Alright, so I believe I that saturated fat is generally bad for you. That olive oil or most other oils are often a good replacement for butter and animal fat for both frying and consuming cold/raw, and doing so will have a positive effect on cvd risk for example.
I have seen others here saying that butter is much better than seed oils. That saturated fat is just a scape goat, but I have also seen the opposite. Now, I haven’t been here for long so I’m not sure on the general consensus or ratio of opinions, but can someone explain why they think that saturated fat isn’t worse than seed oils? Of course, “worse” depends on so many things but I’m talking in general, for most people, especially regarding cvd risk.
“I have seen others here saying that butter is much better than seed oils. That saturated fat is just a scape goat, but I have also seen the opposite.” Stop listening to people who are not dietitians, cardiologists or gastroenterologists. That will clear up 95% of your confusion.
This is definitely a very hotly debated and interesting topic in nutrition! As a nutrition scientist, my take is the following:
To start, “saturated” is a biochemical term referring to hydrogens attached to a fatty acid chain. But popular media twists this a bit, as an artery-clogging weapon intended to “saturate” with fat.
-A lot of us learned that saturated fat should be avoided, but a lot of this was based on research that was incomplete and misinterpreted (Ancel Keys), which has come out in recent literature.
-A 2020 systematic review and dose–response meta-analysis of the relationship between saturated fat intake and risk of stroke found that “Higher dietary saturated fat intake is associated with a decreased overall risk of stroke,” specifically that and every 10 gram per day increase in saturated fat intake is associated with a 6% relative risk reduction in the rate of stroke. The authors suggested that dietary limits on saturated fat in current guidelines be reexamined.
-A 2020 paper from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on saturated fat and cardiovascular disease found that “There is no robust evidence that current population-wide arbitrary upper limits on saturated fat consumption in the United States will prevent CVD or reduce mortality.” Furthermore, they noted that saturated fat in the context of whole foods is not the same as isolated saturated fat in processed foods. Specifically, “Several foods relatively rich in SFAs, such as whole-fat dairy, dark chocolate, and unprocessed meat, are not associated with increased CVD or diabetes risk.” - to name a few.
-Finally, I tend to agree with (from what I’ve seen) the stance on seed oils being worse for health than saturated fat from food sources. This stance is mainly biochemical in nature, which is why there’s quite a bit of disagreement around it (it’s harder to point to studies that give this conclusion). The main hypothesis is the omega-6 PUFA’s present in seed oils can cause oxidation of our LDL, which results in an inflammatory pathway and ultimately leads to plaque formation and buildup in the arteries, and ultimately ASCVD.
-For more content like this, Dr. Cate Shanahan has a lot of information and wrote a couple books on the subject.
tl;dr: Saturated fat has been historically vilified, but recent evidence supports its role in a healthy diet when consumed in moderation from whole food and animal sources. When looking at seed oils, the danger is mainly due to the fact they’re reactive when processed (mainly via hydrogenation), which increases their likelihood to oxidize lipoproteins in our bloodstream. Luckily, the highly processed version of these oils exist mainly in ultra-processed and packaged foods, and by limiting these you’re already cutting your exposure to them significantly.
Significant amounts of saturated fats have been in human diets for millennia. Large amounts of pufa, only for a hundred years or so.
What does the body make with excess glucose? Saturated fats.
There have been some big studies -look at the Minnesota coronary experiment - that found either no benefit or negative benefit when replacing saturated fats with pufa. Those results were hidden for many years which shows the research ethics of some of the anti saturated fat advocates.
I don’t have time to give you a slew of references right now, I’m sorry. But there are a couple points worth considering. Olive oil is more than 20% saturated fat and then about 67% monounsaturated fat (the next closest to saturated). So its only about 10-12% polyunsaturated. So in the grand scheme of things its not that highly unsaturated a fat overall.
Secondly, over time, say the last 100 years, the consumption of polyunsaturated fats (pufa) has skyrocketed and the consumption of saturated fats has declined. Over this same time chronic diseases have also skyrocketed, not declined. This doesn’t tell us that pufa are the cause of chronic disease, which is likely multi-factorial, although they are certainly correlated. But it is one piece of evidence that suggests that increased saturated fat intake is not a main driver of chronic disease.
The various pufa can have various effects but its worth looking at the effects of linoleic acid in terms of the promotion of inflammatory mediators and cancer in many studies.
Saturated fat is crucial for optimal health and it’s demonization continues to live on through confused & misleading studies that have been propagated for years (especially here). There is an endless amount of intellectual dishonesty around the discussion of harmful seed oils by appealing to epidemiological studies that make extremely loose causal links between saturated fat and heart disease when there has never been an interventional study to show this.
