What are saturated fats? Are they really harmful?

What are saturated fats? There are two ways to answer this question - the chemistry way and the layman's way.

Both ways are essential if we want to truly understand what are saturated fats - why they are widely regarded as harmful and why they are, in fact, good for health!

I will try to explain both ways simply.

Chemistry explanation

In chemistry, we learn that saturated fats have no double bonds and are "saturated" with hydrogen atoms. It means the fats molecules cannot form chemical reactions where they take on more hydrogen atoms.

In turn, this means that saturated fats are stable. They do not easily undergo chemical reactions; they don't spoil - or turn rancid - easily. They do not form toxic by products.

And this is a very good thing. It means that saturated fats are very suitable for cooking. Even under conditions of high heat, they remain stable. Saturated fats are very suitable for high heat cooking, such as deep frying.

Layman's 'harmful idea'

The layman's explanation of what are saturated fats is a lot easier to understand - saturated fats are fats that turn solid at room temperature.

Butter is a good example. At room temperature, depending on whether you live in a cool or hot climate, butter is either solid or semi-solid. When you put it in the refrigerator, it hardens further. When you heat it up, it turns liquid. But whether it is solid or liquid, the chemical structure of butter remains unchanged - just as the chemical structure of water remains unchanged whether it is in the form of ice, water or steam.

Unfortunately, this idea gives a negative impression. It suggests that saturated fats will harden up inside our arteries and cause blockages - leading to heart attacks when the blockages stop the flow of blood. This idea is further reinforced by the fact that the human heart has saturated fats around it.

Worse of all, this idea gives rise to another answer as to what are saturated fats. To most people, saturated fats are simply "bad fats". They are harmful fats. They should be avoided.

But remember, this is only an idea. In scientific language, it is called a theory. This idea has become so widely accepted that most people take for granted that it is true. If you look deeper into this idea or theory, however, you will find that it is not supported by scientific facts.

Some important scientific facts to note are as follows:

• Throughout history, humans have always used saturated fats as their main type of fat for cooking - pork lard in China, ghee in India, butter in Europe, beef tallow in America, coconut oil and palm oil in the tropics. All are high in saturated fats. Yet heart disease was extremely rare until about 70 years ago.
  
  
• The rate of heart disease began to increase after people switched from saturated fats to polyunsatured fats. In America, this began during the Great Depression of the 1920s, when people switched from butter to margarine because margarine was cheaper. From there on, the rate of heart disease started to climb.

No scientific proof

But hadn't it been scientifically proven that saturated fats cause heart disease? Not really.

The "proof" that is widely cited is the "Seven Countries Study" as well as earlier studies by Dr Ancel Keys. In these studies, Dr Ancel Keys showed that countries where people consumed the largest amounts of saturated fats had the highest rates of heart disease.

It seems convincing, but... Dr Ancel Keys had actually collected data from more than seven countries. And when the entire data is examined, you will find that there are also countries where people ate plenty of saturated fats and had low rates of heart disease. It seemed that Dr Ancel Keys "cherry picked" only the data that supported his theory, and quietly left out the rest!

Also, much of the "proof" about the "harm" of saturated fats arose from a confusion with trans fats:

Trans fats are unnatural fat molecules formed during the process of hydrogenation, to turn liquid vegetable oil into semi-solid margarine. In the past, scientists did not make a difference between saturated and trans fats, since both are solid and they appear similar. Scientists did not ask, "What are saturated fats?" and "What and trans fats?" So they studied people who ate both types, lumping them together. When these people got sick, they blamed saturated fats. More recent research that studied saturated fats and trans fats separately reveal that: the problems previously blamed on saturated fats are, in fact, caused by trans fats. These includes heart disease, obesity, diabetes and various types of cancer. on their own, saturated fat do not cause these problems trans fats are many times more harmful than saturated fats.

So the idea that saturated fats cause heart disease is only an idea. No doubt it is a very popular idea. But it is not an idea that is supported by scientific evidence.

This idea was further entrenched in the 1980s, this time not by doctors or scientists, but by US producers of vegetable oils. They used this idea to wage a massive campaign against saturated fats like palm oil and coconut oil from tropical countries, so that people would swtich over to polyunsaturated oils such as corn oil and soybean oil produced mainly in the US.

And so, if today you ask what are saturated fats, people would say, "bad, bad, bad fats". That's not the case. Far from it! Click here for Part II of this article, to learn more about what are saturated fats good for.

And click here to learn more about the causes of coronary heart disease.