Lowering fats has also lowered our absorption of the water-soluble nutrients that support our immune system. A low-fat diet has reduced our intake of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2  from real butter, cheese, and meat from grass-fed sources. Remember all the good things that the fat-soluble vitamins do for our teeth and bones. They work separately and together to affect our growth and developmental structure, our immune, reproductive, and cardiovascular systems, and our mental health—everything that makes us who we are. 

But perhaps the worst consequence of the turn toward low-fat food is that we have replaced the fat in our diet with refined carbohydrates, sugar, and manufactured oils. These food-like products may provide the calories we need for energy, but they provide empty calories that offer little nutrition. The process of refining foods eliminates vitamins and minerals from the food itself. Take bread for example: In the process of making white flour, most vitamins and minerals are eliminated, creating the need to fortify the bread with synthetic nutrients to provide any health benefits to eating bread at all.

Refined foods and sugar (as opposed to whole grains, protein, and fat) also change your body's glycemic response to the food. "Glycemic" means how your body's blood sugar responds to a meal. The chart below compares how your body responds to 500 calories from different food sources. The graph illustrates the rise in blood sugar after each meal. In the lower graph, the 500 calories come from eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and coffee with real cream. In the upper graph, the 500 calories come from cereal with low-fat milk, a low-fat muffin with margarine, and coffee with nonfat creamer.

A calorie is a measure of heat and energy; so theoretically both of these breakfasts should be equivalent and give you the same amount of energy or value from the food. That would work if you were an oven. If it consumes 500 calories of kale or 500 calories of cookies, the oven doesn’t care because it has consumed the same amount of fuel. But our bodies respond to these foods in different ways, despite them having the same number of calories. 

After a breakfast of higher fat foods, the blood sugar rose only slightly compared to a much higher rise in blood sugar after the low-fat meal, which included refined carbohydrates from the muffin and cereal. That elevated blood sugar requires a response from the body, which then releases insulin to help lower the blood sugar. While that rise in insulin lowers the blood sugar alright, it frequently lowers it too much, causing cravings for a snack to restore the blood sugar back to normal. At lunchtime the cycle happens again, and if the midday meal is pizza and a soft drink, the blood sugar once again goes up. By mid-afternoon you're hungry and tired again and probably need another snack to balance your blood sugar—your body is on an energy roller coaster. To make matters worse, insulin is lowering  blood sugar by storing it in our cells to be used for energy later. Another name for stored sugar is FAT. If we have too much sugar being stored from our diet of refined carbohydrates and sugar, then our cells become fat. 

Think of insulin as a hormone that helps regulate your blood sugar by regulating the amount of fat or weight your body stores. If you eat a diet high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, your insulin levels will go up and store more fat. If you eat more fat in your diet, your insulin levels rise very little, and fat can be released from your fat stores for energy. Like an air traffic controller, insulin is in charge of fat coming and going to and from the storage units in our bodies.

This is how a diet of low-fat foods with refined carbohydrates and sugar can make you fat. This is how it is possible to eat a NO-fat diet and still become fat. This is why drinking soda can make you fat even though there is NO fat in that drink. The insulin in your body is moving sugar into your cells to keep it out of your bloodstream. When this happens daily, you can become insulin resistant and overweight and then develop an entire list of problems—like hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease—all because you ate a low-fat diet of processed foods and sugar!

I know it sounds odd, but eating fat does not make you fat! In fact, the opposite happens. When you eat full-fat foods, you feel satisfied, satiated, or as we say in the South “it sticks to your ribs.” Your brain is happier and your energy remains stable throughout the day.

When you eat a nutrient-rich diet that includes healthy fats, energy is immediately available so that you can run faster and jump higher. Eating more fat will reduce the constant cravings for refined sugary foods to boost your energy level. Adding more fat in your diet will improve your mood by stabilizing your blood sugar. Adding healthy fats to your diet will promote better absorption of nutrients and increase your access to the fat soluble vitamins necessary for good health.

Let’s start achieving all the benefits of fats in your diet by slowly changing what you eat each day. Start by adding more fat in the form of nuts, seeds, butter, yogurt, cheese, avocado, fish, and meat and cooking with healthy fats like olive oil, ghee (clarified butter), walnut oil, lard, avocado oil, and coconut oil. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried a homemade cookie made with real lard, just like my Granny made ‘em! What a rewarding culinary adventure!

This is Dr. DeLaney, reminding you to enjoy eating full-fat foods!