All Fat Is Not Bad

The all-fat-is-bad message has started a huge national experiment, with us as the guinea pigs. As people cut back on fat, they usually eat more carbohy­drates. In America today, that means more highly refined or easily digested foods like sugar, white bread, white rice, and potatoes. This switch usually fails to yield the hoped-for weight loss or lower cholesterol levels. Instead it often leads to weight gain and potentially dangerous changes in blood fats—lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the so-called good or protective cholesterol, and higher triglycerides (a major type of blood fat).

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Substituting unsaturated fats for saturated fats, though, improves choles­terol levels across the board. It may also protect the heart against rhythm dis­turbances that can end in sudden death.

The bottom line is this: It is perfectly fine to get more than 30 percent of your daily calories from fats as long as most of those fats are unsaturated. The Healthy Eating Pyramid highlights the importance of keeping saturated and trans fats (see page 72) to a minimum by putting red meat, whole-milk dairy products, butter, and hydrogenated vegetable oils in the "Use Sparingly" sec­tion at the top.

Eat fewer refined-grain carbohydrates and more whole-grain carbohydrates. The Healthy Eating Pyramid has two carbohydrate building blocks—whole grains that are slowly digested as part of the foundation and highly refined, rap­idly digested carbohydrates at the very top.