By Teri Clayton
For decades, fat has been demonised as a dietary villain responsible for various health problems. However, recent research has shown that not all fats are created equal and that certain types of fats are essential for a healthy diet. While polyunsaturated fats from sources like avocados and nuts have been touted as “good” fats, saturated fats have been largely rejected as unhealthy. But is this really the case? In this article, we’ll explore the truth about saturated fats in the human diet and debunk some of the dietary beliefs surrounding them.
Contents
1. The Role of Saturated Animal Fat as a Potent Energy Source
2. Unlocking the Power of Fat: The Surprising Role it Plays in Our Energy Levels
3. Exploring the Benefits of Saturated Fats in Our Diet: Breaking Down the Myths and Misconceptions
5. New Research on Saturated Fats: Expanding Our Understanding of Their Role in a Balanced Diet
6. A Balanced Approach to Incorporating Saturated Fats into Your Diet
The Role of Saturated Animal Fat as a Potent Energy Source
A key part of our work at Primal involves supporting the regenerative and holistic management of livestock, with a particularly strong emphasis on cattle. We consider cattle to be a vital component in the regeneration of many types of ecosystems.
Why?
There are innumerable reasons cows are vital, not least their production of manure. Cows ingest forage and convert it into something overflowing with diverse varieties of life and fertile nourishment. Not only does this manure support the life of many species above ground, it also feeds organisms deep below the soil line. It builds soil organic matter, drawing down carbon from the air and enhances soil nutrient bioavailability, through the production of microbial metabolites….phew, that’s quite a list.
We can say with confidence that cows and their manure are pretty amazing when it comes to improving ecosystem health!
Whilst cows create and nourish more life through their amazing digestive processes and manure, we also love another aspect of their biology that receives little recognition. Cows can produce concentrated energy in the form of fat, from seemingly indigestible, tough and fibrous, cellulosic plant material. Read more HERE
Due to a cow’s ultra-efficient digestive capacity alongside their exquisitely evolved digestive microbiome, they can literally turn even dried up dead leaves into energy that can power life.
Unlocking the Power of Fat: The Surprising Role it Plays in Our Energy Levels
We all know that energy makes the world go round and we certainly know about it when we don’t have enough of it. But how many people can say they truly value the role of fat in relation to our energy levels in our day to day lives.
Through a cow’s digestive capacities, sunlight energy – stored up in plants – can be transformed into fats that we humans can utilise as an energy source. We certainly would not get that amount of energy from chewing on indigestible lignified material ourselves. This is quite a remarkable benefit to us – enabling us to access the energy from the sun in a concentrated form that our bodies can process. Yet there is currently a great deal of controversy surrounding the consumption of energy dense – saturated animal fats.
What do you currently believe about saturated animal fat and it’s role as a source of energy in our diet? We’d love to know! Share on our platform HERE.
Exploring the Benefits of Saturated Fats in Our Diet: Breaking Down the Myths and Misconceptions
Fat has been vilified in the human diet and blamed for a whole manner of human diseases and ailments. But as with all things to do with diet and health – the story is complex, nuanced and not at all black and white.
We have recognised for a while that not all fats are bad – that good fats are in fact an absolutely essential part of a healthy diet (1). But whilst we have been quick to put polyunsaturated fats from sources like avocados, seeds and nuts on a pedestal, we have largely rejected the possibility of saturated fats offering us a positive source of energy and nutrition.
Saturated fats have been undergoing somewhat of a revival when it comes to choosing cooking fats in the kitchen. This is because saturated fats do not break down into inflammatory oxidised fats after heating, as extracted polyunsaturated fats tend to do (2). Whilst this small win for utilising saturated fats is a step in a more balanced direction, there are many dietary beliefs that are acting as barriers to a more widespread adoption of saturated animal fats in our diets.
Are these barriers helpful and protective or could they be hindering us?
Saturated fats have been embraced as a long lasting source of energy, fat soluble vitamins and other nutrients by many following a more ancestral/wild type diet (3). But is this truly good for us? There are many people who follow the guidance about eating a very low-fat diet and there are others who focus solely on including plenty of ‘healthy’ polyunsaturated fats – yet there is still a great deal of confusion around the benefits of consuming saturated fat.
