Dietary advice is widely available, varied and things haven’t changed much since the 1970s when the focus on how to eat healthiercame to the fore. At that time though the advice was vastly different to what it is today. Even so it was the 1970s, when the first advice to avoid high-fat foods such as butter and cheese began, and that has stuck for more than 40 years.
Some research is now revealing that this original advice against fatty foods, including diary, should never have been given.
The guidance in the 1970s warned against high fat intake and recommended that fat should be cut out of diets as much as possible in order to limit the risk of heart disease and even dying.
These guidelines have become part of our culture as people even today remain committed to a low fat diet. But researchers are now saying that the original advice wasn’t based on scientific evidence.
The guidelines originally advised to reduce fat intake to around 30% of total daily diet and saturated fat should be around 10% of total food intake.
By focusing on saturated fats, researchers say that other risks and foods have been overlooked, particularly carbohydrates which some believe may be causing high levels of obesity.
This new line of thinking was published as a paper in the medical journal Open Heart. While others agree that other nutrients and causes of disease may have been overlooked, in favour of saturated fat, they say that all diets need to consider moderation rather than replacing one bad food with another. (Huffington Lifestyle)
Here are some favourite treats and their fat content, so you can decide whether you deserve it or not.
Rice Krispies Treats – only three tablespoons of butter in total or a quarter of a tablespoon per treat.
Chocolate Chip Cookies – 16 tablespoons of butter in total or half a tablespoon in two cookies.
Gooey Butter Cake – 16 tablespoons of butter in total or around eight tablespoons per slice.
Cinnamon Rolls – Betty Crocker’s recipe contains around four to five tablespoons of butter in the dough and four to eight for the filling. If you add glaze that’s another one to four tablespoons of butter. So overall that’s about a half to one tablespoon of fat per roll.
Pound Cake – 24 tablespoons of butter in total or one and a half tablespoons per serving.
Apple Crumb Pie – 14 tablespoons of butter in total or one and three quarter tablespoons of butter per slice.
Cupcakes – 24oz of butter in total or two tablespoons per cupcake.
Brownies – eight tablespoons of butter in total or around two tablespoons per brownie.
Chocolate Cake – most of these recipes use oil for the cake rather than butter, but the frosting will have around a total of 32 tablespoons of butter or in one slice around two and a half tablespoons.