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Fat Talk

A few months ago, the Atkins Diet felt my wrath when I stood up for Carbs.

Well, Atkins can breathe a sigh of relief now, ‘cause I’m going after someone else! Who came up with the idea to call the important nutrients that do so much for us “fats” anyhow?  Why associate something so good with something so negative?

If you’ve ever said, “I’m not fat” you’re wrong.  That’s exactly what you are!

Every cell in your body is made up of fat.

pet

(Remember her from the Banana Love post?)

Healthy fats are essential for your body to function. And ladies, we need fats for certain other functions as well.

Fats are responsible for soft skin, hair, and healthy nails. Of course, not all fats are created equal. I’m all for staying away from trans fats. (An easy way to tell if a food has trans fat is to look at the label; if “partially hydrogenated oil” is listed in the ingredients, it has trans fat.) And obviously I’m not a proponent of a diet high in animal fats (full of saturated fat).

But some fats—monounsaturated fats (such as olive oil) and polyunsaturated fats (such as flaxseeds)—ought to be included in a healthy diet. In fact, studies have shown that these fats may give one an edge against diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

Fats do not make you fat!

Studies have shown that people who include some healthy fats in their diets tend to be slimmer than their fat-shunning peers. Fats help keep one satiated, so one eats less in the long run. Plus, fats make food taste better, so one won’t be as likely to binge on mass quantities of low-fat substitutes that might be higher in refined carbs, sodium, and sugar.

So eat fat… in moderation.

You don’t want to go out and drink gallons of oil in order to ward off cancer. But completely steering clear of healthy fats isn’t good either. Four reasons why:

  • Fat improves the taste of food and helps with satiety.  Eschew all fats in a meal and you might end up actually eating more due to the fact that your brain never feels satisfied.
  • The aforementioned health reasons; our bodies need some fat in order to function at their peak.
  • People on low-fat diets tend to replace healthy fats with not-as-healthy foods, such as those high in refined carbohydrates.
  • Many low-fat products replace the fat with extra sugar, chemicals, preservatives, or other nutritionally-devoid ingredients.

bpb

If you must eat a low-fat sub for pb, go with Banana Butter!

Choose a diet that emphasizes the consumption of whole grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables, as well as small amounts of healthy fats, such as nuts, seeds, vegetable oils (like olive oil), and oils rich in omega 3s, like flaxseed oil. Don’t fear the healthy fats!

Especially if you’re an athlete, still growing, looking to gain some weight (in a healthy way), or missing periods, it might be a good idea to up your intake of healthy fats.

Here’s a list of healthy fats

Published on May 2, 2010

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Chocolate Covered Katie is one of the top 25 food websites in America, and Katie has been 
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ABC's 5 O’Clock News. Her favorite food is chocolate, and she believes in eating dessert every single day.

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80 Comments

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  1. Valerie says

    I always enjoy reading your posts, Katie. They are so well-written! Have you ever thought about writing for a magazine or newspaper? Or maybe a book? 🙂

    • trajayjay says

      She should, someone needs to combat all this misinformation about how carbs and fat are so bad for us. It’s refined carbs, refined sugar, palmitic acid (a rather harmful saturated fat), and trans fat that are really bad for us. But still, the media continues to lump oats with refined pasta, and coconut oil and almonds with trans fat.

  2. abby says

    oh katie thank you for this post! i so needed to hear it! i need to add more fats to my diet, so this is a great post for me, and i’ll be looking back to the “healthy fat list” often.

  3. kelsey@snackingsquirrel.com says

    fats make you skinny! hehe.

    this post is so true. and its nice to be reminded and even more educated on this now. obviously every body will require a different amount of fat.. but rule of thumb- we all need it! especially our brains 🙂 xoxo <3

    • trajayjay says

      Ever hear of the Flat Belly Diet, I’m not on it but i love the idea of it because it exalts monounsaturated fats, and plenty of them. It allows for four servings a day, which may include 2 tbsp of nuts/seeds or nut/seed butters, 1/4 cup of semisweet or darker chocolate chips, 1 tbsp of any monounsaturated oil, avocadoes or olives. I think it’s ridiculous how the USDA gets a 2000 cal eater to limit her oils to 2 Tbsp a day! Flat Belly Diet FTW

  4. Mary says

    I used to fear fats, I’ll admit it. But thanks to terrific posts from bloggers like you, I can honestly say that I love my fats now. And the amazing thing is that I feel so much better and have actually LOST weight to a healthy weight once I got off the low-fat diet I was on!

