FAT
Many people believe that fat is not good for them. Usually it is because of weight issues or cardiovascular disease. These are both true. But there are several other reasons that we will discuss as well.
Let’s start with Diabetes. Most people believe that sugar is the problem in Diabetes. But sugar isn’t the problem. Its the fat in our diet. From a study in the NEJM, type II Diabetics were fed sugar and their diabetes improved. Whereas fat interferes with the effect of insulin, making a person more resistant to the insulin that they produce. Another study by Neil Barnard in 2006 fed a diet of 10 % fat, 15 % protein and 75 % carbohydrates to type II Diabetics and their Diabetes improved. ( Despite what many believe “ Carbs “ are not bad for our health if they are the starches in the WFPB diet. ) Another study in the 1979 AMJ Clinical Nutrition increased the carbohydrates to 70 % of the diet and 2/3 of the Diabetics were able to quit their diabetic medications. Also the microbiome in Vegans help with Diabetes. See Cholesterol and saturated fats below here. So why does this seem contradictory to what most nutritionist and doctors teach their patients ? It is because many of the things recommended by the USDA , etc are strongly influenced by the meat and dairy counsel. We will cover this on another day.
As Dr. McDougall likes to say “ the fat you eat is the fat you wear” . It only takes 3 % of the calories in animal fat to convert it into fat in your body. Whereas it takes 30 % of the calories of starches that you eat to convert it into fat in the body. So as an example, if you ate 1000 calories a day more than you needed , this would be converted to fat in the body. But you would get different amounts of fat depending on whether it was from animal sources versus plant sources. An extra 1000 calories of animal products eaten would result in your body getting an extra 970 calories of fat. Whereas it would only result in 700 calories of fat from plant based sources.
So how much fat is in different foods ?
Meat is usually about 50-60 % of the calories from fat. Even lean hamburger is usually over 30 %.
Dairy is often 70 % of the calories from fat
Rice is 5 % of the calories from fat
Corn is 10 % of the calories from fat
Potatoes are 1 % of the calories from Fat
Also because of the influence of the meat and dairy councils , US Congress will not allow the use of words like meat or dairy in recommendations about cholesterol and fat. Instead they must use “ saturated fat ‘ and cholesterol which only comes from these sources. Most people also know that saturated fat and cholesterol raise our risk for coronary heart disease. So many people believe that Vegans have a lower incidence of this because plant based options don’t have any or only a small amount of saturated fats and no cholesterol . But as we learn more about the microbiome ( the bacteria living in our gut ) we know that the bacteria are different in Vegans vs Omnivores ( people who eat meat, dairy and plants ). We know that the bacteria in Vegans make a substance similar to statins ( the most commonly used drugs to reduce cholesterol in people with high cholesterol levels ) . So besides not eating cholesterol we are making our own endogenous “statins.” Also the bacteria in Vegans make a chemical similar to metformin , the most commonly used drug for type II Diabetes.