In fact, for the ones they did, they found foods like bacon to be cardioPROTECTIVE (in rodent models) but it still suggests the exact opposite of what everyone believes. Yet, seed oils are rife with critical health dangers that compromise myriad functions of the human body and no one seems to know. Take a look at this fascinating article from The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Parkinsonism where they explain the mechanisms behind ingestion of seed oil that can lead to disease.
> Its major component, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), istransported to all body organs via the blood, where it becomes a majorcomponent of cell membrane. Most “vegetable oil” consists of ω-6 PUFAof which linoleic acid is the major constituent, such as soybean oil, cornoil, rapeseed oil, and safflower oil. If deep-fried dishes are cooked byheating “vegetable oil” that contains large amounts of linoleic acid to150-200°C, after 5 min, cytotoxic hydroxynonenal starts to form in theoil and reaches a high concentration in the food only 30 min later.
> The term “nal” is a synonym for “aldehyde”, the two actually meaningthe same substance. Just like acet-aldehyde, which is the substance that givesyou a hangover, hydroxynone-nal is a “SILENT KILLER” for cells. However,whereas acetaldehyde is broken down and excreted within 24 h, so itdoesn’t cause such a big problem, hydroxynonenal gradually accumulatesin the body and works as a powerful and long-standing oxidative stressor.That’s why it’s so dangerous. While “vegetable oil” is damaged by theheat of cooking, PUFA incorporated into the body are oxidized by allsorts of oxidative stress like UV rays, electromagnetic waves, exhaust gas,atmospheric pollution, chemicals, smoking, and drinking. These generatehydroxynonenal even after being incorporated into the cell membrane andcells undergo further adverse changes and chronic toxicity.
> At first, it’s just a functional loss, but later, neurons in thehippocampus and parietal lobe of the brain that are sensitive to a dropin blood flow die off, and the brain starts to shrink here and there. Asa result of all this, short-term memory impairment and concentrationdefects make their appearance and sooner or later, give way to dementia.In the past, it took at least 65 years for this situation to develop. However,recently, its speed has been accelerating, so that young people in their20s and 30s are showing early signs of the dementia symptoms suchas forgetfulness, concentration defects, depression and performancedefects.
I appreciate you asking this question and hope you include more saturated fat in your diet.
I personally couldn’t lower my cholesterol until I purposefully limited the amount of saturated fat I was consuming. Do I have none? No, that’s almost impossible it seems, but I track my food and keep an eye on the amount I’m eating. Why are you wanting to change your mind about it?
This is a really good site. He’s a doctor and all his information is researched backed. This video talks about saturated fat and it should answer your question. From the video, my conclusion is not all saturated fat is equal or the source of saturated fat may play a role in damage or not.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/foods-to-help-protect-your-arteries-from-saturated-fat/
The actual feeding trials generally showed no effect on mortality. The general argument against saturated fat seems to be based on this model of saturated fat -> LDL -> atherosclerosis -> cardiovascular events, but this is mechanistic speculation and the evidence chosen to support the model seems…selective.
Low LDL actually correlates with mortality, so they tend to ignore that and talk about Mendelian randomization studies. Various drugs and treatments that lower LDL don’t improve mortality rates, so they tend to ignore those and talk about the treatments that do. Drug trial results seem to be a big part of the argument against saturated fat. Fundamentally, that doesn’t make sense, because saturated fat is not a drug. You can’t assume butter has the exact opposite effect of a statin. The real test would be to feed people saturated fat, but we already did that, and the results aren’t impressive.
I am in a 500 calorie deficit in order to lose body fat % down to 12% (started at 26% body fat), and I eat ribeye steaks 4-5 times a week. And eggs every single morning. I love my eggs abs ribeye steaks.
But since I have lost body fat, I have been eating MORE red meat, and my LDL cholesterol has decreased a lot in 6 months. And I feel so much better. I think the trick is portion control. I only eat about 450 calories of steak for dinner, I’m not eating a 2100 calorie ribeye. And I don’t overeat to the point I’m in a calorie surplus.
Everything is good in moderation
If you see international dietary guidelines, upto 10% of your total caloric intake can be saturated fat. That’s like 2-3 tbsp butter or peanut butter at least.
US guidelines say 7%, but I feel that difference comes from almost 50 years of villifying fat.
Olive oil is great, but Extra virgin doesn’t hold well at high temperature cooking on the stove compared to butter.
EDIT: I mixed up refined and extra virgin olive oil - refined doesn’t hold well compared to extra virgin, extra virgin is the better one for cooking
It varies per person. Some people can do high saturated fat diets while keeping biomarkers that indicate low cdv risk. Others can’t, the only way to be sure for yourself is to have blood tests done. I don’t think there is as much evidence of seed oils being harmful. So while swapping saturated fats for unsaturated fats may not benefit everyone, it will probably benefit more people.