  5. devyn says

    this is a great post! PB is my favorite fat. My mom just asked me and I was not sure, is coconut milk good for you? I was wondering if you knew the answer

  6. Jess says

    hahaha I agree with anonymous above me in being excited for that Cacao Bliss recipe.
    But maybe I’m not *quite* as excited as she is 😉
    Great post, Katie!

  7. Rosie says

    Yayy! I love fat! And carbs (maybe a lil too much but I get lots of fruit/veggie carbs too not just grains!)! And protein! And all food! 🙂

    And BANANA BUTTER? Omg. I didn’t see this post before but now I’m all excited! 🙂 Did people decide how long it would last in the fridge? I looked through the comments, but no answer! I guess in all it probably doesn’t matter much–I’d eat it in a few days. Mmm.

  8. Jenny says

    Oh Katie, this post is so refreshing to read and makes me INCREDIBLY happy!!! I’ll be honest, I fell victim to the “low fat” fad, and I still struggle from time to time with incorporating it in to my diet, but it’s so important to remember that our bodies NEED fat to function properly! Thank you for this – I needed it more than you know.

    LOVE YOU!!

  9. Aimee says

    This post is amazing! I wish I’d read it earlier so you could have spared me from my years struggling with my weight and not understanding it because I was eating very little fat. But I was tired all the time, and my low fat peanut butter and snack cakes were LOADED with sugar. How could I have been so naive?

  10. The Voracious Vegan says

    Fats are my FAVORITE thing! I usually eat at least one avocado a day, everything I make has olive oil in it, and nuts and nut spreads (and peanut butter!) are one of my very favorite things.

    Fat is seriously a huge part of my diet, and I am slender, strong, and healthy! No need to fear the fats at all. (Of course, those creepy chemical laden trans fats are another story…but I’m sure I get my fill of those on occasion, too!)

    • trajayjay says

      Trans fats are despicable, lowering HDl and raising LDL. A 2000 cal eater should eat no more than 2 a day, ideally this number should be zero. I also hate it that when partially hydrogenated oil (the codeword for transfat) appears on the ingredients label, but the product claims 0g trans fat. It indeed contains transfat. Some popcorn contains 5g transfat in one serving! This stuff should not be in our food, it’s like arsenic.

  11. Inspired says

    Thanks for the great reminders, both about fats and that yummy banana butter :).
    I’m too shy to send you my own fat love photos, but I’m excited to see everyone else’s!

  12. Chocolate-Covered Katie says

    Rosie,
    I am a bad person to ask, because I haven’t been able to keep it around more than four days! I CAN tell you that it lasts at least four days… but after that, it’s always been gobbled up too soon to know.
    Sorry I can’t be more helpful! 😕

  13. Chocolate-Covered Katie says

    Lunchmunchies,
    YES!! Oh my gosh yes it so does have healthy fat! Apparently dark chocolate has monounsaturated fats… plus it has other benefits like antioxidants. And, best of all, it gives you endorphins 🙂

    • trajayjay says

      It’s cool to know that some saturated fat is not harmful. Thousands of nutritionists swallow their pride. But I think coconuts won’t get the reputation they deserve after satfat has undergone such hatred.

    • trajayjay says

      I promise I will never buy that crapgarbage. I don’t want to propogate the “all fat is bad” misconception

  14. eatandrun says

    Your not the only one, Megan! I still eat it every now and then, too. But your right, Katie. It takes me the same amount of time to eat twice as much as it would peanut butter, and I’m not even as satisfied when I’m done!

