Are refined carbs worse than saturated fat?

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: consuming fatty foods will make you fat and a diet high in saturated fat “will” cause heart disease. So in other words, avoid fat. Seems like sage advice. Only one problem, mounting evidence continues to reveal that three decades of follow-a-low-fat-diet advice is not suitable for heart disease prevention after all, and, even worse, reducing fat in one’s diet by default means more carbs, which, as in the case for much of America, means increased consumption of highly processed carbs. (See our post First Rule of Dietary Recommendations? First, do no harm).

The low-fat craze got rolling in the early 1980s when nutritionists, doctors, and the not-so far behind marketing departments at major food companies, started parroting the newly released 1980 dietary guidelines (think food pyramid) that “recommended reduced intake of all fats.” Even though sound science in the late 1970s and early 1980s suggested that following a low-fat diet might not be a good idea, it was ignored and to this day eat less fat dominates popular thinking. (See our recent post on Whole Foods promotion of a low-fat diet).

In the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Danish researchers compared the association of saturated fat and carbohydrate consumption with heart disease risk among a staggering 53,644 men and women. The study is not only unique for its size, but the length of the 12 yr long follow up. This study sought to address the $64,000 Question: does the diet-heart paradigm that high intake of saturated fat and cholesterol increase the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease? Said differently, is a fatty diet going to kill me? As with recently published meta-analysis and large pooled analysis of dozens of smaller studies — you can read a few here and here — the Danish researchers showed that saturated fat intake was not associated with increased risk of heart disease. However, they did find an increased risk of heart disease with increased consumption of high-GI-value carbohydrates – i.e., highly processed carbohydrates.

You don’t need to be a nutritionist or public health official to know the health of the country is in free fall. So the sooner we begin replacing as much of the highly processed carbohydrates in our diet with minimally processed ones, the better off we will be. As for which ones to choose, a good rule of thumb would be the whiter the bread the sooner you will be dead. This overall idea has much to do with our strategy at NakedPizza. Our Ancestral Blend of 12 seeds, grains and so on translates into slower digestion and absorption (think lower glycemic index).

It’s imperative that the food industry play a role in shifting the diet-heart paradigm away from restricting fat intake and toward reduced consumption of highly refined carbohydrates. Moreover, maybe its time we wake up and smell the bacon and maybe eat a little of it too.

Think before you bite friendos. Peace out.