Myth Bust: Saturated Fats - Good or Bad?

Fat can be a confusing topic, so I’m hopefully going to help clear up the myths about saturated fat and explain to you why your body thrives off it! 

The role of saturated fat has so many benefits to your physiology. Did you know that 60% of your brain is made up of saturated fat? And that saturated fat makes up 50% of your cell membranes? 

Your cell membrane is the passageway in and out of your cell, it's how nutrients, oxygen, water, and hormones etc. get in and out of your cells. 

I often use the following analogy to describe how our body uses the food we eat, and it goes like this:

Imagine you are heading out to a club, your blood is the highway, your thyroid hormone is the taxi, your minerals are the bouncers at the club door, and the cell membrane is the doorway. 

As your cells are saturated with saturated fats, we need to consume them to optimise their function. Good quality saturated fats are protective, decrease inflammation, protect the heart and are rich in fat soluble vitamins A, D and K. 

Saturated fats are predominantly found in animal foods such as grass fed butter, grass fed ghee, egg yolks, meat and fish, as well as coconut oil. 

This is another reason why I emphasise the importance of animal foods that are rich in saturated fats, these fatty acids are responsible for providing the body with bioavailable nutrients.

Take retinol for example, retinol is preformed vitamin A. It is a fat soluble vitamin found in quality animal produce like grass fed/free range liver, dairy, eggs & some fish. Beta-carotene is a precursor to vitamin A from plants, such as carrots. It takes 12 units of beta-carotene to yield just 1 unit of retinol, and you need animal fat to make that conversion happen. Beta-carotene is not vitamin A, your body has to convert it into retinol for it to be used. This is just one example of why saturated fat is so important to your physiology, and how misguided we can be when it comes to nutritional properties and benefits in certain foods (carrots do not help you see in the dark, but a steak will!). 

The research about saturated fats leading to heart disease and other ill health has been proven misleading so many times, the original study back in the 50’s by Ancel Keys was made up of cherry picked data and didn’t consider other elements of the diet such as polyunsaturated fats and processed foods. When you understand how these fats work in the body, it is easier to see how we have been mistaken about fat for so long.

It is the structure of the fat that is important, so let’s compare saturated fat and polyunsaturated fat and how they work in our body. 

The structure of saturated fats is much more stable than polyunsaturated fats, because of this, saturated fats are resilient to heat, light and oxygen, which is why the cells in your body are saturated with these fatty acids - we are hot, oxygen rich beings and therefore saturated fatty acids thrive. 

PUFAs on the other hand, are easily damaged in the presence of light, heat and oxygen, this is why a cold water fish such as salmon is made up of predominantly PUFAs, because these oils are safer at cold temperatures. If salmon was to be made of saturated fats, their cells would solidify (think how hard butter is when it’s cold!) and the salmon would not survive. 

When PUFAs are extracted from their host, so omega oil taken from fish cells or sunflower oil taken from the plant, this exposure to light, heat and oxygen damages the structure of these fats. Then they are stored on supermarket shelves, exposed to more light and heat, further damaging them. Then when we consume them, entering our 37 degree, oxygen rich body, these oils have no chance of staying in their original structure and maintaining any of the potential protective properties they would have had in their original state (vitamin E being one of these!). The problem is, the damage to these fats causes damage to our cells.

This damage happens as the PUFAs breakdown down our cell structure to help repair their own. This is called free radical damage, and you may have heard this term in relation to disease such as diabetes and cancers, it also leads to hormonal disturbance as it impacts your cells ability to respond to nutrients and use them.

Free radical damage is a process that happens naturally, every single day. However with optimal nourishment, stress management, supportive movement and other healthy habits, your body has the tools to deal with this. What we don’t want to do is induce excessive free radical damage by over consuming PUFAs and restricting saturated fat in the name of health!

One of the best things you can do for your hormones, and your overall health, is to eat grass fed and free range animal foods and reduce consumption of unnecessary PUFAs such as fried foods, margarine, dressings, mayonnaise, crisps, Omega supplements, and packaged foods. 

This even includes cooking in butter, coconut oil, lard, and other traditional fats. Why? Because like I mentioned above these saturated fats are more stable in heat, resisting oxidation unlike PUFAs. 

It’s time to ditch the toxic margarine and bring back the real block butter!

If you want to understand more about introducing healthy fats into your diet alongside bioavailable protein and quality carbs for optimal hormone health, you can take my Foundations of Nutrition 90 Minute Mini Course and get LIFETIME access for just £47! Remember to use HCLUB10 for an extra 10% OFF.