Are saturated fats really bad for you?

We commonly refer to any food that contains a significant amount of fatty acids as saturated fats. These foods include eggs, butter, pork, or even bacon. The most common types of fat in foods are triglycerides. Which in turn are divided into saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Of those, the saturated ones are the fatty components of meat, butter or even coconut butter. In the past, the myth that saturated fats are bad was created.** Studies showed that consuming them increased blood cholesterol. This is associated with Atherosclerosis and an increased risk of developing heart disease. Based on this, the heart diet hypothesis was created. Furthermore, in the 1970s in the United States there was a growing wave of obesity and the government was under great pressure to address it. Which led them to take the heart diet hypothesis as sufficient evidence to establish dietary guidelines. This hypothesis has never been proven and what’s more, recent evidence shows that it is not true.

These recent studies showed that saturated fats are not associated with:

• All causes of mortality.
• Mortality related to cardiovascular diseases
• Mortality related to coronary heart diseases
• Mortality related to ischemic strokes
• Mortality related to type 2 diabetes Now, this does not mean that we should trust ourselves. The vast majority of the medical community is still convinced that they do harm. Scientists who are struggling to discover its true effect say that although the results have not found a direct relationship with everything previously thought, more research is still needed.

  Among the good things that they do provide for the body are:

• A good source of energy
• They provide a good amount of nutrients, as is the case with eggs, dairy products, white meat and dark chocolate.
• They have a good level of protein
• They are of great culinary value (they taste very good) We can say that although they are not necessarily a direct risk to health, as we already know, everything in excess is bad and this should not be taken as a free pass to eat whatever we want. Rather, we must learn to see our food again with different eyes. We must also remember that these fats are not the same as carbohydrates and in general, it is good to take care of our consumption of red meat, processed meats and overly fatty dairy products. The ones that we do know are very good to eat are eggs, white meat, coccoa and coconuts. So we have to be aware, not be afraid of them and take care of our diet.