Am I wrong in thinking that this whole low-fat BS came about solely because a gram of fat has 9cal and carb 4 and therefore, theoretically, you could eat twice as much food eating low fat than high fat?

Is there any other reason? And don't say cholesterol...

Everybody is going to have a theory on this one. Here's mine:

Low fat eating means you have to EXERCISE to burn off the carbs. Look at all the exercise videos, exercise machines, health clubs, self-help books, low fat cookbooks, kewl exercise clothing, top 'o the line running shoes, high performance bicycles, personal trainers, that have cropped up in the last 20 years ...... they all have a *steak* in YOU eating LOTS of PASTA - they are COUNTING on it. Can you imagine where their businesses would be if the word got out that *it's possible to lose weight in front of the TV eating pork rinds *?

Then there is the American Heart Association and all the like associations who are partially government funded and so is their research. They took a hard look at those with heart conditions and came to the conclusion that those with major heart problems were also overweight.... so concluded that *eating FAT is bad* and then the next step in prevention of heart disease: *eating FAT makes you FAT*... and on and on like a vicious circle.

How are these associations going to go back and say "Oops - here's all the funding back, we were wrong - dietary fat's OK, it's the CARBS that are the problem sorry!"

I look forward to 20 years from now and see how exactly the world looks at food....

In the dark ages people thought that rats were created out of food scrapes. They saw lots of rats 'suddenly appearing' in the food scrapes. Thus, the rats-come-from-food-scrapes theory appeared and stayed until someone had the courage to debunk the faulty and popular theory.

One day a doctor looked closely at an uncooked piglet sitting in the kitchen, later that night he looked in the mirror and wah loh the fat-comes-from-fat theory was born.

Kidding aside, I think it's the caloric thing, too.

That reminds me... I heard that in the days of the bubonic plague they killed off all the cats, thinking they they were spreading the disease. When of course cats kill rats that had fleas that carried it... so sad... so familiar

Yes, good intentions, eh Meeker? Like all those people who keep telling us that fat comes from eating fat...

Yes you are wrong. It came out of our usual Puritanical selves:

Science by committee
Like the flourishing American affinity for alternative medicine, an antifat movement evolved independently of science in the 1960s. It was fed by distrust of the establishment—in this case, both the medical establishment and the food industry—and by counterculture attacks on excessive consumption, whether manifested in gas-guzzling cars or the classic American cuisine of bacon and eggs and marbled steaks. And while the data on fat and health remained ambiguous and the scientific community polarized, the deadlock was broken not by any new science, but by politicians. It was Senator George McGovern’s bipartisan, nonlegislative Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs—and, to be precise, a handful of McGovern’s staff members—that almost single-handedly changed nutritional policy in this country and initiated the process of turning the dietary fat hypothesis into dogma.
McGovern’s committee was founded in 1968 with a mandate to eradicate malnutrition in America, and it instituted a series of landmark federal food assistance programs. As the malnutrition work began to peter out in the mid-1970s, however, the committee didn’t disband. Rather, its general counsel, Marshall Matz, and staff director, Alan Stone, both young lawyers, decided that the committee would address “overnutrition,” the dietary excesses of Americans. It was a “casual endeavor,” says Matz. “We really were totally naïve, a bunch of kids, who just thought, ‘Hell, we should say something on this subject before we go out of business.’ “ McGovern and his fellow senators—all middle-aged men worried about their girth and their health—signed on; McGovern and his wife had both gone through diet-guru Nathan Pritikin’s very low fat diet and exercise program. McGovern quit the program early, but Pritikin remained a major influence on his thinking.
McGovern’s committee listened to 2 days of testimony on diet and disease in July 1976. Then resident wordsmith Nick Mottern, a former labor reporter for The Providence Journal, was assigned the task of researching and writing the first “Dietary Goals for the United States.” Mottern, who had no scientific background and no experience writing about science, nutrition, or health, believed his Dietary Goals would launch a “revolution in diet and agriculture in this country.” He avoided the scientific and medical controversy by relying almost exclusively on Harvard School of Public Health nutritionist Mark Hegsted for input on dietary fat. Hegsted had studied fat and cholesterol metabolism in the early 1960s, and he believed unconditionally in the benefits of restricting fat intake, although he says he was aware that his was an extreme opinion. With Hegsted as his muse, Mottern saw dietary fat as the nutritional equivalent of cigarettes, and the food industry as akin to the tobacco industry in its willingness to suppress scientific truth in the interests of profits. To Mottern, those scientists who spoke out against fat were those willing to take on the industry. “It took a certain amount of guts,” he says, “to speak about this because of the financial interests involved.”
Mottern’s report suggested that Americans cut their total fat intake to 30% of the calories they consume and saturated fat intake to 10%, in accord with AHA recommendations for men at high risk of heart disease. The report acknowledged the existence of controversy but insisted Americans had nothing to lose by following its advice. “The question to be asked is not why should we change our diet but why not?” wrote Hegsted in the introduction. “There are [no risks] that can be identified and important benefits can be expected.” This was an optimistic but still debatable position, and when Dietary Goals was released in January 1977, “all hell broke loose,” recalls Hegsted. “Practically nobody was in favor of the McGovern recommendations. Damn few people.”
McGovern responded with three follow-up hearings, which aptly foreshadowed the next 7 years of controversy. Among those testifying, for instance, was NHLBI director Robert Levy, who explained that no one knew if eating less fat or lowering blood cholesterol levels would prevent heart attacks, which was why NHLBI was spending $300 million to study the question. Levy’s position was awkward, he recalls, because “the good senators came out with the guidelines and then called us in to get advice.” He was joined by prominent scientists, including Ahrens, who testified that advising Americans to eat less fat on the strength of such marginal evidence was equivalent to conducting a nutritional experiment with the American public as subjects. Even the American Medical Association protested, suggesting that the diet proposed by the guidelines raised the “potential for harmful effects.” But as these scientists testified, so did representatives from the dairy, egg, and cattle industries, who also vigorously opposed the guidelines for obvious reasons. This juxtaposition served to taint the scientific criticisms: Any scientists arguing against the committee’s guidelines appeared to be either hopelessly behind the paradigm, which was Hegsted’s view, or industry apologists, which was Mottern’s, if not both.
Although the committee published a revised edition of the Dietary Goals later in the year, the thrust of the recommendations remained unchanged. It did give in to industry pressure by softening the suggestion that Americans eat less meat. Mottern says he considered even that a “disservice to the public,” refused to do the revisions, and quit the committee. (Mottern became a vegetarian while writing the Dietary Goals and now runs a food co-op in Peekskill, New York.)
The guidelines might have then died a quiet death when McGovern’s committee came to an end in late 1977 if two federal agencies had not felt it imperative to respond. Although they took contradictory points of view, one message—with media assistance—won out.
The first was the USDA, where consumer-activist Carol Tucker Foreman had recently been appointed an assistant secretary. Foreman believed it was incumbent on USDA to turn McGovern’s recommendations into official policy, and, like Mottern, she was not deterred by the existence of scientific controversy. “Tell us what you know and tell us it’s not the final answer,” she would tell scientists. “I have to eat and feed my children three times a day, and I want you to tell me what your best sense of the data is right now.”
Of course, given the controversy, the “best sense of the data” would depend on which scientists were asked. The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which decides the Recommended Dietary Allowances, would have been a natural choice, but NAS president Philip Handler, an expert on metabolism, had told Foreman that Mottern’s Dietary Goals were “nonsense.” Foreman then turned to McGovern’s staffers for advice and they recommended she hire Hegsted, which she did. Hegsted, in turn, relied on a state-of-the-science report published by an expert but very divergent committee of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition. “They were nowhere near unanimous on anything,” says Hegsted, “but the majority supported something like the McGovern committee report.”
The resulting document became the first edition of “Using the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” Although it acknowledged the existence of controversy and suggested that a single dietary recommendation might not suit an entire diverse population, the advice to avoid fat and saturated fat was, indeed, virtually identical to McGovern’s Dietary Goals.
Three months later, the NAS Food and Nutrition Board released its own guidelines: “Toward Healthful Diets.” The board, consisting of a dozen nutrition experts, concluded that the only reliable advice for healthy Americans was to watch their weight; everything else, dietary fat included, would take care of itself. The advice was not taken kindly, however, at least not by the media. The first reports—”rather incredulously,” said Handler at the time—criticized the NAS advice for conflicting with the USDA’s and McGovern’s and thus somehow being irresponsible. Follow-up reports suggested that the board members, in the words of Jane Brody, who covered the story for The New York Times, were “all in the pocket of the industries being hurt.” To be precise, the board chair and one of its members consulted for food industries, and funding for the board itself came from industry donations. These industry connections were leaked to the press from the USDA.
Hegsted now defends the NAS board, although he didn’t at the time, and calls this kind of conflict of interest “a hell of an issue.” “Everybody used to complain that industry didn’t do anything on nutrition,” he told Science, “yet anybody who got involved was blackballed because their positions were presumably influenced by the industry.” (In 1981, Hegsted returned to Harvard, where his research was funded by Frito-Lay.) The press had mixed feelings, claiming that the connections “soiled” the academy’s reputation “for tendering careful scientific advice” (The Washington Post), demonstrated that the board’s “objectivity and aptitude are in doubt” (The New York Times), or represented in the board’s guidelines a “blow against the food faddists who hold the public in thrall” (Science). In any case, the NAS board had been publicly discredited. Hegsted’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans became the official U.S. policy on dietary fat: Eat less fat. Live longer.
Creating “consensus”
Once politicians, the press, and the public had decided dietary fat policy, the science was left to catch up. In the early 1970s, when NIH opted to forgo a $1 billion trial that might be definitive and instead fund a half-dozen studies at one-third the cost, everyone hoped these smaller trials would be sufficiently persuasive to conclude that low-fat diets prolong lives. The results were published between 1980 and 1984. Four of these trials —comparing heart disease rates and diet within Honolulu, Puerto Rico, Chicago, and Framingham—showed no evidence that men who ate less fat lived longer or had fewer heart attacks. A fifth trial, the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT), cost $115 million and tried to amplify the subtle influences of diet on health by persuading subjects to avoid fat while simultaneously quitting smoking and taking medication for high blood pressure. That trial suggested, if anything, that eating less fat might shorten life. In each study, however, the investigators concluded that methodological flaws had led to the negative results. They did not, at least publicly, consider their results reason to lessen their belief in the evils of fat.
from The Soft Science of Dietary Fat by Gary Taubes
Science (April 2001)