  15. Demelza says

    Uh-oh, Katie. I’d be careful if I were you. I have a feeling that the homemade cacao bliss is going to gain you a truckload of stalkers. =P
    I’m pretty excited for everything on the agenda. The “Hug a Carb” month was an adorable idea, and applying the same concept to fats will no doubt produce some hilarious photos, too.

  16. Mona says

    I liked this post today. However, I think it makes a lot of sense that we call fats “fats” because that is what they are. When people gain weight they gain fat so it also makes sense that we call ourselves “fat” when we have extra fat. There are lots of good fats but there are also lots and lots of bad fats. I think its good that fat has a negative connotation because there are too many people in the US right now who either are too fat or eat too much bad fat. When we have such a big obesity rate that I dont think we should start telling people that fats are good when for a lot people its hard to tell the difference between good fats and bad fats.

  17. Chocolate-Covered Katie says

    Mona,
    Thanks for leaving such a thought-provoking comment! You’re right; maybe it isn’t wise to start debunking the myth that all fats are bad because it’ll confuse people. I didn’t think of that before 😕

  18. Justine says

    Thank you so much for this post, Katie! I love that you are so blunt with your words- they really make an impression. I can’t wait for fat month-
    Have a great weekend and thank you for being so fantastic!

  19. Vanilla says

    Yéééé!! Let’s hug our fat!! You’re so entertaining, it’s such a joy to read your blog!

    And yes, Your Banana PB is sooo good. I like to just froze the banana, slice it and mix it with PB. So I guess it’s a Banana PB Bowl. :p

    Have a nice Sunday, fatty! (Haha I’m so funny…not)
    xoxo

  20. vegangal says

    fat love month i am so excited for this and i need to remember that fats are good for me and my friends i wonder what ones i should hug? probably peanut butter because i love it the most and i agree i tried that better than pb one and its not as scary but not as good as real stuff! xoxoxo

  21. dmcgirl37 says

    Thank you for this! It has taken me a long time to not fear fats. I didnt wake up one day randomly fearing them, I swear! If you read in magazines or on the internet fat always gets a bad rap. I told someone I liked greek yogurt once and they responded by saying how ‘fattening it was’. Hmph, funny! not really.. anyway, my lovely dietitian has finally convinced me calories is what causes us to gain weight, not fat or carbs! When I started eating fat again I felt great!! Really, I swear mentally I felt 120% better and physically I felt better too!.. I cringe now when people tell me they dont eat fat 🙁 We need it!! Thanks for all the great posts! Enjoy your sunday <3
    Dana
    http://happinessiswithin.wordpress.com/

  22. lunchiemunchies says

    Yay for fats! Haha “hug a fat” sounds so funny…I’m so glad you wrote this post I think a lot of us need reminders every once in a while not to fear those fats and of how important they actually are in our diets.
    Just a question? I love dark chocolate but I know it’s hight in sat fat from cocoa butter? Is that a healthy fat, in moderation of course?
    Emma xox

    • trajayjay says

      Nutritionists of the past may lump all sat fats together. But fairly new evidence shows that there are even good and bad saturated fats. I’m a firm believer in this statement.

      Lauric acid, a satfat primarily in coconut oil isn’t shown to cause the same heart disease problems as animal satfat. It increases the ratio of HDL to LDL. If all sat fat was so bad for us, then how come we never hear about pacific islanders dying of heart attacks (coconuts tend to be high in sat fat).

      Even though the recommendation is to limit satfat to 20g a day for a 2,000 cal diet, I will not shy away from coco oil or chocolate (real chocolate not a hershey bar)

      That being said, chocolate is about 1/3 monounsat fat, 1/3 stearic acid (satfat), and 1/3 palmitic acid (satfat).

      we should all know how good monounsat fat is, and stearic acid is shown to have null effect on cholesterol. Palmitic acid has been shown to have some harmful effects on cholesterol. Sooo…

      2/3 of the fat in chocolate is good for you! So don’t be shy.

