My latest demo client is a biodynamic whole milk yogurt brand, so I’ve spent much of the past few weeks trying not to chuck yogurt at fatheads. The BIG trend in yogurt these days is Greek yogurt (or, Greek-style yogurt, considering that several brands are not making yogurt in Greece and are also using thickening agents instead of the traditional Greek yogurt-making process), but most everyone seems to be on a low-fat, nonfat kick, and to them I say: What’s the point???

Milk contains, among other things, Vitamins A and D – fat-soluble vitamins. Since fat-soluble vitamins are better assimilated when eaten with foods that have fat in them, it follows that you need to eat fat-rich foods to get your fat-soluble vitamins.  Cultured milk products are increasingly beneficial, since those little buggers called friendly bacteria eat up the milk sugars and help keep your intestinal flora in check.

But we demonize milk, a whole food – a primary food, at that – because we are afraid of fat.

Fat is taste, so guess what happens when fat is removed from a food?

It has no taste!

And guess what food manufacturers use to add taste to a food?

Sugar.

( I call them food manufacturers, because at this point, anything that has been stripped from its natural form and reconstituted to become something else, is manufactured.)

The body does a very good job of managing your sugar (glucose) levels, usually. But when it gets more sugar than it can handle, it stores the sugar for later use. If it doesn’t get to use those stores right away, (and for most people with sedentary lifestyles, it doesn’t), sugar will be converted to fat.

So, you think you’re making the healthy choice by choosing low-fat or nonfat, and your body turns around and makes the very thing you’re trying to avoid.

How much sense does that make?

When someone tells me, “I can’t have fat” or “I don’t do full fat”, I always ask them the following questions:

Why can’t you/aren’t you eating full fat products?

Do you know how much fat you eat over the course of several days?

Do you know how much fat your body needs to be healthy/keep up with your lifestyle?

Everyone can answer the first one, but no one has ever been able to answer the other two.

Here are the answers I’ve gotten for why someone can’t have/doesn’t eat full-fat products:

• their doctor or nutritionist told them not to for health/weight reasons
• their pediatrician said it wasn’t necessary for children over one year to consume full-fat foods
• they’re trying to lose weight
• they’re think they are already eating too much fat

Almost all of the customers who tell me this are women, and almost all of them fall into the “healthy” weight category, meaning, they don’t appear to be overweight or obese. Yet here they are, telling me they don’t know how much fat they’re eating or how much they need, they just know they shouldn’t eat full fat foods.

If you don’t know how much fat you consume on a daily basis or over several days, then how do you even know that you’re getting enough to begin with? How do you know what too much is?

Fat helps you absorb fat-soluble vitamins (A,D, E, and K). Fat is taste and brings on satiety. When you’re listening to your body, eating consciously, and have good quality fat on your plate, your body will let you know when it’s time to stop eating. Sometimes we ignore this and overeat. But in general, fat helps you put the fork down when your body has had enough.

Fat helps maintain healthy skin and hair, acts as a buffer against disease, helps insulate organs, and can alleviate menstrual discomfort. Fat also helps your blood pressure, bowel movements, and your joints.

Two thirds of your brain is made up of fat, so think about that the next time you experience brain fatigue, depression, other mood disorders, or cognitive decline.

There are several medical conditions where fat may contraindicate with drug treatments, so yeah,  don’t interfere with that.

But you’ve got to think critically about why you’re being told to do the opposite of what doctors and nutritionists know about fat: You need fat to function!

What if, when you went grocery shopping, you chose to buy REAL food, foods in their whole form that nourish you because all of their fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals are intact?

What if, you could enjoy a food or a meal without worrying about how many pounds it will put on or where it end up on your body?

What if, you could have a fat and happy moment every now and again?

What if, you could just learn to love your body the way it is?

Welcome to Woman vs Diet, my new weekly foray into all things food, fat, weight loss, body image, and well-being.

p.s. If you don’t believe anything I wrote here, you can train to become a Health Coach, like I did, take a nutrition class, like I did, read the sections on fat and carbohydrates in a nutrition textbook, like I did, and Google it, like I did. The Truth is out there.