What I got from that is:

based on little evidence, the government decided to suggest that we eat less than 30% fat so that we don't get heart disease

Based on zero evidence! Based on 100% religion instead!

What if I eat lowcarb and NOT high fat but SOME fat?

This is what I'm doing now. I find there is no need to seek out fats or add tons and tons of fat to foods that contain fats/meats/eggs etc.

Anyone else?

N

No good, methinks, cuz then all you’ve left to inhale is protein and too much ingested protein can be metabolized into… glucose if I remember correctly. Besides, fats are needed to make you feel full as well as for a ton of health reasons. That fat is the building blocks for many processes in your body, so don’t skimp on it, just make sure they’re the good kinds… (By the way, lemme take a wild guess: where you once a low-fat dieter or at least a low-fat believer? If so, check my previous post…)

Remember in the old days (parents don't do that anymore)!!) we were told to drink fish oil?

Well that's a continuation of the decline of healthy habits. We stopped considering oils healthy, replaced butter with hydrogenated freakish coloured blobs called margarine, and just run after chemical procedures to "cure" healthy foods of their natural fats.

Let's face it, we're brain-washed.

I just love fat steaks, and sip oil. I learned to just drink it. 2-4 Tbsp of Udo's balance oil. Expensive stuff, but loaded with goodies

Wa'il

I do believe we all have been brainwashed. The article was very interesting and shows how the government interferes way too much and based on misinformation. It does feel like I have to unlearn everything I've learned about "watching" my diet.
I have to say I really enjoy using real mayo now and real dressing on my salads. But I still try to be careful in what kind of fats I eat. I use olive oil a lot. I make my own salad dressing with olive oil. I still use mostly chicken and turkey. But I don't go out of my way to eat more fat. I definitely stay away from low fat stuff now They are loaded with carbs usually. You're right tho. The extra fat helps to keep the hunger down. Thanks for the research Victoria

Hey, thanks for responding!!!

Bill T - I said SOME fat not HIGH or LOW fat. Moderation!

I'm trying to do as Victoria does...eat fat but not SEEK fat beyond the fat that is already there - I do put olive oil on salads and yes, use fat as a tool to stop my hunger of course! I understand all the body benefits of eating fat and would never cut it out or go back to LOW fat ever. I just use ONE tablespoon of mayo in my tuna...not "all I want" - because ONE will do me fine. I think lowcarbing using "practical and reasonable" amounts of fat is totally fine. I don't go to the store and load my cart up with unhealthy foods or fats...I eat fresh meats/fish/chicken/turkey and low carb nonstarch vegs and healthy NORMAL portions of fats - but I won't go out of my way to cook bacon or pour on butter or oil just because the diet says I CAN. If I don't want it, if I don't need it, then I don't add it.

I think success can be made either way without compromising health.
N

Dietary fat, in the absence of carbs has a phenominal effect on the body - it causes the body to burn body fat.

I didn't make this up, Dr. A did. I believe he said "A wise dieter can turn this to their advantage".

Early on in low carbing, particularly if you have a lot to lose, eating fat in sufficient quantities will not cause any problems, in fact it is required in order for the loss to take place.

I found that by nearing my goal, I was more aware of fat intake - because I had to get my calories down - as you lose, you need less calories - every 10 pounds you have to recalculate.