That's right - I just said the unthinkable!

You hear doctors and nutritionists talk about how cholesterols and saturated fats are terribly, terribly bad for you and that for optimum health you should eat as little as possible.

Believe it or not, but this one is right up there with geocentricism and trepanning. Everybody believed in them because it was what the "experts" of the day told them.

Of course, it was still wrong.

So if the whole hullaballo about cholesterol and saturated fats is a myth, how did it start?

In the 20th century, heart disease started to climb, and people didn't really know why. By the 50's, doctors wanted answers, and they wanted them STAT!

Dr. Ancel Keys gave the medical world what it wanted by presenting the "Seven Countries Study" - a study which showed that dietary cholesterol and heart disease were consistantly together in seven countries.

Yay! We have an answer!

Or do we?

What Keys didn't tell us is that he had not seven, but twenty-two countries to profile. In some of these countries people ate low saturated fat, but had high heart disease. Some countries had high amounts of dietary saturated fat, but no heart disease. When all the countries are taken into account, it becomes obvious that saturated fat isn't such a great suspect after all. Ooops!

In 1997, Ancel Keys said the following:

"There's no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood. And we've known that all along. Cholesterol in the diet doesn't matter at all unless you happen to be a chicken or a rabbit."

But by this point, the cholesterol theory was so ingrained into our minds that we knew it to be true, just like we knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. Like they say, a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. We have become terrified of a boogyman that never existed!

And think about it: why should fat be bad for us? Before agriculture was invented, fruits were tiny and tart. Seeds and starchy roots were small and spindly. Plant foods were subject to season, region, and had very minimal amounts of sugars and starches compared to agriculture-era cultivars. Some edible plants became too bitter, woody, or even toxic to eat when they matured, a trait largely bred out of our modern vegetables. Since the plant foods we know didn't exist yet, our ancestors would have had a very difficult time trying to sustain themselves on the diet and nutrient proportions recommended today.

Paleontology has shown that our ancestors loved fatty tissues. They loved fat so much, they left behind the lean meats entirely. Not only was fat filling, but it provided energy that lasted.

Modern anthropology has revealed that traditional tribes, like our prehistoric ancestors, also loved the fatty tissues. (At least, before the white man came with his white foods.) Native Americans, Laplanders, and some Africans - people scattered across the globe - eat (or ate) high amounts of fat and have (or had) hearts and bodies as healthy as can be!

Those defending the cholesterol-heart hypothesis often jump to one last defense: before the twentieth century, only the rich contracted "modern" diseases, and it's a known fact that only the rich could afford meat (and thus, fat) on a regular basis. But there is an important fact being ignored: before the twentieth century, only the rich could afford sugar, too. Look up "medieval recipes" to see just how much of a sweet tooth the affluent had back in the day.

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