  23. Danielle says

    Yayyy for fat lovin’ month 😀 I totally agree about the better n pb…I remember trying that stuff a few years ago and I’d always eat double the serving size because it didn’t satisfy me! I’ll take the full fat pb thanks 😉

    Ohh I would totally take a pic of myself hugging an avocado 😀

    • trajayjay says

      Yeah, I just don’t get why people think that stuff is healthy. Fat is healthy, so why take it out. And it’s just full of syrups and powders. Taking fat out of pb is like taking carbs out of rice or protein out of tofu or vitamin C out of an orange.

  24. Erika (Dr.TriRunner) says

    lol i think you gotta check the timeline Katie… “fats” in the body, or lipids, have been around for forever. We didn’t start associating the word fat overweight and obesity until that was actually prevalent in our society. Ironically enough.. in the 1500s, fat was the contracted form of fættian, meaning to cram, or to stuff.

  25. Stefanie says

    I love my peanut butter too much to give it up. It is only the past few months I have been eating more fats and I feel so much better. Thanks for the post. Have a great day. 🙂

  26. foodiefresh says

    I really hate Better n’ Peanut Butter. It so not better in so many way.

    And I really hate Atkins too, including the New Atkins diet. The doctor who started it was on NPR recently telling a guy, who was in a healthy weight range and was told by his doctors that his blood showed he was really healthy, that he should really eat less fruit. I’m not saying he’s a quack, but I’m not not saying that either. 😉

    • trajayjay says

      I know, they honestly think they’re healthy by removing 14 grams of (healthy) fat, and so many people like it. I wonder, if you asked all the people what their opinion of fat was the results would be as follows.

      65% Run away screaming. it’s high in calories, give me some refined sugar and flour instead, it’s healthy
      20%Only Saturated and trans are bad
      10%Some types of satfat is good, all trans is bad
      5% Trans is the worst, so are refined carbs

  27. Katie @ Health for the Whole Self says

    Thank you for a great post! I have often thought that it’s rather unfortunate that dietary fat and the fat on our bodies have the same word. It makes people automatically think that dietary fat – in all its forms – is to be avoided at all costs. Thanks for sharing some insightful information about the truth of the matter! 🙂

  28. Anonymous says

    This is a great post, Katie. I don’t feel comfortable leaving my name here, but I wanted to let you know that you are one of the bloggers who has most inspired me to add NEEDED fats back into my diet. I can’t tell you how much your attitude towards food has helped me in my road to recovery.
    HUGS!

  29. Jessica says

    Terrific post, with great information! I am one of the people who has to get over my fear of good fats. I’m working on it!

  30. BroccoliHut says

    Yeehaw! I love me some fats. I used to avoid them at all costs during my ED days, but I now embrace them whole-heartedly. No reduced fat PB for me!

  31. Sarah says

    Thank you for this. In today’s society there aren’t enough people who understand the truth! I get so frustrated when I see people choosing low fat but low nutrition snacks just because they’re low in fat and they’ll give me weird looks when I choose peanut butter and crackers or raw almonds!

    • trajayjay says

      That’s pretty sad. I also hate it when people say a food is high in fat, so you should avoid it. By not specifying what kind of fat, they’re spreading the belief that all fat should be avoided at all costs.

  32. Heather Eats Almond Butter says

    I’ll all for a Hug A Fat Month! 🙂

    Better N PB – blech. That stuff tastes like artificially sweetened plastic. Banana butter is much betta!

  33. liz says

    amen sister! fats get a bad rap. we need ’em and we don’t benefit nutritionally from the artificially lowfat foods that are made in a lab.

  34. radioactivegan says

    I love the post on fats. I hate the whole low-fat craze. it’s at least as bad as the low-carb thing. next thing you know, they’ll have a low-chocolate diet; that’s just craziness!

