funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases compared eating a highly processed diet with an unprocessed one; in only two weeks, participants on the processed diet gained weight.

While it was a small study, 20 healthy adults, with 10 men and 10 women, the participants lived at the Clinical Centre for 28 days. Every meal was measured meticulously. All participants spent two weeks eating the processed food diet or the unprocessed food diet. They were given three meals and snacks per day. All meals had the same calories, sugars, fibre, fat, and carbohydrates. Participants could eat as much or as little as they wanted. They reported that the diets both tasted good and were satisfying.

The findings weren’t surprising.

When participants were on the ultra-processed diet, they consumed about 500 calories more per day than on the minimally processed diet. Mostly calories from fat and processed carbohydrates. They also ate faster and gained an average of 2 pounds. When they switched to the minimally processed diet, they lost about 2 pounds.

Less fat, better health.

Eating unprocessed foods takes more time, from planning, preparing and eating, but the results are worth it. Eating less processed foods means having less fat and more fibre in your diet.

Read this post for more reasons to eat less fat.

Put Your Health on the Menu: Eat Less Fat

All fat is not the same.

Fat is a required nutrient, but we eat too much of it. Every fat gram has 9 calories so it is easy to consume. Eating less saturated fat is important for good health. All reputable health sources recommend eating less saturated fats and consuming poly and monounsaturated fats.

Facts about the Fat in Food

Three More Reasons to Eat Less Saturated Fat.

First, lower your risk of cancer by 17%.

Researchers followed more than 200,000 people for over 30 years and found that substituting 10 grams of butter a day with an equal amount of plant-based oil was associated with an estimated 17% reduction in cancer mortality. Dr. Daniel Wang, author and assistant professor of Nutrition at Harvard says,

 “From a public health perspective, this is a substantial number of deaths from cancer or from other chronic diseases that could be prevented.”

Second, reduce brain inflammation.

Researchers at Ohio State discovered that after only a few days of eating a high saturated fat diet, older rats had memory problems and brain inflammation. Study author Ruth Barrientos says,

“Unhealthy diets and obesity are linked, but they are not inseparable. We’re really looking for the effects of the diet directly on the brain. And we showed that within three days, long before obesity sets in, tremendous neuroinflammatory shifts are occurring.” 

While this study was done with rats, it shows that brain inflammation is the primary cause of high-fat diet memory impairments.

Finally, improve your gut microbiome by eating less saturated fat.

High-fat diets can change gut bacteria and increase the risk of colon cancer. Co-author of a new study Ting Fu says,

“We’ve pinpointed how high-fat diet influences the gut microbiome and reshapes the bile acids pool, pushing the gut into an inflamed, disease-associated state.” 

Professor Ronald Evans believes this study shows why high-fat diets aren’t healthy, while identifying specific strains of microbes that increase with high-fat diets.

To eat a healthy diet, the basics remain the best advice. Eat whole foods, mostly plants, and limited processed foods and fats.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla