Content Note: This article contains discussions of dieting.

Fat, on the whole, was regarded as a rival enemy of a perfectly lean and fit body.

It is only since recently that people have come to accept that certain kinds of fat are actually beneficial: unsaturated fat. Monounsaturated fatty acids help reduce heart disease and lower cholesterol levels, while polyunsaturated fatty acids are essential fats that are used to build cell membranes and the covering of nerves. They are needed for blood clotting, muscle movement, and inflammation.

In recent years, intense fat-restricting diets have been replaced by diets focused on substituting saturated fat with unsaturated fat. Olive oil, nut butter and especially avocados, which currently claims the top spot in American people’s grocery bags. It is undeniable that unsaturated fat and food in which it is contained are highly nutritious and essential for our health. It is also true that we should watch the amount of our daily injection of saturated fat because excessive fat admittedly does great harm to our health since it cumulates around our organs and increase blood pressure.

However, stating that people should largely reduce, or completely cut off, food with high containment of saturated fat is false, because some benefits of saturated fat cannot be replaced by any other source of food.

As a girl who has spent a considerable amount of time struggling to keep fit, I have tried various types of diets, most of which includes cutting off saturated fat. However, I have found out that, although my reducing saturated fat in diets quickly slims me down, it meanwhile causes numerous health problems on my body. I have suffered from low blood pressure, muscle dysfunction and severe constipation. My memorizing abilities fell short and I fainted a lot. All of this problem went away as soon as I restarted having saturated fat back in my diets, while my shape and weight did not alter much.

I was confused at first, but then, as I read numerous articles and watched a bunch of documentaries, I realized that saturated fat is actually not as bad as people once thought it was.

First of all, the huge misunderstanding that saturated fat alone causes heart disease and obesity is misled by unrigorous experiments during early times, while recent research suggest that “there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD (types of cardiovascular and heart diseases)”.

Second of all, notorious for containing a great amount of cholesterol, saturated fat actually does more good than harm to regulating this particular type of molecule in our body. The harm of the so-called “bad” cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL), can be moderated by saturated fat so that it would not do too much harm to humans’ body, while saturated fat also brings into our body the HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol, the “good” cholesterol which reduces the risk of heart disease.

Moreover, compared to unsaturated fat which is vulnerable to heat and produces toxic byproducts in high heat, saturated fat are perfect for high heat cooking.

Most diets that cause obesity and health problems are diets not only fat intense but also sugar intense. Think about all the desserts with half sugar half butter. A BBC documentary states that not only do consumption of such products brings in unnecessarily high calories, their tastes combined are almost as addictive as cocaine. Thus, saturated fat alone is not the cause of all those problems—an unconstrained consumption of sugar and fat combined is.

Saturated fat is not as horrifying as it is proclaimed. Taking in a reasonable amount of fat is, in fact, crucial to human bodies’ regular functioning. So, feel free to eat your meat or coconut—just don’t eat too much.