It is a consistent theme that you’ll hear from me again and again in this blog – nutrition is both a young science and a complicated science.  I bring this up today in follow-up to an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that hit many professional list servs and blogs yesterday.

In essence, the article suggested that eating saturated fat might not really increase your risk of heart disease.  This, of course, contradicts everything you’ve heard, and now you’re left frustrated and confused.

But stay with me here.  In the 1970s, we believed all fat was bad.  In the 1980s and 1990s, we learned there are good fats (mono- and polyunsaturated, omega-3s) and bad fats (saturated).  In the 2000s, we added trans fat to the “bad” list.  What’s happening now in the science community is that they’re looking at the various types of saturated fat to see if they impact the body differently.  This research is dropping the understanding of fats down a whole other level.  We’ve gone from the 10,000 foot level (limit the amount of fat you eat) to the 1 foot level (different types of saturated fat may impact the body differently).  It’s all part of the complexity of food and nutrition.

So what’s my advice?  Don’t jump ship and gorge yourself on sausages and cheese the rest of the day.  Let the scientific process play out, and in the meantime, stick to known advice.

Visit www.nuval.com to see how saturated fats and all fats drive scores up or down.

People are often frustrated that nutrition advice keeps changing.  In the 1980s, everyone was told to eat less fat.  But then in the 1990s, carbs became the bad guys.  In the next decade it was trans fat.  Now sodium is looming on the horizon as the next evil nutrient.  No wonder consumers are confused.

The problem is that nutrition is a young science, and a complex science.  Every day more and more research is done, and it changes what we have held to be true up until that point.  This is the reason for Nutrition Outlook.  My goal through this blog is to get you to think about nutrition as it stands today, and to think about the subject of what you eat more broadly, more comprehensively.  My goal is to connect the dots for you, and make healthy food more of a reality and a joy in your life.

Advice on nutrition abounds everywhere, and I get that.  So you may be asking why you should trust me, right?  First and foremost, you should trust me because I am a registered dietitian, trained to understand the nuances of nutrition and communicate them in meaningful messages to consumers.  The rest is something we’ll build over time – you’ll trust me if I can help you live a better life in some small way.