Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol
by: Mary G. Enig
Topics include: percent palmitic acid, percent palmitoleic, percent stearic acid, cetoleic acid, percent polyunsaturated fatty acids, percent oleic acid, saturate equivalents, percent linoleic acid, gadoleic acid, antimicrobial fatty acids, tocopherol values, partially hydrogenated vegetable fats, percent linolenic acid, medium chain saturated fatty acids, percent saturated fatty acids, lauric oils, edible oil industry, fatty acid classes, hydrogenated canola, odd chain fatty acids, acid palmitoleic acid, percent monounsaturated, carbon saturated fatty acid, trans fatty acids, ruminant fats
First Sentence:
Fats and oils (technically called lipids) are basically made up of collections of molecules called triglycerides.
About the Author
Dr. Mary G. Enig, a nutritionist/biochemist of international renown for her research on the nutritional aspects of fats and oils, is a consultant, clinician, and the Director of the Nutritional Sciences Division of Enig Associates, Inc., Silver Spring, Maryland. Dr. Enig, a consultant on nutrition to individuals, industry, and state and federal governments, is a licensed practitioner in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She has served as a Contributing Editor of the scientific journal Clinical Nutrition and a Consulting Editor of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Dr. Enig has authored numerous journal publications, mainly on fats and oils research and nutrient/drug interactions, and is a well-known invited lecturer at scientific meetings and a popular interviewee on TV and radio shows about nutrition. She was an early and articulate critic of the use of trans fatty acids and advocated their inclusion in nutritional labeling; the scientific mainstream is now challenging the food product industry's use of trans-containing partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. She received her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is a Fellow of The American College of Nutrition, a member of The American Society for Nutritional Sciences, and President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association.
Reviews:
If you are looking for an accurate presentation of the basics about fat chemistry and especially the differences between trans fats and other fats, this book is for you. There is a lot of misinformation out there about fats that this book corrects. As a chemist I've been horrified by some of the misinformation that I've come across about the structures of fatty acids, especially trans fatty acids. On the other hand, Know Your Fats, offers little of use besides basic structure, chemistry and compositions of fats and oils. Some interesting information about trans fats is presented but even some of the basics of fatty acid biochemistry and action in the body are given little attention. The book is also very poorly organized, filled with bits of disconnected pieces of information. Dr. Mary Enig presents herself as a real expert and criticizes some of the standard nutritional lines and research on fats and disease. She claims that saturated fat is benign and has been unfairly maligned by the hydrogenated oil industry (producers of the real bad fat, trans fatty acids) and research supported by it. Given the vast sums of money that the meat and dairy industries have themselves spent on nutritional research, the promotion of their products, and lobbying of government as well as their historically prominent role in providing nutritional "information" and setting USDA dietary guidelines, its pretty disingenuous to cast the meat and dairy industries as passive victims of the hydrogenated oil industry. Undoubtedly there is plenty of poor, biased nutritional research in the world, but Enig does not attempt to evaluate it in a systematic way. Indeed, she has just as much of an agenda as anyone. Her agenda is to sound the alarm about trans fatty acids and thereby redeem animal fats. Basically her argument is that people ate plenty of animal fats a century ago (and very little trans fat) without getting heart disease, so animal fat must be healthy. This may be true, but Enig completely ignores the dramatic changes that have occurred in the fatty acid composition of meat, due to changes in the diets and treatment of meat animals. If you compare the fat content and composition of wild game to a modern burger, you will find the burger to be far higher in total fat, saturated fat, and much lower in omega 3 fatty acids. Yet beyond a throw-away statement about picking animal products raised on traditional diets (not an easy thing to do), Enig completely fails to address this important issue. Neither does Enig do a good job of rebutting research pinning the blame for heart disease on saturated fat. Since the causes of heart disease are multi-factorial, its always possible that saturated fat causes heart disease in combination with one or more other factors (such as trans fat intake). Saturated fat could be a problem in the context of a modern lifestyle, while posing no risks in the context of a completely traditional lifestyle. If animal products are so benign then why do those who avoid them live longer? Comparisons of meat-eating and vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists have shown a greater difference in life span (longer for the vegetarians) then between smokers and non-smokers. The China Health Study apparently found increases in heart disease and cancer with meat intake even at the very lowest levels of intake. These studies may have flaws, but until someone evaluates them in a neutral and systematic way, its irresponsible to simply ignore them as Enig does. For a better treatment of the omega 3 / omega 6 issue and research on fatty acids and disease as well as clear dietary guidelines, see The Omega Diet, by Artemis P. Simopoulos and Jo Robinson. I'm sure Dr. Enig would take issue with The Omega Diet's categorization of fatty acids (other than trans fats) into "good" and "bad" categories, but given the current state of the American diet, I think these categories are warranted, especially when given with appropriate background information.
Excellent and Readable Work on Fats and Oils
This book, written by one of the world's leading lipid biochemists, is a much needed title in today's "fat-phobic" world. Discarding politically correct notions that saturated fats are unhealthy, Dr. Mary Enig presents a thorough, in-depth, and understandable look at the world of lipids.
The publication of Know Your Fats is a rare treat: it is, to this reviewer's knowledge, the ONLY book on fats and oils for the consumer and the professional written by a recognized authority in the field. Virtually all of the titles on fats and oils in print now are either too technical to be accessible by the layman, or are too error-laden to be worth the paper they are printed on.
Mary Enig made her mark in the nutritional world in 1978 when she and her colleagues at the University of Maryland published a now-famous paper in the American journal Federation Proceedings. The paper directly challenged government assertions that higher cancer rates were associated with animal fat consumption. Enig, et al, concluded that the data actually showed vegetable oils and trans-fatty acids to be the culprits in both cancer and heart disease--not naturally saturated fats that people have been eating for millennia. In the ensuing years, Enig and her colleagues focused their work on determining the trans-fatty acid content of various food items, as well as publishing research that clearly demonstrated TFA's to be potent carcinogens, prime factors in heart disease, disruptors of immune function, and worse.
Enig's book begins like any other on lipid biochemistry and discusses the nature of saturates, monounsaturates, polyunsaturates, and trans-fatty acids. Included also is a revealing discussion of cholesterol and its vital importance to the body. The first chapter also clearly discusses the molecular structure of different fatty acids (with diagrams) and presents the metabolic conversion products of each of the major fatty acids (oleic, linoleic, linolenic, and palmitoleic).
The physiology of fats and cholesterol is fully covered in chapter two. Almost half of this chapter is devoted to shattering popular myths about saturated fats and their roles as disease promoters. Not mincing any words, Enig methodically demonstrates the faulty data and reasoning behind the ideas that saturates either cause or contribute to heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, mental illness, obesity, and cerebrovascular disease. For example, after trashing the "data" that supposedly prove that beef and beef fat caused colon cancer, Enig flatly concludes: "And now, more than three (3) decades after the initial fraudulent report, the anti-animal fat hypothesis continues to lead the nutrition agenda. It was a false issue then, and it remains a false issue today."
Subsequent chapters deal with fats historically used in Western diets; the fatty acid composition of various oils and fats such as coconut, butter, lard, and olive oil; and a succinct summary of "fat facts." The book is rounded out by detailed appendices on definitions, fatty acids in a huge number of foods, and molecular compositions of major fatty acids.
What is most telling, however, is Enig's insider take on the nutritional research world and the forces at play that manipulate the facts. Never one to shy away from controversy, Enig makes some pretty strong indictments of such organizations as the American Dietetics Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the American Heart Association, and the food industry in general. More shocking are her thoughts on research scientists:
"The common scenario is that of a highly intelligent person . . . who finds a research task that will lead to funding from the food and/or pharmaceutical industry or from the industry-controlled government agencies. If that research shows an adverse effect of any of the new foods studied, this is frequently ignored. . . . Of course, the research that is done by the industry-supported scientists is good basic research, and it usually is of great interest so as long as it supports the food industry or avoids a clash with the industry it is promoting. What seems so ironic, is that the very foods (saturated fats and cholesterol) that people are avoiding are the very foods that are healthful. When it comes to fat, this really has become the age of the flat earth."
Ignore the anonymous "reader"'s review titled "Disappointing." Anonymous reviews immediately create a suspect impression. For all anyone might know, the "reader" could be a well-known other "author" of a popular book on fats. The "reader" in his review does not come up with a cohesive enough overview on why Dr. Enig's book is "disappointing." He complains of issues that has nothing to do with Dr. Enig's research as a scientist, how the chemical structures and patterns of fatty acids *and* most importantly, how they work in the human body. He does not prove in any way of how Dr. Enig's knowledge of lipid chemistry fails. His assertion that the fatty acids in animal fat has changed from 100 years ago is a no-brainer and a plainly dumb arguing point: of course the quality of the fatty acids have changed, because most of the way animals are raised today is so different from how they were 100 years ago: conditions, feeding, and treatment. The only way one may compare a cow from 100 years ago is to raise them on pastures, in organic methods.It is a self-evident factor that we should only be eating animals raised naturally, out of warehouses, without synthetic injections. The most important thing to remember about this book is that Dr. Enig has the kind of information and research that should be the basis for every single dietary and health-related consideration. This book is a virtual warning on how modern, processed fats might very well be the most crucial health menace our society faces. Considering all that Dr. Enig knows, we are headed for nutritional health disaster unless the government, doctors, medical institutions and food producers pay heed to the alarming indifference of what kind of stuff is being put into the bodies of humans and animals. The chemically processed fats that are in all factory made foods are virtual poisons which have, and threaten to endanger the health of humans and animals. We're talking here about substances which the human body not only cannot recognize genetically, but to which the cells react in a very negative way: what this amounts to is an insidious compromise of the very protective forces of our bodies were given to us by nature. The damaged polyunsaturates in mass-produced oils and trans fats, with their rancid profiles and corrupted forms, can actually foster the kinds of free-radicals and inflammations which invite disease, decay and degeneration. Dr. Enig's research proves that old-fashioned, nature-made fats from animals, tropical oils, certain seeds, are the only ones we should be eating. The author's straightforward treatises behind her scientific analysis is sound, easy to understand, and irrefutably based on logic. It is unfortunate that Udo Erasmus' book on the same topic has gained such wide currency (its title was boldly "marketable"), because Enig's book is based on true science rather than contradictory, questionable methods of presenting data. This book is a brilliant piece of research contained in such a volume, and should be the textbook for home, school, lab, medical institutions and most of all, every concerned government. It's that important. Our health depends on it.
Title should be: Truth vs. Lies about Fats
This book provides the truth about dietary fats and exposes the false information that endangers our health. The vegetable oil industry has promoted the idea that saturated fats are bad and that hydrogenated vegetable oils are good. The opposite is true. Saturated fats are a normal and necessary component of a healthy diet, and trans fats, which result from the hydrogenation of vegetable oils, are harmful. Dr. Enig explains the chemistry, molecular structure, and functions of fats in a way that is easy to understand. She makes a convincing case that a healthy diet includes a substantial portion of calories from fats, which should include saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats of various molecular chain lengths and configurations.
Saturated fatty acids exist as linear chains, of various length, of carbon atoms, with hydrogen atoms bonded along the length, and oxygen atoms in the carboxyl group at one end. Each carbon atom has four bonds, two to neighboring carbon atoms, and two to hydrogen atoms. If a hydrogen atom is absent, a carbon atom forms a double bond with a neighboring carbon atom, and that bond is called "unsaturated." Such a bond is less stable than a saturated bond, is chemically reactive, and causes a bend in the molecular chain. A monounsaturated fat has a single unsaturated bond, and a polyunsaturated fat has two or more unsaturated bonds. A polyunsaturated fatty acid with several unsaturated bonds is bent into a hook or spiral configuration, and it tends to be chemically reactive.
Saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats are all required in the structural matrix of the lipid membranes of our cells. They are also the building blocks of important hormones and enzymes, such as lipoproteins and phospholipids.
The vegetable oil industry developed the process of hydrogenation in order to make liquid vegetable oils solid. They did that so as to compete with saturated solid fats such as butter. They promoted the idea that hydrogenated vegetable oils are good and that saturated fats are bad, and using their economic and political clout, have influenced nutritionists and government agencies to adopt their line of propaganda to the extent that it has become dogma. To compound the sin of branding saturated fats as bad, they promote hydrogenated fats as a healthy alternative, when in fact hydrogenated fats contain trans fats, which are so bad, various studies by independent researchers have implicated trans fats in heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses.
The reason trans fats are so bad is that there is an anomaly in their molecular structure which rarely occurs in natural fats. At the location of a saturated bond, a carbon atom is normally bonded to two hydrogen atoms; at an unsaturated bond, the carbon atom is bonded to one hydrogen atom. In a trans fat, at the unsaturated bond, the single hydrogen atom is on the wrong side of the molecule. That wreaks havoc with the lipid biochemistry of your body. It compromises the structural integrity of your cell membranes; it disrupts your hormones and homeostasis.
Read this book. The information it contains can prolong your life and improve its quality.