Lowcarbezine!

Has Atkins Changed?

The New York Times caused quite a flap recently by reporting that Atkins Nutritionals had recently issued guidelines, saying that Atkins dieters should get only 20% of their calories from saturated fats. They made this sound like a big change - as if the Atkins folks were back-pedaling on Dr. Atkins assertion that we could eat meat, eggs, and cheese freely, with no worry about saturated fat.

This, however, is simply not so. The Atkins dietary program remains unchanged. Here's the deal:

The average Atkins dieter will get roughly 60% of his or her calories from fat. But all foods with fat in them contain a combination of kinds of fat - saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. The notion that a steak, for instance, contains only saturated fat is bunk. According to the USDA Nutrient Database, 100 grams of sirloin steak contains 6.14 grams of saturated fat, 6.63 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat. In other words, less than half of the fat in that steak is saturated. Bacon, often seized on by low carb detractors as the ultimate in dietary insanity, also derives over half its fat from monounsaturates - one slice of cooked bacon contains 1.1 grams saturated fat, 1.48 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 0.36 grams polyunsaturated fats.

So less than half of the fat from the meat we eat is saturated. But we don't eat only red meat, do we? 100 grams of roasted chicken, eaten with the yummy, fatty skin, contains 3.79 grams of saturated fat, 5.34 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 2.97 grams of polyunsaturated fat. And 100 grams of farmed salmon contains 2.18 grams of saturated fat, with 3.87 grams of monounsaturates, and 3.93 grams of polyunsaturates.

Butter, too, is a mixture of saturates and unsaturates. One pat of butter contains 2.04 grams of saturated fat, 1.67 grams monounsaturated fat, and 0.143 grams polyunsaturated fat.

But these aren't the only high fat foods that Atkins encouraged, by any means. Olive oil may be used liberally on salads and in sauteing - and of course, olive oil is very high in monounsaturates: One tablespoon contains 9.97 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 1.35 grams of polyunsaturated fat, with just 1.8 grams of saturates. An ounce of pecan halves contains just 1.75 grams of saturated fat, but 11.57 grams of monounsaturates, and 6.13 grams of polyunsaturates.

I trust you get the picture: A person who is eating broadly of the many foods allowed on the Atkins diet, including not just red meat and butter, but poultry, fish, olive oil, nuts and seeds, and the like, will not be getting a preponderance of his or her fat calories in the form of saturated fat. He or she will naturally be getting a balance of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats, plus, of course, protein, and however many grams of carbohydrate they can consume without passing their personal critical carb level. Indeed, it's likely that without even trying, most Atkins dieters get somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of their calories from saturated fat - which is, of course, where the New York Times figure came from.

No change, just a rearranging of old information to make it look new.

Posted by HoldTheToast at February 2, 2004 07:37 PM