‘Recent research, coming from the popularity of low-carbohydrate high-fat diets, is challenging some of these concerns about high fat and high saturated fatty acid (SFA) intakes and disease risk’ (4)
‘Studies carried out in animals that were fed high-fat diets did not show a specific causal relationship between dietary fat and obesity. On the contrary, very-low-carbohydrate and high-fat diets such as the ketogenic diet have shown to be beneficial to weight loss’ (5)
Perhaps it’s time we started to explore, think and – in some experienced cases – take action a little bit further outside of the box, to gain some clarity? Have a look at this video of holistic Doctor and decathlete Dr Sten Ekberg, showing what happened to him after eating 100 tablespoons of butter in 10 days, click HERE to view.
Given the anecdotal cases of fats improving people’s health, is it possible that we have got things totally wrong?
Could a diet higher in fat, (especially certain types of saturated fat, known to confer beneficial effects) offer us greater health?
Dispelling the Top 5 Myths about Saturated Fats in Diet: Separating Fact from Fiction
Myth: All fats are bad for you. Reality: Good fats are essential to a healthy diet. Misconception: Polyunsaturated fats are the only healthy fats. Reality: Saturated fats can also be a positive source of energy and nutrition. Myth: Saturated fats are unhealthy and should be avoided. Reality: Saturated fats can be a long-lasting source of energy, fat-soluble vitamins, and other nutrients. Misconception: High-fat diets lead to obesity and disease. Reality: Recent research challenges this belief, with some studies showing that high-fat diets can be beneficial for weight loss. Myth: Eating too much fat is always bad for you. Reality: Consuming certain types of saturated fat in moderation may potentially confer beneficial effects and improve health.
Understanding Ketogenic Diets: Benefits, Risks, and Adaptation for Mitochondrial Energy Production
Ketogenic diets are now increasingly popular, working with the capacity of mitochondria to produce energy from fat through the production of ketone bodies. With purported benefits including blood glucose stabilisation in diabetes, to reversing the severity of neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s (6,7,8), there is certainly sufficient cause to explore this diet more thoroughly.
There are many theories about why ketogenic diets offer health benefits and also many that declare it to be dangerous (9). It is said by some that when mitochondria burn ketones for fuel instead of carbohydrates, it reduces the oxidative stress placed on the mitochondria and thus enhances their longevity (8).
Disclaimer: We do not advocate following a ketogenic diet and offer no specific dietary recommendations. Please seek the advice of your healthcare provider, or a qualified nutritional therapist/practitioner or dietician before you make any sudden dietary changes. This article is intended only to stimulate thought and further personal research into what might better suit individuals.
Whilst it is widely accepted that the body, including the brain, are well suited to using ketones as an energy source when needed (10), it is also understood that the brain needs at least some glucose (11) and many people report not getting on well with a ketogenic diet at all.
There are adaptive mechanisms in the body that allow people to adjust to ketogenic diets. The majority of people do not understand how to work with the adaptation required to move from burning carbs for fuel, to burning ketones derived from fat. This is a complex topic, well beyond the scope of this article and the matter is anything but settled, even for avid ketogenic diet followers or researchers.
Those who regularly undergo intermittent fasting, or other forms of fasting will have a different capacity to produce energy from ketones, than those who have consumed carbohydrates to excess for years without a break. It is certainly true to say that a one size fits all approach definitely does not apply and one persons version of a ketogenic diet may vary significantly from another.
Interesting videos to explore:
New Research on Saturated Fats: Expanding Our Understanding of Their Role in a Balanced Diet
Our knowledge about nutrition will always be growing and expanding and we are barely scratching the surface of our understanding of the nutrients we need to thrive. Soil health, seasons, microbiome diversity and functionality, diversity of species, secondary metabolites in plants, animals and soil and so much more, govern the effects of what we eat on our bodies.
Researcher Stephan Van Vliet has been exploring the impact of farming methods, soil health, microbiome and pasture diversity on the nutrient density of the food produced. His research results offer key insights that will undoubtedly expand the concept of what ‘nutrients’ are. Through the development of technology in metabolomicshttps://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/online/courses/metabolomics-introduction/what-is/ we can now more easily view nutrients in our food, revealing a vast and complex array of compounds that vary and emerge unexpectedly.
One of Stephan Van Vliet’s findings was that grass fed beef had a higher level of long chain saturated fatty acids – such as arachidic acid and behenic acid (12). These saturated fatty acids are associated with a reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes (13). Whilst this does not allow us to assume that grass fed meat, high in these long chain saturated fats will reduce cardiovascular disease – it poses a key paradigm shifting question.
