Video Vault: How Much Do We Really Know About Healthy Diets?

I wanted to share this video done by Retro Report, that shows the history of nutrition science in this country and how it impacts the public. So many times, people ask me about the dietary fat in my recipes, and I tell them that I’m not anti-fat—in fact, I’m pro-fat. It’s filling, it’s great for your hair and skin and nails, and frankly it’s a great way to keep down the amount of carbs in your diet.

Alas, people are still afraid of dietary fat. There are still lots of books that push super high-carb diets, and I’m sure that’ll work for some people, but that isn’t my portion. I suspect most people would say the same.

But where did the rationale for carb-heavy/low-fat diets come from? Enter Retro Report, with a pretty thorough compilation of the history of the modern American Diet:

If you’re wondering how I made the choice to embrace the eating lifestyle I chose, I looked at what has been touted as the healthiest diet around, and realized the base facts: diets with large amounts of produce, lots of healthy dietary fats, and a good amount of quality protein in varied forms (not just animal meat—legumes, grains, and so on) are what always guarantees longevity, health, and happiness.

A couple important points from the video:

“There was a small and growing minority of researchers who were coming to believe that the problem in modern diets were the sugars and refined grains and not the fat. If the American Medical Association had a nightmare it was the possibility that [the Atkins diet] was right all along.”

“The evidence started accumulating that there’s really no association at all between total fat intake and heart disease or stroke.”

“If you looked at the calorie content [of low-fat processed foods], it was all high-calorie, lots of carbs. When you take out the fat, the person’s going to eat more because there aren’t any signals I’m full, full, full.”

“We had an explosion of high carbohydrate, sugary foods —and those have contributed to the obesity epidemic.”

Thoughts?