    I wanted to let you know that I have bestowed on you the great honor of “Sunshine Award” 🙂 You can check it out here, http://theradioactivegan.blogspot.com/2010/05/let-little-sunshine-in.html but it basically just means you’re awesome! Thanks for some great blogging 🙂

  35. Mo says

    Completely agree! I can’t STAND IT when people think they’re being healthy by going on low-fat or low-carb diets (Kate Gosselin comes to mind… she said she was the healthiest eater you’ll ever meet because she eats low-carb. I laughed when I read that.). They’re ALL necessary for health, just in moderation.

    Oh, and I am SO making your banana butter!

  36. Marina says

    I adore healthy fats 🙂 (well, I adore all the healthy food 😀 )
    Nuts, avocados, peanut butter, yesterday I tried coconut butter..yum!
    People avoid things like nuts like they are food from hell, I never understood that.

  37. theprocessofhealing says

    Fat is your friend!!! Yay! Love this post girlie. I HATE that so many people (myself in the past included) think that fat makes you fat. It doesn’t. I cringe when people label a food as “fattening…” bah. They need to change the name of Fat.

  38. Ilana says

    Katie, I was sitting in my backyard in the sunshine this weekend, thinking about exactly the ame thing! Ever since I INCREASED my healthy fat in my diet, the “flab” on my body has melted away. Methinks they should change the name of the blubbery deposits on the body from “fat” to something else..can we just call it blubber? Because FAT in food – good fats, that is, not trans fats, the processed chemical fats that kill us – are so good for you, but we’ve been indoctrinated to stigmatize things like NUTS and AVOCADOS because of their high fat content while eating highly processed, made-only-of-chemicals-that-will-make-you-sick foods is “okay” because the “fat” content on the label is low. No thanks. My roommate has a tendency to buy those things that are “reduced fat” and “less fat than the original!” because she thinks they’re healthier, but I can’t stand seeing them in my fridge!

    Yay for fats!

  39. Jennifer - jcd says

    This is a wonderful post! People need fat, sugar, and carbs. Why must people give them such bad reputations? Sure, their heavily processed versions are horrible for you, but the whole food varieties are essential for optimal health. I think people just need to eat more whole foods in general. Get rid of the processed rubbish.

    I add a good splash of flax oil, hemp seed oil, or walnut oil to my smoothies to get more healthy fats. It helps keep me full for longer too. And so yummy too.

    Mmmm… off to eat some mounds fudge babies from my lunch. So good.

  40. Melissa says

    🙂

    I tend to eat semi-low fat (around 30-40 grams a day) mostly due to not liking to use added oils. I prefer to get my fats in delicious, filling whole foods form like nuts/seeds/avocados/nut butter/coconut.

    My only guff with fat is that it’s higher calorie and I’m still working on that whole weight loss maintenance thing! As I’m increasing my running mileage (half marathon is on Saturday!) my calories go up and I can eat MOAR peanut butter! Which is a good thing. I’ve been known to eat it out of the jar (with a chopstick… LOL)

    Katie, odd question, which of these animals are your favorites (pick two for me, in order of favorite first): panda, lion, tiger, brown bear, cow or elephant. I’m soooo sneeeeeakkkkyyyyy. 😉

  41. Chocolate-Covered Katie says

    Hey Melissa!
    Haha I love random questions :). Ok, well right away the panda bear wins all! Because who can resist those big eyes? Then maybe tiger. Cuz I played soccer on the Tigers once… and we wore these ugly orange unniforms!
    (It wasn’t so bad; there was a team that got stuck with yellow and black. Bet you can guess their name… Bumblebees!)

  42. Marianne says

    I’ve never understood the need to replace regular peanut butter with something like Better Than PB. Just seems so wrong! Unless you consume an entire jar of nut butter in one sitting, why nickel and dime away your calories, and miss out on eating real, whole foods, which have their naturally occurring nutrients?

    • trajayjay says

      I know, I saw a lady on the internet say regular PB is so high in fat! Bettern PB is healthier! I wanted to cuss her out then smack her so hard across the face that she’s spit all her teeth out. Alas! she wasn’t in my presence.

