In a bizarre report released this week in the UK, experts insist low fat diets are bad for us while eating more healthy fatty foods is better for us longterm.
Eating less butter, cream, cheese and other fatty foods is fuelling an obesity epidemic with disastrous consequences for health, experts have warned.
In a scathing report the UK’s National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration said that most of what people are told about healthy eating is wrong.
The experts claim that the obsession with low-fat diets, while snacking between meals is making people fat.
The report states: ‘Eating a diet rich in full-fat dairy – such as cheese, milk and yoghurt – can actually lower the chance of obesity.
‘The most natural and nutritious foods available – meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts, seeds, olives, avocados – all contain saturated fat.’
* Processed foods labelled ‘low fat’, ‘lite’, ‘low cholesterol’ or ‘proven to lower cholesterol’ should be avoided at all costs
* People with type 2 diabetes should eat a fat-rich diet rather than one based on carbohydrates.
* Sugar should be avoided and we should stop counting calories.
* The idea that exercise can help you ‘outrun a bad diet’ is a myth.
* Instead, a diet low in refined carbohydrates but high in healthy fats is ‘an effective and safe approach for preventing weight gain and aiding weight loss’, and cuts the risk of heart disease.
* The report’s authors call for a return to ‘whole foods’ such as meat, fish and dairy, as well as high fat healthy foods including avocados, arguing that ‘eating fat does not make you fat’.
* Eating a diet rich in full fat dairy – such as cheese, milk and yoghurt – can actually lower the chance of obesity.
* Saturated fat does not cause heart disease, while full fat diary can actually protect the heart.
It states: ‘The most natural and nutritious foods available – meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts, seeds, olive, avocados – all contain saturated fat.
‘The continued demonisation of omnipresent natural fat drives people away from highly nourishing, wholesome and health promoting foods.’