Malcom Gladwell Now Part of the "Saturated Fat Ain't Bad" Chorus of the Misinformed

For anyone who may come across this by Google or something of the sort, let me tell you why this poster is full of shit.

Saturated fats have been proven to improve cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of CVD. Cholesterol in the body is absolutely essential. It is part of your brain, your nervous system, every single cell in your body, and it is the precursor of nearly every hormone produced by your body.

Cholesterol is shipped around the body using HDL and LDL, high-density lipoprotein and low-density lipoprotein. LDL brings cholesterol from the liver and supplies it to tissues of the body, including the heart. LDL is responsible for depositing cholesterol in your arteries, which can become oxidized and form plaques. HDL on the other hand shuttles cholesterol from your tissues back to your liver. HDL is good, and you want more of it.

The consumption of saturated fats have been shown to INCREASE HDL (good), and LOWER LDL (Bad). LDL comes in two forms. There is a small, compact type that is extremely bad for you and is associated with heart disease, and there is a much larger, fluffier type that is not associated with heart disease. Carbohydrates increase the small, bad type of LDL, while saturated fats cause an increase in the fluffier type that is NOT associated with heart disease.

What does this mean? Stay the fuck away from sugar, and stop being so scared of fats. As much as you like to point to the American Heart Association, they are so deeply entrenched in the pockets of the health-food industry that they're blind to the scientific data. Multiple times they have been shown to support scientific studies based on bad science, including the Lipid Hypothesis, the study which grandfathered the idea of saturated fats being bad.

/r/vegan Thread