  43. Avra-Sha Faohla says

    Ha ha, my little brother calls my chocolate pudding “poop.” When I froze some of the pudding in ice pop molds they were dubbed “poopy pops.” Don’t you love little brothers?

  44. trajayjay says

    Katie, This is a wonderful post

    Thank you for opening the eyes of some of the fat-phobes in the world.

    I totally agree that some fat (20-35% of calories) is healthy and necessary.

    It infuriates me when people malign high fat foods like peanut butter, oil, or nuts.

    “Oh, it’s so high in fat”, “it’s so unhealthy”, “Coconut oil is unhealthy because it’s high in saturated fat”

    They’re unfortunately misinformed.

    And then they exalt lower-fat, but unhealthier things like lowfat peanut butter and think it’s healthier! I’ve also seen some people claim that it’s okay to eat a whole package of fat-free Oreos!

    And the food industry. It irks me when they lure in customers by claiming their products are lowfat, perpetuating the “fat is bad craze”. Like PB2, while i’m not against the idea, nor do i think it’s unhealthy, They utilize the idea that fat is bad to get people to buy it. They say “85% less fat than peanut butter” hoping it will persuade customers to purchase. Just because they removed the oil doesn’t mean it’s better. That gets on me, because it only propogates the misconception that fat is a dietary demon.

    Fat is not the reason for obesity. It’s an overconsumption of calories

    How annoying it is to see so many people equate lowfat with healthy.

    Soda, white bread, maple syrup, gumdrops are lowfat, healthy? heck no!

    • trajayjay says

      About PB2 bragging about how its better because it’s ground defatted peanuts, how many times have you heard cocoa powder companies brag about their products because they have the fat removed? They don’t so it’s to convince people that a product is better because it’s stripped of its healthy oil in my opinion is ineffective

  45. trajayjay says

    Oh. P.S.

    Yeah, maybe why people are so hesitant to eat fats is because of their name, it’s quite a misnomer, perhaps we should refer to them as lipids.

    Also, we consume lots of fast food and comercially made pastries that are filled with not so healthful saturated and trans fats

    Fat also has more than twice the calories of protein and carbohydrates

    So may convince dieticians and people that fat is bad.

    But seriously, the mediterranean diet consists of plenty of olive oil. The indigenous people in central america valued avocado and chocolate. And Pacific Islanders would enjoy coconut. And I know Katie is a vegan but even butter is a staple in France. Why is it that when Americans eat something we get fat off of it?

    • trajayjay says

      When people are told to think of fatty foods, they might think bigmacs, butter, hersheys, cheese, kfc, not olive oil, almonds, avocados or dark chocolate. When people find out the latter set of foods are high in fat, they tend to associate the unhealthiness that comes with the former set of fatty foods. Perhaps that’s another reason all fat gets shunned

  46. trajayjay says

    It all started when a guy named ancel keys did a study linking heart disease to increased fat intake.the 6 countries he studied demonstrated thAt the more fat you eat the sooner you die. Thing was, keys actually studied 22 countries and when you took their diets into consideration, the correlation vanished. But the government bought the scam, and they convinced ppl that oils were bad and that trans fat but low fat margarine was healthier and coconut oil was atherosclerosis in a jar. The food manufacturers took advantage of the lowfat hype and turned out hundreds of lowfat, hi glycemic oreos, chips, peanut butter, and even today, manufacturers play off our deeply but subtly ingrained fear of fat. Seriously, you cannot be raised in america without developing a fat phobia, thx to advertisers. The govts fear of fat has waned, but they still wont accept that fat is all good, and still caution against oils. Actually, their recommendations contradict. They say that one should get 30% of calories from fat, and then they say that a 2000 calorie eater needs 2 tbsp of oil a day. 2 tbsp=28g=240 calories=only about 10-12% of calories from fat. Now, im just waiting for 2015 to roll by (the govt revises their nutrition guidelines every 5 yrs) so they can admit once and for all that fat isn`t dangerous at all. But the fat phobia will never truly die imo. Manufacturers will still push out low fat product because our fear of fat is so profitable.

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