Drop the fat or increase fruits and vegetables?

If you are trying to lose weight, you may be confused about what exactly to do. Many people will try to cut their fat intake radically in order to lose that weight. However, as I see quite regularly with my own clients, if they try to cut the fat too much, they eventually give up and find themselves craving fat everywhere they go. I am always encouraging clients to cut down the animal and saturated fats, replace those fats with what I call ‘plant fats’, mentioned below, and increase their intake of fruits and vegetables.

We know that that eating more vegetables and fruits, sources of so many antioxidant vitamins and phytochemicals, is a powerful step to lowering the risk of cancer and other health problems. But people often struggle to increase their intake of such foods. It is not always because they don’t like them, they just don’t take the time to buy them and keep them in the house. You have to buy produce more often than just once a week, and then you have to make a conscious effort to prepare them and to cook them. Although we are all short on time, we still find ways to fill the little time we have, but preparing produce is often low on the list of priorities.

But how does cutting fat really affect our health? If we cut fat dramatically and increase fruits and vegetables, is that better than keeping the fat intake moderate? Many people don’t realize that we do need fat in our diet; all fat-soluble nutrients must have fat in order for optimum absorption.

Researchers at the University of Michigan recently decided to see how results of boosting vegetable and fruit consumption might vary depending on level of fat consumption. Around 100 women were followed for a year. Some made no changes at all in their eating. Others increased vegetables and fruits from less than four servings a day to about 11, but kept dietary fat at their usual level of more than 30 percent of calories. A third group kept their usual low intake of vegetables and fruits, but reduced dietary fat to an average of about 16 percent of calories, which is very low, and a fourth group both decreased fat consumption and increased vegetables and fruits.

Eating more produce raised consumption of nutrients like vitamin C and beta-carotene substantially. More importantly, blood levels of vitamin C, beta-carotene and another carotenoid, alpha-carotene, also rose. These increases were not prevented by reduced dietary fat, but researchers did find that gamma-tocopherol, an anti-inflammatory form of vitamin E, had been decreased by 50 percent. The problem is that this is the form of vitamin E that can be most beneficial in the growth of cancer cells.

To get health benefits from low-fat diets, make sure that saturated fat is the type of fat you cut back. Also, be sure that you include foods that provide both alpha- and gamma-tocopherol. We get alpha-tocopherol from olive and canola oil, nuts, fortified cereal, whole grains and dark green vegetables. We get gamma-tocopherol from canola oil, pistachios, pecans, peanuts, walnuts, as well as a small amount from avocados.