For years, health experts have blamed the standard American diet for rising rates of diabetes and heart disease. But when it comes to finding a fix, even scientists can’t agree on what we should or should not eat.
Take fat, for example. Over the last few decades, doctors have recommended a diet low in saturated fat to avoid chronic disease.
Saturated fat is found in animal products like dairy, eggs, and meat, and in tropical plants such as coconut and palm. These fats have been a fundamental part of many traditional diets around the world for centuries, but doctors today insist saturated fat will harm our health.
The American Heart Association recommends restricting saturated fats to 5 to 6 percent of everything you eat. On its website, the organization states that decades of sound science have proven saturated fat “can raise your ‘bad’ cholesterol and put you at higher risk for heart disease.”
However, some researchers question whether saturated fat is really as bad as the medical establishment says it is. One such scientist is Dr. Deanna Gibson, an immunologist, microbiologist, and associate professor of biology at the University of British Columbia–Okanagan Campus.
