It's Not the Fat That's Making us Fat, It's the Lack of Fat That's Making Us Fat

By Cat Moss, Organic Author

It is a myth that eating animal fat will make you fat.

Animal fats have lots of good fatty acids that fight disease, help absorb vitamins and lower cholesterol. Your body burns the short-chained fatty acids found in animal fats and store the long-chained ones found in polyunsaturated fat.

Fat is a "big" issue with Americans, but few of us realize what a critical role it plays in how healthy and energetic we are. Fat does not in and of itself cause us to gain extra weight. This problem arises from the overuse of the wrong kinds of poorly digestible processed fats.

Healthy fats also referred to as "good" fats and "whole food" fats are extra virgin coconut oil, organic butter, extra virgin olive oil, flax oil, walnut oil, animal fat, lard, cod liver oil, and fish oil.

These fats are extremely beneficial to the body because they are a vehicle to transport vitamins, help with digestion and detoxify the body as well as provide essential amino acids for basic functions of the body. The body easily recognizes these whole food fats and uses them to its highest ability. It needs these fats to function well.

Studies in Europe have shown that the Mediterranean diet full of whole foods, animal protein and fate and olive oil put the Greeks at the top of the list of the healthiest people on the planet.

Unlike Greece, here in America we are becoming fatter and less healthy every day. We develop cravings for more easily digestible sources of energy, such as the empyy calories provided by refined sugars, refined fat, and fat-free products because that is what our grocery stores are offering. We eat more and crave more, eat more, crave more, as our bodies are desperately looking for nutrition. Refined fates provide little nutrition having had much of their critical nutrients destroyed or processed out of them.

Whole food fat or "good" fats contain all the crucial elements that the body needs to function on the highest levels. They come naturally from the foods that we eat. This means not eating anything that has been tampered with, processed into any other form or chemically altered. Michael Pollan says don't eat anything your grandmother would not recognize.

Unfortunately, too much "bad" processed fat and not enough "good" fat is probably the main reason that obesity, cancer and heart disease are a big problem in the US.