21 April 08 re: healthy fats

chox:

In explaining "weight," your new category for why you're changing a recipe, you say, "Reducing the amount of olive oil from two Tablespoons to one makes it healthier only in the context of weight management."

I don't get this.

If you are thin as a rail, I still think reducing the oil makes a recipe healthier for you and has nothing to do with weight management. Maybe a skinny person can tolerate the oil better, but less is better, I thought.

m-c:

Alas, all of us who lived through the 80s and 90s carry this lingering fear of fat with us, but we really need to update our ideas.

The first place I saw the new information was in an article called "Rebuilding the Food Pyramid" in Scientific American, the issue of December 2002. Walter C. Willett and Meir J. Stampfer trashed the old food pyramid, explained why it was so bad, and set forth a new one of their own. Theirs was easy to read and understand, but more important, it was based on evidence, which, as it turns out, the old pyramid was not.

All those thousands of makeover recipes where fat was replaced by prune puree or applesauce? Feh. Using "sauté" to mean cooking in a small amount of broth? Feh. Cooking in those scary first-generation nonstick pans whose coating disintegrated with the touch of a fork? Feh feh feh.

Willett and Stampfer wrote:

"The notion that fat in general is to be avoided stems mainly from observations that affluent Western countries have both high intakes of fat and high rates of coronary heart disease. This correlation, however, is limited to saturated fat. Societies in which people eat relatively large portions of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat tend to have lower rates of heart disease.

"On the Greek island of Crete, for example, the traditional diet contained much olive oil (a rich source of monounsaturated fat) and fish (a source of polyunsaturated fat). Although fat constituted 40 percent of the calories in this diet, the rate of heart disease for those who followed it was lower than the rate for those who followed the traditional diets of Japan, in which fat made up only 8 to 10 percent of the calories."

I went right out and bought the book that Willett had published in 2001, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy (Simon & Schuster). In chapter 4, "Surprising News about Fat," he wrote:

"Few public health messages are as powerful and as persistent as this one: Fat is bad. Over the past four decades, fat has become a kind of dietary Public Enemy Number One, a food feared for its ability to cause disease and even kill ...

"Not all fats are bad. In spite of the scorn heaped upon dietary fat and the antifat recommendations from the country's leading health organizations, the truth is that some fats are good for you, and it is important to include these good fats in your diet [emphasis his]."

Our book for the month of March was the diet book Willett wrote with Molly Katzen, Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less, and while we didn't much like that book as a cookbook, its information on nutrition is unimpeachable. In chapter 2, "Say Yes to Good Fats," Molly and Walt say:

"Some fats are bad, of course, but not all of them. Some are not only 'not bad,' they're actually good for you, and it's important that you make them a significant part of your everyday diet [emphasis theirs] ...

"See if the following scenario sounds familiar. You've made some steamed broccoli. So far, so good. You reach for the butter but think twice and grab the olive oil instead, because that'll be healthier. So far, still so good. But then, you think, 'Hmm ... better no fat at all.' You put down the olive oil and squeeze some lemon on the broccoli, maybe a pinch of salt and a little pepper. You sit down and eat your broccoli without much satisfaction, but at least you can feel good that you didn't eat fat.

"That's a mistake. Olive oil isn't a 'lesser of two evils.' It's actively, positively, demonstrably good for you [emphasis, again, theirs]. In the context of a balanced diet, you would have been better off drizzling some on your broccoli than going without it."

It's not surprising that we have trouble grasping this message. We've heard the contrary for so many years now, from so many sources. But they were -- still are, in many cases -- wrong.

(You can get a copy of the article from Scientific American for $7.95 or, for about the same amount of money, a second-hand copy of either of the books.)

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