Unlocking the Truth: Why Fat is Your Friend in a Healthy Diet

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in America despite decades of low-fat dietary messaging. That reality alone should invite us to question the narrative. What if saturated fat was never the true villain? What if the real shift occurred when we abandoned traditional fats and replaced them with industrial seed and vegetable oils marketed as “heart healthy”?

For most of human history, saturated fats were foundational to the diet. Butter, tallow, lard, were what people cooked with. Additionally, foods such as marrow, egg yolks, oysters and organ meats were especially important for the health of growing children and prepared women for pregnancy. These foods were not fringe foods — they were sacred foods.

Why Saturated Fat Matters

Saturated fat plays important roles in the body:

• It supports the structure of cell membranes.

• It provides dense, steady energy for the brain and nervous system.

• It assists in the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.

• It contributes to hormone production (all steroid hormones are built from cholesterol).

• It promotes satiety and stable blood sugar.

When we removed saturated fat from the American diet, we didn’t remove fat entirely — we replaced it. And what replaced it in modern America were industrially processed oils high in linoleic acid (omega-6). Omega 6 foods are supposed to be less than Omega 3s (the good omegas), but today’s diet far over reaches conventional standards.

A Return to Traditional Wisdom

Recently, H.H.S. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken about rethinking conventional nutrition and placing clean protein and saturated fats back into a central role in the diet. Regardless of politics, the broader idea is worth revisiting. The new U.S. Food Pyramid is an inverted triangle, placing traditional fats, protein and vegetables at the top and processed foods at the bottom.

Traditional dietary patterns across cultures consistently placed animal fats and nutrient-dense foods at the center — not refined vegetable and seed oils.

One organization that has long documented this cross-cultural evidence is the Weston A. Price Foundation, inspired by the work of dentist Weston A. Price, who traveled in the 1930s studying traditional diets. He observed that populations consuming whole, unprocessed foods — including significant amounts of animal fats — had robust fertility, low rates of chronic disease and beautiful teeth.

Saturated Fat and Yin in Chinese Medicine

From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, saturated fats are deeply nourishing. They help build Yin — the cooling, moistening, grounding substance of the body.

Yin corresponds to:

• Blood

• Fluids

• The Feminine

• Rest

Yang, by contrast, is hot, active, driven, masculine.

Our modern lifestyle is profoundly Yang:

• Chronic stress

• Sleep deprivation

• Alcohol

• Coffee and energy drinks

• Refined sugar and flour

• Constant stimulation

  
  

Yin and Yang are integrally related, one cannot exist without the other. However, excess Yang burns through Yin. Over time, Yin deficiency may manifest as dryness, inflammation, insomnia, hot flashes, infertility, anxiety, or burnout.

Women are especially vulnerable. Menstruation and childbirth naturally draw upon Blood and Yin. When layered with stress and low-fat dieting, depletion deepens. Then in menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats become overwhelming. Yin deficiency is what is driving the explosion of HRT prescriptions.

In clinical practice, I frequently see women who are exhausted, stressed, eating low-fat, constipated, and wondering why they cannot conceive. Fertility requires abundant Yin and Blood. Without nutrient dense foods, the body simply cannot sustain new life.

Across cultures, fertility foods are rich and fatty: butter, tallow, marrow, liver, oysters, cream. These foods are deeply building.

The Problem with Industrial Seed Oils

Modern “vegetable oils” such as:

• Soybean

• Corn

• Cottonseed

• Sunflower

• Safflower

• Grapeseed

• Canola

are high in linoleic acid, an omega-6 polyunsaturated fat. While omega-6 is technically essential, the modern diet supplies it in unprecedented quantities — largely from processed foods and restaurant cooking oils.

Polyunsaturated fats are chemically unstable and more prone to oxidation, especially when heated. This oxidative stress is one proposed mechanism by which they contribute to inflammation. Many studies show that this inflammation is the true culprit when it comes to the creation of plaques in the arteries, not saturated fat.

Organizations such as the American Heart Association have long recommended replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable oils. If you follow the money, however, Big Ag corporate funding is behind the low fat fad. In fact, when margarine was first introduced on the market as a heart healthy food, it incited a riot in New York City. People screamed that it was not real food, and it is not! The extensive processing that is needed to remove its bad odors and dark color is a testament to its toxicity.

Furthermore, linoleic acid is not healthy for your skin. If you have a diet high in seed and vegetable oils and you go out in the sun and are exposed to UV light, it makes your skin more vulnerable to burning and the development of skin cancers. We need the sun to synthesize vitamin D in our skin, so avoiding it is not the answer to having healthy skin. Kick linoleic acid out of your diet instead.

Nervous System Balance

There is also a nervous system component.

Saturated fats are grounding. Meals rich in stable fats encourage parasympathetic “rest and digest” dominance. That is our natural baseline state — periodically interrupted by acute stress, not constant chronic activation.

Yet many people today:

• Sleep fewer than six hours

• Wake between 1–3 a.m. with cortisol surges

• Power through the day with caffeine

• Wind down with alcohol

  
  

This relentless Yang pattern depletes Yin further. Food alone cannot correct lifestyle excess, but nourishing fats can be part of rebuilding. Avoiding mainstream media outlets and their sensationalized stories will help you preserve your calmness. Also, if you are triggered by what someone says, stop and take a few moments to breath and look inward before you fire off a text or email that could damage your friendships and relationships.

Cooking and Practical Choices

Traditional saturated fats are stable for cooking because they tolerate heat well:

• Butter

• Ghee

• Tallow

• Lard

• Coconut oil

  
  

Sourcing matters. Whenever possible, choose organic, pasture-raised, or local animal fats.

Avocados and olive oil are also healthy fats (though primarily monounsaturated rather than saturated) and can be included in a balanced diet. These are both best eaten raw.

Dairy, Skim Culture, and Satiety

When dairy fat was removed and skim milk marketed as “healthy,” we were left with a product stripped of its most nourishing component. This gave the dairy corporations a bigger profit margin, but failed our bodies. Fat carries vitamins, promotes fullness, and stabilizes blood sugar. Without it, many people find themselves craving — often turning to hyper-palatable processed foods such as ice cream.

I recently heard of a case where a woman was struggling with infertility and could not stop eating ice cream. The Registered Dietician assigned to her cases wanted her to eat more vegetables, but I saw a deeper problem. The poor woman was so Yin and Blood deficient she was following her body’s seemingly unhealthy instincts to remedy the problem. Of course, I would recommend higher quality fats such as butter, eggs and cream to this woman. Many of my patients become pregnant within a couple months when they reorient their diets towards saturated fats.

Returning to Balance

This is not about extremes. It is about restoration.

Traditional diets were not low-fat. They were not industrial. They were built around whole foods, animal fats, seasonal vegetables, and community.

From both a physiological and TCM perspective, rebuilding Yin requires:

• Adequate sleep

• Stress reduction

• Bone Broth and Traditional fats

• Chinese Herbal medicine and acupuncture

  
  

Saturated fat is not the enemy. In the right context, from clean sources, and within a balanced lifestyle, it can be deeply nourishing.

Perhaps it is time to stop fearing traditional foods — and instead examine what truly changed in the modern diet and do our best to avoid vegetable and seed oils.

Build your Yin. Nourish deeply. Return to balance.