SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Not all fats are created equal and lard and hydrogenated vegetable oils are not on the top-list of "healthy fat choices". Our perspective on fat has changed significantly over the last decade. While some people still propagate that "fat is bad" and "should be generally avoided", most experts have stopped bashing fat in general and are now focusing on saturated fats. Saturated fats as they occur in lard,.. but wait! If you take a closer look at the fatty acid composition of lard, it turns out that it contains "only" 39.2% saturated, but 45.1% mono- and 11.2% polyunsaturated fats. That's actually not too far off of the average vegetable shortening with a saturated to monounsaturated to polyunsaturated fat ratio of 25.0 / 41.2 / 28.1% (nutritiondata.com) Lean more about frying , MUFAs, PUFAs  & co at the SuppVersity Std. US Diet Has "Optimal" Obesogenic Fat MUFA Modulates Gut Bacteria → Weight Loss Taste of Olive O...

Even if animal fats were the best frying fats, this wouldn't turn doughnuts into "health food" and french fries into raw carrot sticks. If you "liked" the SuppVersity on Facebook ( www.facebook.com/SuppVersity ) you will probably already have seen the controversies and questions my post "Scientists on the Quest for the Perfect Frying Oil" ( read more ) has triggered. Eventually, it all revolves around yet another of those nutritional wisdoms that's circulating on the Internet: "Ghee, tallow, lard, ... saturated animal fats and the coconut miracle, of course, are the best and only frying oils you should use ." (next best Internet source) How on earth could F. Aladedunye, and R. Przybylski, the authors of the previously cited study even dare to state that high-oleic low-linolenic rapeseed , high-oleic sunflower oils are good frying oils? But enough of the sarcasm : In today's installment of "True or False" (read pre...

(Un!)Surprising results: The "healthy" soy oil is the only fat in the study at hand that causes NAFLD. I know, it is not certain whether or not the results of rodent studies will transfer to human beings and believe me, I would rather have seen this study conducted on humans or at least pigs. And while the latter are simply to expensive, the former are unreliable and don't like to be caged in metabolic wards... well, unless they receive a monetary compensation that costs about as much as a whole pigsty ;-) That being said, let's stick with what we have and take a look at the results, Yoko Hashimoto and her colleagues published in a recent issue of the medical journal Lipids (Hashimoto. 2013). The "obesity resistant" wistar rat and it's reaction to different dietary fats I promise, the results are interesting and probably highly relevant, because the strain of Wistar rats (Slc:Wistar/ST) used in this study does not become obese simply because...

Study confirms: The SAD diet yields 'optimal' results (img. forbes.com) Since this post is already lengthy enough, I will spare you how saturated fatty acids have long falsely been accused as the sole driving force of the western obesity epidemic and how the tides appear to be slowly yet steadily appear to be turning, as scientists delve deeper and deeper into the interactions of the total fat content in the diet, its fatty acid composition and the interaction of both with the two other macronutrients and their specific forms and get right to the study at hand. A study that appears in the current issue of the Journal of Lipid Science and deals with the first of the aforementioned interactions. The one that focuses on the total fat content and the individual fatty acid make-up of the diet (Enos. 2012). Fat shoot out: Saturated vs. mono vs. PUFA As Enos et al. point out, the main purpose of their study was to examine the effects of three high fat diets differing only wi...

Image 1: Your scale is a fat liar and putting too much trust in it is a potential hazard to your health. In the past couple of months the shrine with the image of the Dr. Atkins has begun to totter. "Lower your carbs!" What sounds easy and works pretty well as a short- to medium-term intervention for the morbidly obese 100% insulin resistant sedentary slob is getting more and more "healthy" or "newly healthy" and active individuals into serious trouble. I have been blogging about the fallacy of athletes dieting like Biggest Losers and Biggest Losers training like athletes before and do not want to go through all the arguments again. What I do yet want to do is to point you to the intriguing results of recently published (unfortunately rodent) study from the Ludwig Maximilian University here in Munich, Germany ( Caton. 2012 ) Extreme "Atkins diet" minimizes weight gain, but induces a "skinny fat" phenotype in exercised rodents ...