Book Review: Know Your Fats — Mary E. Enig

The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol by Mary G. Enig

Comprehensive reference book for understanding dietary fats

The paradigm under which most of us live teaches that fats from animals and tropical nuts are unhealthy because they’re saturated, and that we need to consume mostly polyunsaturates from plants, such as corn, soybean, and canola. We are taught that saturated fats and cholesterol clog arteries and cause heart disease and obesity.

And yet, despite lowering animal fat, increasing vegetable oil consumption, declining full-fat packaged products and choosing low-fat or fat-free options, our heart disease mortality statistics continue to climb and we are growing fatter. Really fatter. Who knew that excessive carbs in the bloodstream are turned into–saturated fats! How’s it working so far?

Ancel Keys, a researcher in the 1950s, claimed that saturated fats were causing heart disease (by cherry picking data, it turns out, but here we are stuck with his bad science), but then he also condemned saturated vegetable oils. Here’s the rub: saturated fats make for fluffy pastries and full-bodied cookies and pies and mouthwatering breads and all the various faux foods wrapped in plastic that titillate our taste buds. Have you ever tried making a pie crust with corn oil? That’s why our mothers and grandmothers used lard and tallow. But dear granny wasn’t dropping dead of heart disease at 50, was she?

The vegetable oil industry countered by boasting that they would only partially hydrogenate their oils to reduce saturated fat, a practice they were already doing. This would provide the rigidity needed to hold up baked goods and spreads. Then they began a long campaign against saturated animal fats. Choose margarine over butter!

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But partial hydrogenation changes the molecular structure of naturally occurring fats, creating unnatural fats and worse: trans fats. And these fats are incorporated into our living cells, causing structural and communication problems and interfering with our body’s ability to “turn off” inflammation.

Additionally, unsaturated fats are highly unstable, meaning they go bad easily, in both our cupboards and our bodies. The refining process of plants oils removes the antioxidants (namely vitamin E) that keep them from going bad. Synthetics are added in their place. You end up with a devitalized, nonnutritious, unstable oil with remnants of carcinogenic solvents (hexane) and chemical preservatives used in the refining, deodorizing, and bleaching process just so a packaged product will last months on the shelf. Bleck!

The many membranes in the 60 trillion or so cells that comprise our bodies are made from fatty acids, so the quality of our cells is determined by the quality of the fats we ingest. After reading this book, you’ll understand:

• Saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats
• Short-, medium-, and long-chain fatty acids
• Essential fatty acids and proper ratio in the human dietary
• The role of omega 3 and omega 6 fats
• The structure of triglycerides
• The role of cholesterol
• How fats are absorbed and metabolized
• The dangers of partial hydrogenation and trans fats
• The different fats and oils available to the human dietary
• Which fats to use for various cooking and baking applications
• Care of fats and oils in the kitchen
• The history of fats and oils, their refinement and industrial applications
• How to read labels
• And more

Think about this: For over two million years the majority of fats our ancestors consumed came from animals. It is only in the past hundred years that we began consuming refined and hydrogenated plant fats, and these are predominantly in processed–not whole–foods. And we are experiencing an epidemic of autoimmune diseases: heart disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, ADD, multiple sclerosis, you name it. We’ve been had by the lousy soybean, corn and rapeseed industries!

I borrowed my copy from the library and have read it twice, but I will be ordering a copy of my own. This is an incredibly valuable reference book to which I will often return for advice and further understanding. Highly recommended for all health seekers.

Buy Know Your Fats.