Wow, I got a great response to this post:
“How Difficult Was it for You to Give Up the Low Fat Mentality?”
Instead of cutting and pasting all 28 comments (so far anyway), go to the comment section there for some very interesting stories. Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts!
MORE RESPONSES VIA EMAIL:
- Nina Planck, author of one of my favorite books, Real Food: What to Eat and Why, and her next book due out in April, Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods:
“Eating more fat was the scariest thing I had to do on the road to sensible omnivory. Eating more meat and eggs was easy by comparison. If I had swallowed any message whole, it was that low-fat is better and no-fat might be better yet! After all, you can live, be active, even gain weight eating protein or starches. But you are sure to gain weight on fat. Or so we were told. In fact I was 25 pounds heavier on a low-fat diet. And missing all kinds of nutrients. Here's a message for ‘good' eaters: getting ALL your fat from olive oil – as I did – leaves you lacking many important nutrients, including certain fatty acids, both saturated and polyunsaturated, and several important vitamins.”
- Ann Marie/Cheeseslave:
“To be honest, I never ate a low-fat diet. The only thing I changed was switching from 2% milk to whole milk. Everything else is the same. I've always been the type of person to eat tons of butter and cream. When I ate a bagel, I'd always put a huge mess of cream cheese on it.
When I was younger, my favorite snack was pizza with ice cream on top. And I always put lots of melted butter on my popcorn. My favorite breakfast has always been Eggs Benedict. If I was ordering a sandwich, I'd always order it on a croissant if it was available.
Part of this, I think, is because I am first and foremost a foodie. Most foodies I know never fell for the low-fat charade. We just kept on, eating our eggs and cream and butter, because it tasted better. And I think this is why, when, at the age of 38, I was finally ready to get pregnant, it happened without even trying.”
- Karen Lubbers (she owns the farm where we get our raw milk):
“Interesting question–made me think. I never fully embraced the low-fat approach. We always ate real butter and we continued to eat beef and pork because we liked it. I couldn't stand the taste of skim milk. I guess I was a fat eater battling guilt, so it was pretty easy for me to give up the low-fat crap. I was raised on a farm so I knew what real food tasted like.”
- My husband, Kent:
“Actually, I never had the low-fat mentality. I'm just not wired that way. Good enough for Grandpa, good enough for me. I never drank diet pop (don't drink pop at all now), don't want anything to do with light beer, and can't stand the flavor of any low-fat product. Why bother eating something that doesn't taste good? Remember, it took your absolute insistence on 2% milk just after we were married, to get me to switch from whole milk. Hah. Not so smart now, aayyy, Kitchen Kop?”
- Scott Kustes, from Modern Forager:
“I remember hearing about Atkins when I was in college an thought it was a bunch of nonsense. Give up carbs for all that fat? What a bunch of hooey! But I was merely parroting what I'd heard repeated in the news and such and on the surface it made sense…”eat less fat, don't get fat.” When you've been hearing the same message over and over for 20 years, it's pretty easy to dismiss anything that is so unorthodox. Perhaps even harder was getting past the information that was drummed into us about saturated fat.
When I ventured onto the CrossFit forums and actually started reading people talk about physiology and the hormonal workings of the body though, it seemed that fat wasn't so bad and carbs weren't so good. And since I was moving out on my own, I decided that the best way to see what was up was to give it a try myself. First, I went Zone, which is still 40% carbs, and felt great. Later, I went Paleo and found that there was virtually no way to get 40% of my calories from carbs with Paleo options.
During this time, I immersed myself in understanding the workings of the body, an adventure that's still far from complete. I found that fat is far less dangerous than carbs, specifically processed carbs. I don't think there's any real danger in fruit, vegetables, squashes, and sweet potatoes.
It has taken a good 8 or 9 years to undo the teachings of my first 20 or so.”
- Jeremy from Almost Fit:
“I'd say that on the surface at first it was easy – after all, getting to eat fat was a great treat, and it seemed unbelievable! But a little below the surface, and as time went on, those biases and food insecurities remained. I had to relearn how to eat, avoiding processed “low fat” and “non fat” faux foods, and retraining myself not to feel bad about it. I also really had to focus on eating well, meaning learning to eat (and enjoy) seasonal vegetables and fruits that would have previously been something I'd avoid in favor of packaged foods. As you know, my approach has everything to do with moderation, so that was another challenge…now that the fat-eating floodgates were open, I had to really work to keep it reigned in, but over time it has become much more natural.”
- Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, and President of the Weston A. Price Foundation:
“I never fell for it in the first place – I have always been a rebel!”
If you didn't share your thoughts at the last post, feel free to do so now – how difficult was it for YOU to give up the “low-fat mentality”? Or have you yet?
***Read more here about healthy fats!
photo, creative commons 2.0
Joanna says
I went through a phase as a teenager where I didn’t like fat much and did eat margarine- looking back I do not understand why!
Now in my late thirties I love fat and love how good I feel using real fats in my daily foods. This morning I added some coconut oil, cream & coconut cream on my porridge. I have mental clarity, no aches & pains, I am relaxed and content and sleep really well. Fat is the wise woman’ beauty secret too- wrinkles be gone eating coconut oil & ghee. Bring on the butter!
Kelly says
Scott, how fun to hear from you here! I just watched your video the other day. I can’t wait to help promote (and try myself!) your awesome products!
Scott says
I had fallen for the low-fat thing my whole life, but as I am weak-minded, I luckily never lived by it. I just lived a life of guilt, which thankfully is gone. I never bought into fake fats, as I’ve always believed nature does better than man, but the thought that fats were actually GOOD FOR ME took me a good year or two to be fully comfortable with. Now I can have my steak and eat it too –
Erica says
Thanks, Carrie!
Kelly says
Farmgirl, interesting about your Mom, it’s amazing how deeply ingrained the myths about fat are in most of us!
farmgirl says
My mother is a petite 79 year old italian dynamo. She has always believed that fat makes you fat. She eats almost no fat except her sharp provolone. She comes from good stock though, her mom made everything from scratch, made her own cheese also. She died at 92 because at her first doctor check up I think she ever had, at 92, her blood pressure was a little high and they put her on blood pressure medicine. It messed up her sodium levels, they told her to eat a few crackers, she ended up in a coma and died. My mom said that whenever she was sick she would go out in the back yard and pick some weeds(herbs) and make herself some tea. I grew up on margarine and 2% milk. I still have trouble undoing my brainwashing but I eat butter, whole raw milk from our cows, and I’m still trying to eat the fat on the meat.
Carrie @ The Thrifty Oreganic says
Erica,
The Coconut Oil Diet is the name of a book by Cherie Calbom (https://www.amazon.com/Coconut-Diet-Secret-Ingredient-Favorite/dp/0446577162). I had never heard of Eat Fat, Lose Fat at the time. The books are very similar. I think getting both would be a great place to start!
In a nutshell, eat 1 TBS Virgin Unrefined Coconut Oil 20 min. before each meal and this is supposed to help you to not overeat. Additionally, she suggests that you lower your carbs to fruits, veggies, and nuts while also consuming good-quality meats. She’s also realy in to cleansing and juicing. It’s a great book with some tasty recipes!
Erica says
Carrie, what is the Coconut Oil Diet?
Kelly says
Heather, I wish the same thing!!
Kelly says
It’s really no wonder that the image other countries have of Americans isn’t so good… yet we’re also such kind people for the most part, just generally misguided on what we put into our faces!
TrailGrrl says
Traveling in Europe really opened my eyes. Nobody eats “diet” anything. What they have in the stores is what you get, and eggs aren’t even refrigerated. You go to one store to buy bread every day or so, and you buy your pastries and and cakes at another. People don’t bake, because it isn’t as good as what you can buy from the konditorei. Unless you go to a U.S. military base and shop there where you can buy all the same junk we eat here. In Stockholm there is actually a store called the American grocery or something like that and it’s embarassing to see what they carry… Sugar Pops, Hamburger Helper, and all kinds of stuff that is totally processed.
