One of the things that still surprises me when I talk to people about nutrition is how many are frightened of eating fat. They’ll tell me they’ve bought the fat-free yoghurt, the low-fat spread or the reduced-fat version because they’re trying to lose weight. Nuts? Too fattening. Avocado? Too much fat. Olive oil? Better not. Peanut butter? Definitely not if I’m dieting. I completely understand where this comes from because for years we were surrounded by the message that fat makes you fat. I remember the low-fat years very well. Everything became fat-free or low-fat. We counted fat grams, avoided oils and looked for anything with “low fat” written across the packet. But nutrition is much more interesting and nuanced than that. Today we understand that dietary fat isn’t simply something to remove from our diets. Our bodies actually need fat.
Fat provides energy and essential fatty acids that our bodies cannot make themselves, and it helps us absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Fats are also important components of our cells and are involved in many processes throughout the body. Our brains contain a large amount of lipid too, and certain fatty acids are important for normal brain function. So trying to remove virtually all fat from our diets doesn’t make sense. The much more useful question isn’t “How little fat can I eat?” but “What kind of fat am I eating, where is it coming from and how much do I need?”
This is where I think a lot of the confusion comes from because we use one word — fat — to describe lots of very different foods. Olive oil contains fat. Walnuts contain fat. Sardines contain fat. Avocados contain fat. Butter contains fat. A sausage roll contains fat. A doughnut contains fat. Nutritionally, these foods clearly aren’t interchangeable. Broadly speaking, dietary fats include unsaturated fats and saturated fats, with most foods containing a mixture. Foods rich in unsaturated fats include olive and rapeseed oils, nuts, seeds, avocado and oily fish. Omega-3 and omega-6 are types of polyunsaturated fat, and some fatty acids are essential because our bodies cannot manufacture them themselves.
I’ve written before about what I actually eat, and foods such as sardines, mackerel, walnuts, chia seeds and flaxseed regularly appear in my diet. These provide different forms of omega-3 fatty acids. Oily fish provides EPA and DHA, while foods such as walnuts, chia and flax provide ALA. You don’t need to become a nutrition scientist and memorise all of those names. The practical message is much simpler: eat a variety of whole foods containing healthy unsaturated fats. That’s one of the reasons nuts, seeds, olive oil and oily fish feature so prominently in Mediterranean-style patterns of eating.
That doesn’t mean the pendulum needs to swing completely in the opposite direction and we start believing we can eat unlimited amounts of every kind of fat. Foods such as butter, ghee, fatty and processed meats, cream, coconut oil and palm oil can contain significant amounts of saturated fat. Current health guidance still recommends replacing some saturated fat with unsaturated fat because this can help improve blood cholesterol profiles and reduce cardiovascular risk. That doesn’t mean you’re never allowed butter again. I’m not interested in making people frightened of food. It simply means that for everyday eating I would generally favour things such as olive or rapeseed oil, nuts, seeds, avocado and oily fish rather than making butter, cream and large amounts of fatty processed meat our main sources of fat. It’s the overall pattern that matters.
And then we come to the big question: does eating fat make you fat? Fat is energy dense. One gram of fat provides around nine calories, compared with around four calories per gram of carbohydrate or protein, so portions do matter. If I sit down with an enormous bag of nuts every evening because somebody told me nuts are healthy, those calories still count. If I pour half a bottle of olive oil over my salad, it doesn’t become calorie-free because it’s olive oil. But that is completely different from saying that eating fat automatically makes us fat. Body weight is influenced by our overall energy intake and expenditure over time, together with a complicated mixture of biology, behaviour, environment, sleep, activity and other factors.
I also don’t want to replace one nutrition myth with another. You sometimes hear people say “You have to eat fat to burn fat.” That’s catchy, but it’s too simplistic. You don’t have to eat avocado or olive oil in order for your body to use stored body fat. However, we do need some dietary fat for health, and nutritious foods containing fat can absolutely be included while you’re losing weight. You don’t need to eliminate nuts, seeds, avocado or oily fish simply because you want the number on the scales to come down.
