Pass the butter: Cutting saturated fat does not reduce heart disease risk

Focus should instead be on eating 'real food,' walking and reducing stressReal food does not include gallons of pop and piles of fast food.We’ve talked this topic previously here- what a lie the promotion of saturated fat as detrimental to health was. How it came about? Answer.. Money. Lobbying. The usual.Wouldn’t doubt that big pharma played a role in this push for massive carb consumption in order to profit from the diabetes epidemic we are now witnessing.

The belief that saturated fat in foods such as butter, cheese and meat clogs arteries is "just plain wrong," a group of cardiologists say in a new editorial. Instead, the focus should be on eating a Mediterranean-style diet, taking a brisk walk daily and minimizing stress, they say.After decades of thinking that cutting saturated fat in the diet was associated with lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and death, doctors and researchers now realize there is no association in healthy adults.Even in people with established heart disease, reducing saturated fat alone doesn't reduce heart attacks, says British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, of Lister Hospital, and an adviser to the U.K. national obesity forum."One thing that's very clear when you look at the totality of the evidence: saturated fat does not clog the heart arteries. And sadly, for many years — for decades, in fact — this has been the primary focus of treatment of heart disease and public health advice," Malhotra said in an interview.Insulin resistanceAs a result of warnings about saturated fat, some people shifted their diets towards carbohydrates. But an excess of processed carbs and refined carbs also plays a part in developing cardiovascular diseases.Eating too much white bread, pasta and potatoes raises blood glucose rapidly, Malhotra said. Our bodies respond to those carbs by producing too much insulin.When insulin levels are chronically high, the hormone stops being able to do its job of getting glucose into cells to provide energy.When the body becomes resistant to insulin, an inflammatory response is triggered, said cardiologist Dr. Michael Farkouh, who is the chair of multinational clinical trials at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at Toronto General Hospital and was not involved in the editorial."What this editorial really brought to light was that your diet, if it's a diet rich in carbohydrates, can be associated with what's called insulin resistance," Farkouh said. "That allows your innate inflammatory process in the body to attack the vessel wall and start the process of hardening of the arteries."I would drink more than [doctors] suggested I should because I do enjoy martinis," Durant recalled. "I was sneaking a bit of ice cream, which I shouldn't. My big cheat: I eat butter."Durant appreciates butter is no longer considered a "cheat." Now, his typical dinner is half a plate of vegetables, a protein and a carbohydrate — and a dab of butter.Rather than focus on one nutrient, we should eat whole foods prepared at home with as natural ingredients as possible, said Russell de Souza, a registered dietitian and nutrition epidemiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton.

 So get cookin’. And start growing some of your own food & herbs. This is easily done in containers for those without yards- I actually saw (last summer) an apartment balcony ringed with tomato and pepper plants in containers.  Even a cucumber, which the occupants had put up lattice for the cukes to climb on- I was super impressed.Help feed the world by feeding yourself as much as possible. You'll feel better, your food will taste better and be vastly more nutritious. Related:

From earlier:

Plants Are Aware When They Are Being Consumed