TrailGrrl
Heather says
I had a mother who loved to cook and we ENJOYED meals – fat and all. It wasn’t until I went off to college that I even tasted margarine. Then I refused to eat it. I would rather have dry toast than eat that tasteless stuff. One of my favorite snacks was a sliced banana swimming in heavy cream. I have served it to my children and for a few years felt guilty about all that fat. Now that I am more informed I feel good about all the “good fats” I have served. I just wish I had learned how important fat is for us before I had my children.
Kelly says
Alyss, pretty good that you can say you knew at 16 what most still don’t know today! 🙂
Local Nourishment, wow, you’ve seen it all, haven’t you?
I completely understand, it IS a scary thing sometimes. But like you said, what God made/natural whole foods can’t be the cause of why people are getting sick.
Will there be some who can eat crap and stay skinny? Yes. Will there be some who eat perfectly and still get sick? Yes. (Especially if they have other bad habits.) There just aren’t any guarantees no matter what. But on the whole, I’d put everything on whole foods and always “err” that way, it just makes common sense. I’ve got a post way down in my drafts folder about this topic, maybe I’ll resurrect it…
Kelly
Alyss says
Like Anne Marie noted, I also was first and foremost a foodie. My dad raised me that way. He never had margarine in his house (partly that was post war nasty margarine trauma, but most of it was taste), and always used plenty of cream when a recipe called for it. As I moved out on my own my bigger problem was dropping the “tasty” processed foods that had been part of his kitchen in favor of whole foods.
My aunt always complained that my mom and dad had normal cholesterol levels compared to her high cholesterol “despite” the fact that they ate tons of butter. When I looked in her kitchen and found low fat cookies, margarine, lean cuisine frozen dinners and lots of sugar free candy I knew, even at 16, that butter was better 🙂
These days I preach the gospel of fat everywhere I go. I tell very few people the whole truth of what I know about fat – they’d look at my curvy body and dismiss me outright. I generally just talk about the fact that brain cells and hormones are made of fat, and that there’s little evidence that cholesterol levels and heart disease are linked anyway. And then I go home and melt a stick of butter on my popcorn. I like to think of it as revenge for being called fat all through middle school 🙂
Local Nourishment says
I’m just getting started on my journey and I’ll tell ya, it’s with a great deal of trepidation. I believe the data, I believe the pharmaceutical industry is lying to doctors who pass the lies on to us, but it’s still scary.
Being 50, I’ve heard the entire arc of “studies,” from Framingham to Fallon. I’ve lost a farmer grandpa who ate three eggs and a quart of whole milk a day every day of his life and died of lung cancer at age 60 (oh, and smoked two packs a day). I’ve lost a father who ate tofu sauteed in margerine every day and died of alcohol-related liver failure at age 60. I have an obese mother who has been on every diet known to medicine and never in 40 years lost more than five pounds of her extra 100 pounds. (She was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.) I have a sister who swears by the low-fat high aspartame regime, eats out two meals a day and still wears her high school jeans. My husband’s high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high weight, near diabetic condition SCREAMS for help. The idea that a normalized fat diet will not kill him goes against everything I’ve learned in 49 years of learning and watching the news.
So yeah, it’s scary for me. But I believe too much in the integrity of the food created by the Creator for consumption by His created to ever go back to chemicals as a way of life.
Kelly says
Carrie, that is an AWESOME testimony, I looooove it. Thanks for sharing!
Carrie @ The Thrifty Oreganic says
I dropped the low-fat mentality when I became pregnant with my daughter over 4 years ago. I switched to whole, non-homogenized milk with that thick, creamy layer on top. I started taking Cod Liver Oil, but that was about it.
Ironically, I gained so much weight in that pregnancy (because I failed to give up the junk carbs, playing the preggy card ) that I actually used fat to lose weight!
I started the Coconut Oil Diet (very similar to Eat Fat, Lose Fat) and the weight just melted off practically. I cut out refined sugars and that helped tremendously as well, but the Coconut Oil really helped to change my metabolism for the better.
I now eat a high fat diet of pastured egg yolks, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, raw whole milk, cream, beef tallow, lamb fat, cod liver oil, and good quality olive oils. Last summer, I had a lipid panel done and my cholestoral was *perfect*. Go figure!!!
And, at 30 years old, I weigh the same 126 lbs I weighed at 17!!!