For decades we've been told to choose low-fat or fat-free dairy because saturated fat was assumed to mean higher cholesterol and greater cardiovascular risk.
A new randomized study adds to the evidence that it may not be that simple. Adults eating three servings of full-fat dairy per day for 12 weeks didn't gain more weight or body fat and didn't see meaningful increases in cholesterol or insulin resistance. They actually saw improvements in blood pressure while consuming more calcium, protein and vitamin D.
One possible explanation is the "dairy matrix", the idea that our bodies respond to whole foods differently than we'd predict by looking at one nutrient, like saturated fat, in isolation.
It's only one relatively small study, so I'm not declaring butter a health food yet. But it makes me wonder how much nutrition advice we've gotten wrong by reducing complicated foods to a single ingredient or nutrient.
What other foods do you think we've unfairly demonized over the years...eggs?
There's a woman showing up regularly on my YouTube feed, a carnivore influencer, who eats butter as you would normally eat candy, and she does not gain weight.
I personally like my milk fat, the low fat version is tasteless to me. I also regularly add butter to it when preparing my hot chocolate. I like it very fat.
Found her
I've seen a few...looks.like carnivore diet is working well!
Misssmeat on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/share/1cg5TCqkC8/
Steak and Butter Gal on youtube
https://youtube.com/@steakandbuttergal?si=ZR2GEGwF2fIQ6Tna
yeah, steak and butter ham is the one I was referring to...
i regularly eat sticks of raw butter and drink raw milk with or without sourdough bread, while knowing that it's all animal discharge - i wud much rather eat fruits & berries and drink tea & cacao made with mountain spring water; however, i feel like my heavily contaminated flesh is still dependent on something from animals; i no longer eat land-grazing animals, i am OK with eggs, and contemplating how to start abstaining from sea animals;
lipids are extremely important for proper brain function; the white liquid low-fat substances sold in centralized stores are basically a big pharma product - idk what to call it, but it ain't nourishment;
i wud also like to fast longer & more frequently; since food is way too abundant on land, i may have to go backpacking or sailing in order to make fasting practical rather than disciplined;
as far as health goes, i routinely move heavy baggage, large rocks & sticks (up to 80 lbs), and have not had back pain in years; i do move a little too fast for my liking, which increases the risk of injury;
Bruce Lee used to say: first technique, then power, then speed; i shud also look into his nutritional plan!
The activity point both of you bring up is interesting as diet obviously doesn't happen in isolation from the rest of our lifestyle.
What surprised me most about the study, though, was that simply adding full-fat dairy didn't produce the weight, body-fat or cholesterol changes you might expect from the conventional saturated-fat narrative.
I'm interested in the idea that we've oversimplified nutrition by studying individual nutrients instead of whole foods. "Fat is bad" or "carbs are bad" makes for an easy rule, but human metabolism seems considerably messier than that.
The modern techniques of improving the shelf life of milk like UHT pasteurization and homogenization consist of killing everything inside the milk. Read about them and be horrified.
In general, studies are paid by biased parties and cannot be trusted. The processing of the food industry is almost always the problem, not the food itself.
How many steps did they get? Fat management is more than just diet!
For the record I love full fat dairy but when trying to lose body fat? Fat has more calories per gram than carbs and protein thus a diet full of fat can bog you down with excess calories
Well, I eat a lot of fat and I'm still thick and thin.
It actually can be good or bad depending how you use it.
If you are lazy, it'll work against and if you're active, it will work in favour.
I don't understand what you're conveying. What do you mean, "still thick and thin." aren't those opposites?
The dairy matrix is the real story here, whole foods behave differently than the sum of their parts. We spent 40 years demonizing saturated fat on epidemiology that never proved causation, then swapped it for seed oils and refined carbs, which might be worse. Eggs already got their redemption arc. Salt's next, watch
Yes!
As a patriotic and economic nationalist New Zealander I would suggest milk fat is a hell of a lot safer than margarine and the anemic low fat milk products that have been touted as healthy.
Trust your sense of taste!
The whole war on fat has been a sham- processed sugar and highly refined carbohydrates which the food industry replaced fats with are largely the poison that disrupts your digestive and blood systems causing obesity and diabetes.
Fat is good- it carries energy, flavour and nutrition and if you eat 'too much' of it your body expels it. Processed sugar and highly refined carbs on the other hand severely disrupt your internal organs and energy processing mechanism.
Enjoy butter, full cream milk and a good fatty steak or lamb chops!