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In Defense of Animal Fat
Typed, undated manuscript.
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Thou Shalt Not Eat Fat–for it will destroy you.
Yes, and in the past Thou shalt not eat protein, carbohydrate, or salt. Each “thou shalt not” pronounced by medical authority has in reality been based on reliable experimental information of capable workers, but has been promulgated without the full understanding of the problem at hand.
The lower forms of life can apparently elaborate from water, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, minerals and energy the essential protein, fat, and carbohydrate necessary for life of the higher forms.
Fats differ in each specie within relatively narrow limits. Some of the lower forms of life produce fats that are composed of single fatty acids. Most natural fats are a mixture of triglycerides, some with these identical fatty acid radicals, some with variable radicals. Some with saturated radicals and some with unsaturated radicals and…
The characteristics of a fat or oil are determined by the fatty acid radicals. Each triglyceride has three. The three radicals may all be the same. May all be different, or two the same or one different. They may be saturated, or unsaturated of one or more double bonds. The lecithins are triglycerides with two fatty acid radicals and a phosphorous choline complex.
It was but a short time ago we were hearing a taboo about eating cholesterol-bearing foods, but as we learned that the normal breakdown of fat is into the C2 fragment produced acetic acid and that the fragments by a process of polymerization could be synthesized into the complex pentero phenanthrene ring, the basis of cholesterol and the sex hormones–the emphasis has swung partially away from just fats and centered on animal fats.
There are essential fatty acids that we cannot get along without. Certain oils are richer in these fats than CERTAIN animal fats. It is therefore proper that we for one moment consider some of the basic facts of fat metabolism as it applies to the animal. First, the animal does not possess the power to raise the unsaturated level of ingested fats more than a single double bond. Second, animals lend to store within special limitation the fat ingested. Third, fat stores are highly active. Fourth, the higher the metabolic driver of the animal the less fat he stores. Fifth, all fat is stored with a certain amount of water. Sixth, the lower the iodine number of the fat the greater the water storage. Seven, processes that will lessen metabolic drive increase fat storage, namely lack of exercise, castration, drugs. Eighth, the sex of the animal.
The animal husbandryman applies all of these facts in producing his meat for market. Therefore as long as he produces animal fat with low metabolic drive for the table market we may be satisfied in feeling that animal fats are inferior to certain vegetable fats.
However, few of us remember that the term, oleomargarine first referred to the fine oils found in the fat of steers as their fat was processed for tallow and that this fat represented the highly biologically active fat of the range animal. These animals possess a yellow oily fat until they are properly “’fattened.”
Growth of the animal is controlled by maturity, and again fat types are affected by the stage of maturity. Immature animals tend to store more water than mature. The fat of rapid growth is immature fat. Feeds that continue immature growth produce larger animals but with softer bones and poorer flesh, but more pounds on the hoof in a given length of time. Again is it such a practice as this that has in part justified our taboo against animal fat.
Poultry as well as the meat, being mammal has been equally metabolically mistreated.
But what is the farmer’s argument? You want soft foods. We give them to you. You want volume of foods. We provide it. So, if doctors are going to raise taboos because of clinical results it is high time we begin to learn that all animal fat is not the fat consumed by our forefathers Greenland esquimos and that it is high time that the physician and the farmer sit down and ask the $64,000 dollar question: How can animal fat burn a hotter metabolic fire in our modern world?
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Milk products have also received condemnation in our great furor against fats. I conducted experiments showing the marked difference between feeds in the development of cats. Unfortunately, it is generally accepted that milk is milk and the feeding of cattle and the health of cattle and the value of such milk supplies as certified milk, certified to by the Medical Milk Commission is little appreciated. In proper metabolites and the destruction of important fat accessories by methods of processing augment the ill effects of milk just as changes in diet of a mother nursing, an infant can determine the difference between a milk supply that will give colic to one that is acceptable to her infant, so do the feeding of various dairy herds affect the value of milk.