Fear of Fat: Why the Nation is Afraid to go Low-Carb and I’m Not!
When someone thinks of a low-carb diet, they picture things like butter, beef, cheese, eggs, basically anything with saturated fat. Oh, I said the bad words, didn’t I? SATURATED FAT. This immediately leads to people thinking clogged arteries, heart disease, high cholesterol, and obesity. “Fat makes you fat” is a common belief held by people, and especially millennials.
Why do we believe that saturated fat is the enemy? If you have ever seen the documentary Fathead by Tom Naughton (which everyone should, even if you don’t do low-carb), you can skip this paragraph, because I’m basically re-iterating what he said in his movie. George McGovern was a US Senator and also the chairperson of the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs in the 1970’s. In 1977, McGovern decided that the committee needed to provide guidelines for all of America to eat, and released the “McGovern Report”, which instructed people to reduce their intake of red meat, eggs, and other cholesterol-heavy foods, and to increase intake of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains in order to prevent heart disease. Now who do you think wrote this report- a scientist? No. Researcher? No. It was written by a junior member of McGovern’s staff, and a vegetarian to boot! Scientists at the time urged them to not release this report to the public, because there was not enough conclusive evidence to support that a low-fat diet was more beneficial. In fact, the American Medical Association at first protested this report, saying that people should consult with their doctors for individual guidance instead of following the blanket advice in this report. The committee refused to listen to any scientists who disagreed with their findings, basically telling researchers to produce studies that agree with their views or they would not receive funding for their work. They released the report, and soon the whole country was afraid of fat.
It’s a shame that people don’t realize how easily research can be skewed to produce specific results. It’s also a shame that scientists who are truly dedicated to finding the real cause of heart problems, disease, and obesity in this country might be disregarded just because their findings do not fit what the government has told us since 1977. There is tons of research out there that proves low-carb diets help prevent diabetes, obesity, and heart disease! Yes, it PREVENTS heart disease, not causing it.
And this is why most of my generation fears fat, because we grew up our entire lives with this low-fat BS being all we knew about nutrition.
I think a big reason low-carb is still thought of as taboo is that a lot of people are afraid to go without what have now become staples of the typical American meal: potatoes, pasta, bread, and of course- that nice sugary dessert at the end. I know many who claim they could never give up carbs. I even admit it was a scary thought! But then I realized that from the time humans walked the earth up until recently, people ate red meat and butter and saturated fat all the time. Now, let’s think here: have the rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes decreased since the McGovern Report? Heck no- we are looking at higher rates than ever.
There is also the argument of “fat has more calories per gram, so if I eat less fat I eat less calories and lose weight”. Technically, part of this is true. Fat has 9 calories per gram compared to carbs which only have 4. However, fat will keep you satisfied longer than carbs will. Consider two common snacks for low-fat and low-carb dieters: a pack of Nabisco 100 calorie Oreo crisps and a Sargento Sharp Cheddar Cheese stick (90 calories). Fat makes up 67% of the calories in the cheese stick (the rest from protein). 76% of the calories in the Oreo crisps are from carbs (the rest from fat). Now, it’s 3 PM and you are ravenous. For most of us, if we eat the Oreo crisps, we’ll be hungry again in an hour, and you’d probably wind up eating another snack before dinner. If we were to eat that cheese stick, we’d be satisfied until dinner. So in the end, you’d probably end up eating MORE calories if you had chosen the carb-dense snack. This explains the basic idea behind the low-carb diet.
Hopefully someday we can have a indisputable proof regarding the lifetime benefits of a low-carb lifestyle. In the meantime, we mustn’t give up spreading the word (Jimmy Moore, THAT was my favorite chapter in the Atkins book! 
) I know that this is the right diet for me, and my hope is that my blog can convince others, especially millennials, to try it and see it is right for them too!