The only problem with high poly unsaturated (PUFA) seed oils is that they are less stable than mono unsaturated fats and saturated fats. So if you’re eating foods that have been fried in seeds oils high in PUFA, the heat exposure makes the oil oxidize and become unhealthy, especially when the oil is reused several times. I think you would be better off using high mono unsaturated fats like olive oil and avocado oil, or high saturated fats like butter or coconut oil in moderation for cooking. Recent studies show these to be more stable at higher temperatures than high PUFA oils like canola.
I think Rhonda Patrick does a good job of summarizing what we know so far: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/saturated-fat
So from what I understand, saturated fat isn’t bad by itself. It’s the added bull shit sugar that makes it an issue. We need saturated fat. Usually the studies that look at this aren’t very good. They rely on reporting of diet by participants. Along with that, how many studies have been done of healthy people eating real food diets that are high in saturated fat along with fruits and veggies not some gross fast food garbage.
I believe that some scientists were paid off back in the 50s or 60s to point the finger at saturated fat as being bad rather than sugar. I don’t have a link available but I’m sure you can find it if you try.
Don’t get your advice from Reddit check out any health organisation in the world and look at their recommendations. Which are created by experts who have reviewed the current scientific literature.
If you want a good detailed reviews of why the actual consensus of avoiding excessive saturated fats is correct then then here are some decent videos
This is a detailed review of the kind of papers that say saturated fats are ok.
Not all saturated fat is equal.. read this article (which contains sources to studies to back the info up). It breaks down the potential benefits and risks of different forms of saturated fat
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/saturated-fat-types#TOC_TITLE_HDR_4
https://thebigfatsurprise.com/
I am sure the shills will come for me for this recommendation, but if you truly want to understand the of the current recommendations on saturated fat and cholesterol… This is a great place to start…
Here is a great article regarding the importance of saturated fat in the diet. The whole battle against saturated fat and cholesterol was starting by the same companies who put seed oils in everything and destroy peoples health with artificial ingredients and artificial food.
Saturated fat is better for warm use. For example sunflower oil will get much faster oxidized compared to a (more) saturated fat.https://youtube.com/shorts/Rdf45xjL5jw?feature=share here a little comparison
This may be more of a question than an answer but aren’t there differences in sources of saturated fats? For instance butter fat vs fat from cooked steak or pork? The cooking process having a impact of the fat itself. Roasted nuts vs raw nuts and the fats contained therein are different, as well. Avocados vs butter: Butter vs buttermilk. Maybe it’s a matter of choosing sources of saturated fat as opposed to lumping them into one category (ie: good or bad).
Saturated fat that comes from animals is qualitatively different and worse for your health than saturated fats that come from plant sources such as coconut oil or avocados. You’ll want to keep that in mind as you read more into this topic.
It’s very simple. Your body needs an amount of saturated fat within a certain range based on your lifestyle. Eating too much or too little is bad for your body. If you’re making a decision about which oil to use, you need to weigh the pros and cons of all the options without any biases. What is healthy for you might not be healthy for others and there’s differences in the sources of saturated fat that change the factor of healthiness for someone’s body.
tl;dr: Generally, it’s better to stay within the recommended range of saturated fat intake for your body.
Here is one of the issues:
Olive oil isn’t even a seed oil and nothing is so black and white.
You should be suspicious of people who say “seed oils cause this or that, they’re awful, you should cook with lard, cream, and butter instead” because the latter part is a weird conclusion to come to based on the former part. Theyre failing to acknowledge that olive oil is probably much healthier than either option, and that there are other oils with a similar healthiness profile to olive oil.
They’re glossing over those things because they’re trying to sell you on a kind of reactionary ideology. I’ve seen the far end of this pipeline and it gets pretty weird, with many people advocating for strictly eating meat, milk, eggs, dairy, etc. with absolutely nothing else on your plate, sometimes going as far as to advocate eating meat raw and milk unpasteurized and… it’s just weird ideological stuff and not really a good faith recommendation.
If you see someone being really really insistent about cooking with butter and lard as your exclusive oils that’s really where they’re headed with that. Its a pipeline and they want you to slide down it with them.
The TRUTH is that SOME saturated fat isn’t bad just dont overdo it, and some PUFAs aren’t bad as long as you don’t overdo it or burn the oil, and olive oil is generally pretty healthy just don’t drench things in it but mostly because you’ll consume too many calories.
i look at the inuit and massai as examples of why saturated fats are unhealthy, apparently when they dont die of heart disease, even younger people had signs that they would get it, so i am still in the “limit saturated fats” camp.