Fat can also make meals enjoyable and satisfying. Think about a lovely bowl of vegetables and lentils with herbs and a little olive-oil dressing, porridge with chia seeds and walnuts, eggs with vegetables and avocado, or sardines with a colourful salad. We’re getting protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals and fats together. That’s real food. I would much rather teach somebody how to build nourishing meals they genuinely enjoy than have them eating miserable “diet food” all week, feeling deprived and eventually giving up.
I’m also wary of automatically assuming that anything labelled “low fat” must be healthier. Sometimes removing fat changes the taste or texture of a product and manufacturers compensate with other ingredients. But we shouldn’t turn that into another blanket rule either, because some lower-fat foods can be perfectly sensible choices, particularly when reducing saturated fat or overall calories is useful. Lower-fat dairy, for example, can still provide protein and calcium. My advice is simply not to choose a food because two enormous words on the front of the packet say LOW FAT. Turn it over and look at what you’re actually buying.
Cholesterol is another area where people understandably become confused. Fat, cholesterol and heart disease are sometimes discussed as though they’re all the same thing, but they’re not. Cholesterol performs important functions in the body, but higher levels of certain cholesterol-containing particles in the blood, particularly LDL-related particles, are associated with cardiovascular disease. One useful dietary approach isn’t to eliminate all fat but to replace more saturated fats with unsaturated fats. So perhaps use olive or rapeseed oil more often instead of butter, eat some nuts rather than biscuits, include seeds and eat oily fish if you enjoy it. Think about the quality of the fat, not simply the number of fat grams.
I think there’s a bigger message here, particularly for women of my generation. We’ve lived through so many different food rules. Fat is bad. Carbs are bad. Sugar is bad. Don’t eat after six. Count points. Count calories. Eat grapefruit. Drink shakes. Skip meals. Then another diet comes along and tells us to eat enormous quantities of fat and virtually no carbohydrate. No wonder everybody is confused. My approach now is much calmer. I want plenty of vegetables and lots of different plants. I want protein and fibre. I want fruit, beans and lentils, whole-food carbohydrates, nuts and seeds, fish and healthy sources of fat. I want food to nourish the body rather than become something we’re permanently frightened of.
That’s how I eat myself. I don’t wake up every morning calculating exactly how many grams of fat I’m going to consume. I think about the foods. I’ll add chia or flaxseed. I’ll eat walnuts. I love nut butters. I eat sardines and mackerel. I’ll use olive oil. I’ll eat eggs and seeds and sometimes avocado. And yes, occasionally I’ll eat foods containing more saturated fat too, because I’m interested in my overall diet, not creating another restrictive set of rules.
So if you’re still nervous about eating fat, start simply. Stop automatically choosing something just because it says “fat free”. Include sensible portions of foods rich in unsaturated fats. Eat nuts and seeds. Use mostly unsaturated oils such as olive or rapeseed oil. Eat oily fish if you eat fish. Enjoy avocado if you like it. Be more mindful about large amounts of butter, ghee, coconut oil, fatty and processed meats, pastries and other foods high in saturated fat. Remember that portions still matter, particularly if weight loss is your goal, but look at your whole plate and your whole diet, not one nutrient in isolation.
Most importantly, let’s get rid of that old equation in our heads: fat = fat body. Human nutrition isn’t that simple. Our bodies need dietary fat. We need essential fatty acids. Fat helps us absorb certain vitamins and provides important building blocks for our cells and normal body function. And we can absolutely eat nutritious foods containing fat while maintaining a healthy weight or losing weight.
We’ve spent enough years being frightened of fat. Don’t fear it. Understand it. Choose good sources, enjoy them in sensible amounts and look at the whole of your diet.
Selena
Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher & Wellbeing Coach
In Flow Wellbeing Studio, Cheltenham
