The medical establishment and the FDA inundate the populace with admonitions about how horrible fat is to eat and that everyone should avoid a fatty diet like the plague.  A fatty diet causes heart disease, diabetes and premature aging.  The establishment tells everyone to eat lean meat although meat is about sixty percent fat.  A proper diet consists of lean meat carbohydrates and vegetables: a square meal deal.  This paper serves to educate the public on the proper consideration and evaluation of fat and its inclusion or omission from a good diet. 

There exist two different types of fat: good fat and bad fat.   Bad fat derives mainly from meat, including chicken which is said to include less fat.  Bad fat is saturated and usually contains upwards from 20 to 24 carbon units in its aliphatic chain.  Bad fat has no double bonds.  Bad fat is broken down into two carbon fragments via acetyl-coenzyme a and enters the mitochondrion for energy production or used to synthesize cholesterol and glucogenic hormones or bile acids. Logically we can assume that a diet high in bad fats will plug the vasculature on its route to storage in fat cells or lead to diabetes by indirect stimulation of cortisol synthesis.  These are the main pathways for saturated fat, others exist.  Living on a diet high in saturated fat ultimately causes premature death.  God intended man to eat meat mainly when the crops failed and/or in winter there was nothing else to eat.  

Enter good fat.  Good fat are hydrocarbon chains usually from 14 to eighteen carbons of length.  These fatty acids usually sport a cis double bond in the three position hence the name 3-omega fatty acids.  The double bond can occur elsewhere in polyunsaturated fats up to eighteen carbon units long as in linoleic acid.  Good fats derive from grain, nuts and vegetables. Good fats have an entirely different metabolic fate but can serve as energy substrate like bad fat. Good fats by way of their double bonds serve as functional groups in arachidonic acid hormone: hormones that govern vasodilation and cellular effector function. Animals fed on a diet deficient in good fat are sterile.   Good fats form brain fat in the form of ceramide and sphingomyelin.  These fatty phospholipids enable brain function and the brain cannot grow or function correctly without them.  We can logically assume that humans that live on a meat diet alone will exhibit hypertension and low intelligence.  The big kicker, the fact that will astound all readers is that the heart mainly relies on small to medium chain fatty acids for 60% of its energy requirements. This fact presents in the tome “Ganong’s Physiology”.  The heart requires fat to live a healthy life and that fat is good fat not bad fat and saturated fat will eventually plug this essential organ that essentially determines the length of our existence here on earth.  

Fatty acid metabolism is a treatise that consumes at least three pages in “Wikipedia”.   This essay serves as a premise and reminder that life is not complex and that eating a lot of good fat in nuts and grains will not harm us, rather it will extend our existence.  Strive to ingest that good fat that is also present in eggs, dairy and fish in excess to the bad fats present in meaty animal products.  I promise the life you lead will respond accordingly.