Mmm! Mmm! Butter, Lard, and Saturated Fats in General

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a blessing for those of us who think that the giant processed foods industry might just be selling us on foods that are detrimental to our health. The mantra has been, for many years now, decades really, that saturated fats are bad for us and that we should avoid them like the plague. Strangely, though, 100 years ago, when there was a much higher intake of butter, lard, coconut oil, and other saturated fats, there was little heart disease and cancer in relation to the size of the population.

Mary Enig, PhD, an internationally know researcher into how fats and oils affect human biochemistry and vice-president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, tells us that fatty acids (fats and oils) such as "myristic acid" is used by the body in the stabilization of various proteins, including many used by our immune systems to fight cancer-causing tumors in the lungs. This saturated fat is found in butter and palm oil, among other sources.

Lauric acid, which is found in mother's milk, coconut oil, and butter has antimicrobial functions, among others. That is, it helps our immune systems to fight bad microbes. (That's why it's in mother's milk.)

Stearic acid, found mainly in animal fats (also chocolate--but watch out for all the sugar used in commonly consumed chocolate) is one of the two main fatty acids preferred by the heart for proper functioning.

Then there is the Framingham, Massachusetts Heart Study. The longest running study of diet and the effects of various fats and cholesterol-containing foods upon heart health. The director of the study, Dr. William Castelli, was forced to admit that, "In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower people's serum cholesterol...we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories weighed the least and were the most physically active." Archives of Internal Medicine, July 1992, 152:(7):1371-1372.

The processed vegetable oil business and the processed food industry relying on these vegetable oils are multi-billion dollar per year businesses. They have a lot of monetary influence with legislators and doctors alike. But do their profits come before your health?

The Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org)has a big web site. If you are interested in learning more, you might want to start out with the following two pages from that site: The Importance of Saturated Fats for Biological Functions: www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/import_sat_fat.html and The Skinny on Fats: www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html