Actually, what was said that you won't know until you try it. However, as to myself, eggs dripping with lard is not only not appealing, I'm a Muslim.... butter, however, is another story. I'd ask "cygirl" what foods she *does* like. Not the foods that she thinks or imagines are good for her, but the ones she enjoys eating. If she eats bread, does she like butter on it? Does she eat meat?

I can say that I avoided the fat in meat for years, sneaking a bite here and there. Prime rib, yum! -- and that is often very fatty. I had another reason for avoiding it. I tended to feel sick after eating it. I thought the reason was the fat. I had g.i. reflux chronically, and it seemed to me that it was worse when I ate fat. But even with low fat, it did not go completely away.

Then I went on the Atkins diet, with some trepidation. Guess what? Even very fatty meals don't cause reflux now. I rarely feel discomfort after eating now. Quite clearly, fat was *not* the problem; the problem may have been the bread - in a restaurant -- or rice or potatoes that I would eat as much as I liked of, at the same time as I ate that fat. Probably a lot of fat plus a lot of carbs = reflux for me.

If you read the Atkins book, and look around at the current research, you will find that, yes, a high fat diet is actually recommended for a number of disorders, diabetes among others. Obesity itself is a serious health problem, and low-carb diets seem to have an edge up in dealing with it. It also seems, quite contrary to what everyone believed, that a high-fat diet, even a diet high in saturated fats like beef fat, butter, cream, may be heart-healthy.

I actually started a low-carb diet on the recommendation of my physician. The problem? *High cholesterol numbers.* He recommended South Beach, probably because it seems safer, the prejudice against saturated fat is very strong, in spite of the scarcity of hard evidence. I did quite a bit of research, and decided to do Atkins instead, the science behind it seemed more sound to me. When some of my cholesterol numbers went up, my docor wrote "terrible" on the lab results, "Please come in." But when I spoke with him in person, first of all, he could see that I had lost weight. He could see that I wasn't depressed. And he easily acknowledged that LDL cholesterol -- the only number that was worse, other numbers were better -- was only a "risk factor," not, in itself, a sign of disease. I'll be doing more detailed lab work to find out what *kind* of LDL cholesterol is floating in my blood; it may well be that my lipid levels are healthier than they were, in terms of predictive effect, if we knew more about the subject.

When I was being taken into the exam room, the nurse started to walk by the scale. "Aren't you going to weigh me?", I asked. "Weren't you weighed recently?" "Yes, but I've been on an Atkins diet, and I've lost weight since then." "Oh," she commented, "that diet really works."

And the doctor said the same thing. Doctors who are willing to look at what actually happens to their patients find that many of them do well, indeed very well, on an Atkins diet.

It's called a Nutritional Approch for good reason. It is not just about losing weight.

If you don't like fat, truly, then an Atkins diet is probably not for you. You *might* be able to do as well on a low-fat diet, but it may get much more complicated as well as more difficult. For most people, fat in the diet is satisfying.

Consider ice cream. If you don't like ice cream at all, this won't apply to you. Traditional ice cream is high-fat and high-carb, both. Now, you can buy low-fat ice cream; usually it is still high-carb. And you can buy low-carb ice cream, usually it is high fat. Having tried both many times, I can tell you very easily what I prefer. Low-carb ice cream, sweetened with Splenda or maltitol or the like, I find just as delicious as the regular stuff. But low-fat tastes flat to me. I could put sugar and low-fat milk in my coffee, but, yuck! Coffee and heavy cream, however, with or without a little Splenda, a treat!

That is what my appetite tells me. Yes, your mileage may vary. If a diet consists of foods that you don't like to eat, it probably is not going to work for you. But low-carb diets (which are usually high-fat, even South Beach is high in fat, but it is so-called "good fats" like olive oil) actually seem to allow the best foods, aside from sugar and pasta and potatoes. (Strictly, there are no forbidden foods in the long-term maintenance phase of the diet, but moderation is indeed necessary for things like potatoes; and once one has been weaned from sugar, at least I can testify this myself, one may become averse to it, that sugar rush can be quite unpleasant.)

So, let's see, about your question. Diabetes, Hyperlipidemia, Obesity, Depression, isn't that enough? And, yes, it turns out that fat may be good for mental acuity or memory.

But, really, the research is limited. It's amazing how stuck so many so-called experts got on the low-fat gospel, without there being the kind of careful research that is needed to tease out the complexities of human nutrition.