Could certain types of saturated fats be necessary for achieving optimal health? Could grass fed beef, high in very long chain saturated fats actually improve our cardiovascular health?
‘Increased levels of circulating very long chain saturated fatty acids have been found associated with lower risks of incident heart failure, atrial fibrillation, coronary heart disease, mortality, sudden cardiac arrest, type 2 diabetes, and with better aging’ (13).
Final Thoughts on Saturated Fats: A Balanced Approach to Incorporating Them into Your Diet
Could a diet that contains very long chain saturated fatty acids derived from grass fed animals, combined with a diet that burns ketones for fuel, offer a viable way to better support energy production and longevity in our precious mitochondria?
When it comes to considering the role of fats as a key source of energy in our diets, the final analysis must rest with each individual and their own lifestyle choices. One thing is for sure however – cows are a great gift when it comes to converting sunlight energy into physical forms of energy. As with most processes and forms found in nature, saturated fats could potentially be a lot better for the health of the human race than we currently have the capacity to understand.
Nature is not designed to offer up carbohydrates all year round, nor an all you can eat buffet of saturated fats. Instead nature offers us a balance of many types of nutrients at different times of the year. In all cases when it comes to what we consume on a daily basis – the poison is in the dose.
It is the diversity of nature’s energy sources that offers us the greatest protection from toxic imbalances, because everything in moderation does not permit us to consume anything to excess.
If balance and diversity are the solution and extremes of thought, belief or action are the problem; when it comes to fats, perhaps we would be wise to include all varieties found in nature, in balance and moderation.
Further Reading: Exploring More Resources on Metabolomics, Nutrients, Microbiome, and Agro-Ecological Meat
- The science of plant based meat vs grass fed meat
- Agro-ecological meat vs supermarket
- Meat is a health food
- Rumen Microbiome – conversion of cellulose into fatty acids
References
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218759/
- https://www.nuffieldhealth.com/article/cooking-oils-a-guide-to-the-healthiest-fats
- https://chriskresser.com/what-is-an-ancestral-diet-and-how-does-it-help-you/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6628852/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499830/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22905670/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8755961
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1865572/
- https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/health-and-wellness-articles/ketogenic-diet-what-are-the-risks
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JhnZok5qxI&ab_channel=HEALTHISTATV%7CTheArtofWellness%E2%84%A2
- https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/does-the-brain-need-carbs
- Dr. Stephan van Vliet: Beef Nutrient Density Study Preliminary Results
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34907969/
Join our New Primal Stakes Club
Benefit from wholesome nutrition and help us support a transition towards more regenerative farming!
Be the first to hear about cow shares, offal boxes, half lambs, pigs or mutton boxes produced by farmers up and down the UK. Receive progress reports on their journey to low input regenerative agriculture. Get involved in open days, farm tours and events!
Join for free – click the button below.
Related posts
Carnivore diet
Regenerative Agriculture
Wild about wild game
Grass fed meat health claims
New Improved Methane Methodology.
Immunity and Connection
Primal Living is energy-efficient living
The Power of Muscle
Introducing Model Farm
Your Immune System is Not Alone in Facing Viral Infections
Responsible Foraging
Report; ‘Soil health: a national security profile’
Regenerative Agriculture – the answer(s)
Healthy Teeth, Healthy Heart
Wild water
Plant-based diets
Grain Free Beef – 100% Grass Fed Beef
Sustainable meat – how it all went wrong!
Fermented Foods
Maybe we should worship the sun after all?
Nutrition Beyond Measurables
The true cost of globalisation
Chicken Bone Broth
Real Changemakers
Is eating meat bad for your health?
Carbon Wash
Grass-fed: Are our expectations always met?
The Big Wide World Of Primal Living
Is your terrain healthy?
Livestock: On our plates or eating at our table? A new analysis of the feed/food debate.
Regenerating Our Lives
Antibiotics – What have they done for our health?
Primal meats working to help the Maasai in Kenya.
Plant-based ‘meats’
Lamb, Celeriac and Mint Bone Broth
Nourishing Our Children
Introducing Hill Top Farm, Malham
Do you want to help ignite a consumer revolution?
Livestock are not the global warming enemy.
Why a Meat Tax will lead to faster climate breakdown. 
Grass-fed: Are our expectations always met? 
Is it morally right to eat meat? 
Grain Free Beef – 100% Grass Fed Beef 
Bone Broth 
Recent Comments