One of my biggest nutrition peeves lately is this Fear of/War against Fat.

Despite the fact that everyone who takes a college-level nutrition course learns what Fat is and the role Fat plays in the body and in food, Fat continues to be demonized as a bad food and underlying contributor to obesity.

But, people are eating less Fat than they have been since the eighties, even though we are also eating more than we used to since that time. What we are consuming more of in an effort to be low-fat or no fat, is carbohydrates and refined sweeteners.

Last week, I met with the Food Service Director of a NY school district in an affluent suburb. This school district is self-funded and serves about 6,000 children. I and others in my group observed that school food options have changed dramatically since we’ve been in school, but I think it was important to remember that we were in an upper middle class school district and they spend about $1.50 more per kid on meals ($2.75 per child) than most school districts, especially mine, in NYC. And breakfast was optional.

Half of my group was made of dairy farmers, and they’re always looking for milk to have a presence in any conversation about food and healthy eating. So I thought I had allies in my issue about the chocolate milk being nonfat. (For some reason, I didn’t bother to look at the plain milk’s Fat content, because the emphasis had been placed on the chocolate milk being nonfat.)

I was the only one who took issue with this no Fat rule. I hate to assume that it may have been because my group was mainly made up of women; you know how most women feel about Fat. Sigh.

My issue with milk being stripped of its qualities for any reason is that it is a whole, living food with tons of nutrients and health-supportive factors that even scientists still don’t fully understand, yet it’s okay to modify it. Whether or not humans should be drinking milk or drinking milk of non-human animals past infancy/toddlerhood is not my issue here. My issue is that milk ceases to become a whole food, and then, well, just what is the point of consuming it in this refined form?

But on to the Fat issue. For those of you who don’t know, Fat plays several important roles in the body: it helps with the absorption of fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, plays defense against disease by storing unwanted substances in fatty tissue until the body can properly eliminate the threat, is instrumental for healthy hair and nails, and maintains body temperature. There are other roles, but you get its importance.

So I’m always confused about the existence of low-fat and nonfat milk, especially low-fat and nonfat milk that has been fortified with fat-soluble vitamins. Okay, fine, maybe milk has more fat than humans need because it’s a food designed to increase a calf’s weight threefold in a short period of time – and that could be a legitimate reason to remove some or all of the Fat content, but then, why drink it at all?  If you need Fat to absorb fat-soluble vitamins and you’re eating something that contains fat-soluble vitamins but is low-fat or no fat, how can your body assimilate the fat-soluble vitamins?

Does your body assimilate the fat-soluble vitamins?

In food, Fat is taste, and Fat is satiety.

What happens when Fat is removed from a food? It doesn’t taste like anything. So food manufacturers, er, recipe developers add taste in the form of sugar. And what happens when you don’t get the feeling of fullness? You eat more. And more, and more, because there is no Fat to send signals to your brain to tell you that you’re full and to stop eating.

And guess what? When you eat foods high in sugar and carbohydrates, the body will store the excess as Fat.  So, you eat a low-fat or non-fat food to avoid fat and it ends up turning into fat anyway. Splendid.

Unfortunately though, your fat-free noshing that resulted in carbs being stored as Fat is not the Fat your body wants so now you have another problem.

This past Sunday I attended a Health Coach conference in NYC, where Dr. Andrew Weil founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, was one of the speakers.

Among other things, he talked about the increase in fatty liver disease in children and young adults. Fatty liver is most often associated with alcoholism, but a metabolic syndrome like hypertension, excessive weight, or diabetes can also cause this reversible condition.

Dr. Weil said we’re turning our liver into Foie Gras (fat made from fattening the livers of ducks) through our poor eating habits, mainly, too much sugar in the way of refined grains and fructose.

Our bodies haven’t yet fully evolved to consume large quantities of fructose, yet we’re still attacking Fat and not looking at other ingredients/foods, like fructose and refined carbohydrates as contributors to obesity and metabolic disorders.

Whether you consume agave, honey, maple syrup, white sugar, or even high fructose corn syrup, it is essentially all the same to your body.

If you don’t believe me, I invite you to challenge yourself to a week without sugar. I don’t believe in dieting, willpower, or deprivation, but I do think people owe it to themselves to check their relationship with food. A week without sugar in the form of sweetened beverages, baked goods, and other refined foods will be scary, crazy, and transformative, but well worth it.

After the week is up, slowly bring back one sweetener at a time, and notice what has changed for you.

You’ll be surprised by the shift.