We evolved to consume every kind of fat
In a nutshell
If you eat and drink real food, you will consume fat
If you consume real food, you will encounter all three types of fat
This is a good thing, it’s what we’re adapted to for
We evolved and are adapted to consume fat
This short article is based on a presentation at the First Annual Keto Brain Health Conference by Dr. Zoe Harcombe, a well-known British nutritionist. She did a great job of essentially presenting macronutrients 101 and explaining why we are adapted to consume all types of natural fat in natural amounts.
I introduced the concept of fat as one of our three basic macronutrients here. In writing about seed oils, I also described the three types of fat (fatty acids) found in nature, namely saturated (SFA), mono-unsaturated (MUFA), and poly-unsaturated (PUFA). At that time, I wrote:
“SFA is the most common type of fat in nature. We are exposed to it from natural foods (e.g., meats, dairy, fish, coconut, and some nuts). Our body even manufactures its own SFA.
MUFA are found in natural foods such as olives, avocados, and macadamia nuts.
PUFA occur naturally in very small amounts in things like meat, dairy, chia, flax seeds, and nuts. PUFA exist in two forms, namely omega-3 and omega-6, and they are considered as essential for life as SFA and MUFA, when present in naturally occurring small amounts.
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However, I did not fully understand a couple of important points that Zoe made in her presentation, namely:
All natural food has at least a trace of fat, including saturated fat
All natural food contains all three types of fat, and there are no exceptions
This means that red meat, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, seeds, olives, avocadoes, etc. all contain saturated, mono-unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated fats. She pointed out that only dairy contains more saturated than unsaturated fat.
She emphasised this point by showing how much total fat is contained in different food types and expressing the amount of saturated fat as a proportion of the total (Table 1).
Table 1: Total fat (g)/saturated fat (g) in 100g of different foods
This means that 100g of low fat processed milk contains 60% saturated fat, compared to 100g of lard at 39%, for example…an interesting little factoid that reminds us that it’s a funny old world out there…!